The only Franciscan friar I've known at all well personally told me very soon after we first met that he was gay. This was back in the 20th century. The way he said it gave me the impression that he was not at all uncomfortable with his orientation. In fact, he seemed so comfortable with it that I wondered whether he was sexually active. In fact, I have always wondered whether he was coming on to me.
I'm autistic. Because of this, I often have a very difficult time "reading" people. In some cases, I thought someone was sexually attracted to me, but they weren't. In other cases, after having known someone for a while I found out, to my great surprise, not having seen it at all and having assumed the opposite, that they were attracted to me. And then there are many other people in whose cases I haven't been able to tell, such as this young, very intelligent and personable friar.
After a while, it became more difficult for me to see him. He just never seemed to be around when I visited the church, which was very disappointing to me, because I had greatly enjoyed our talks about history, philosophy, the arts and so forth. We both had more than a touch of what I once thought Saul Bellow had called the "Western civilization syndrome," although by now I think Bellow must have worded it differently, or I would have been able to find it via Google. And for decades I've wondered his disappearance had anything to do with sex. Of course, it may be that he really had suddenly become very busy, or that I coincidentally dropped by at the wrong time.
But I've wondered: was he only friendly with me at first because he wanted to have sex with me, and then became unavailable for chats when it became clear that it wasn't going to happen? Or was he chaste in accordance with his vows, and stopped seeing me because he saw me as a temptation, because it wasn't clear to him that nothing was going to happen? Or were sexuality and orientations no part of the reason why he disappeared? Maybe he simply had been wasting too much of his time having long, interesting, Western-Civilization-themed discussions with me, which had been distracting him from an already crowded schedule of duties?
I've known people for decades, men and women, wondering the entire time whether they were uncomfortable with me because of something to do with sexuality, being afraid that there was no way to bring up the topic without making things much worse.
Does this also happen frequently to neurologically-typical people?
Am I correct in thinking that non-verbal communication plays a very frequent role in human sexuality, or is this just one more on the long, long list of things I have wrong?
Another question occurs to me: am I wrong in assuming that neurologically-typical people have an easier time "reading" each other on the subject of sex? But it is very hard for me to really believe that sexuality is as confusing to most people as it is to me. Confusing, often? Probably. But not as confusing, as often, as with me, or, surely, our species would have died out long ago from pure awkwardness.
