Man, I hated not being able to figure someone out. And from the slightly uncertain look he gave me as we all went to class, I suspected he felt the same way.

Why are you asking me? I’m seventeen and don’t know anything about what to do when you’re autistic and gay.

I cursed myself not only for forgetting to turn my phone off but for ever thinking that having a rock music ringtone was cool.

Everyone at Coral Tree Prep was good-looking. Really. Everyone. I didn’t see a single fat or ugly kid all morning. Maybe they just locked them up at registration and didn’t let them out again until graduation.

Sometimes people say that kids with autism aren’t capable of love. That’s ridiculous. My son loves deeply. He’s just doesn’t communicate well.

It’s like people have a place in their brain for normal, and they have a place in their brain for something obviously wrong, but they can’t deal with something just a little bit different. And that makes them uncomfortable. And when people are uncomfortable, they act like jerks.

For a long time our son ws a little boy with autism, which was a certain kind of challenge. Now that he’s a teenager with autism – and a teenager who notices girls – we’re faced with something else altogether.

But I know how this romantic stuff works: one girl’s perfect guy is another girl’s reject. And right now I’m glad of it.

Don’t think that there’s a different, better child ‘hiding’ behind the autism. This is your child. Love the child in front of you. Encourage his strengths, celebrate his quirks, and improve his weaknesses, the way you would with any child.

No one’s family is normal. Normalcy is a lie invented by advertising agencies to make the rest of us feel inferior.