The Art of Imitation.

When you start to read about Asperger Syndrome in females, a lot of things can begin to ring bells.

For me, there is one that really resounded with me. That was about little girls watching a particular girl and then imitating and taking on her personality.

I know I did this a lot. I also became obsessed with their stationery of all things!

Actually the first obsession I had was about a biro that a Nun who taught me used. I can see it now. It was maroon in colour and was rounded where the biro nib wrote and it tapered into a long thin shape.

How I used to dream about and covet that biro!

The girl that really stood out for me though was when we went on a seaside holiday. It must have been on a caravan park or something but in the evenings they would hold a dance and the adults would be drinking at the bar.

The kids would be out on the dance floor doing their thing. The girl must have been about 10 years old and I think older than I would have been. She had on a shift dress (this was back in the sixties!) and it was sleeveless with a roll neck kind of collar. It was satin and was patterned. Maybe gold and black.

I became entranced by this girl. She seemed to be everything I was not. Taller and slimmer, whereas I felt dumpy and short.  I stood and watched her and felt that if I was like this girl then people would like me and my Mum would really love me.

In my imagination I became her for the rest of the holiday.

It happened a lot throughout my childhood years. I might take on the personality of someone from an annual. There was one in particular. A girl called Rusty! She was a tomboy and I can still see the clothes she wore. They were boyish. Checked shirts and pedal pusher type jeans.

So I was Rusty for a while and would draw freckles on my face to look more like her.

There were many girls throughout the years who I admired, wanted to be and liked their things.

At my senior school in the first year there was a girl who had these rubbers that fitted on the top of her pencil. They filled my head and dreams. If only I could have them. I was delighted some time later when I found them in a stationery shop. It had never occurred to me that they were a fairly common thing. They seemed magical to me, and something that only that girl could have.

This all sounds a bit mad but it is true! I think lots of girls are like this but I am not sure that they take on other personalities.

It could also get me in trouble too. I might repeat something that I had heard in a film or read in a book and out of context it was not as charming or clever coming from me.

I liked the idea of girls who could manipulate people and get what they wanted. I wanted to be like that, but it never worked. I just got told off. In the films or books, these little girls would be very pretty and could bend people to their will. Of course it did not work in real life but I never really learned! I just kept right on imitating.

I don't imitate anymore. I do still look at people and wish I was them though.