Philial Mathematics, or, the Probabilities of Girlhood
by Anya Price
this piece is part of OPTIMISED LOVE, our first digital collection of works.
Growing up an unknowingly autistic girl, I was silently taught to derive interpersonal certainties. I, social machine, learned to be loved by brute force. Like most others, I am the product of internal calculations, statistics, and probabilities regarding ancient questions: Do they like me? Am I worthy of time, love, energy, thought? My coming of age reveals itself through a series of mathematical vignettes: reflections of my maturation via the Normal Distribution, Markov Chain, and Generative Adversarial Network.
I. The Bell Curve of Adoration and Sincerity
I visualize social interactions as taking the shape of a Normal Distribution: appeal as a function of authenticity. At the beginning of the bell curve is the true, awkward self, oblivious of how one's presence might make others uncomfortable. On the opposite end is an asymptote of insincerity where our image is distorted through vicious gossip and games of telephone. Life is spent climbing to the curve’s peak, balancing vulnerability and mystique. This nuance remains elusive to me, and although I’ve ceased to look for it, there was a time in which finding it felt my reason for being.
I recall conscious attempts to appear effortlessly aligned with the prepubescent standards of my latter elementary years through middle school. I joined the Girl Scouts, graduated from pants to shorts to skirts, and later opted for the drill team in lieu of gym class. Lying by omission, I reminded myself to not dwell on less desirable interests in conversation. I replaced nerdier talking points regarding Zelda and VSauce with more refined cultural dialogues involving American Horror Story and Lana Del Rey. I found some acceptance in peers who were neither popular nor social outcasts, those belonging to a Goldilocks Zone of conformity.
II. The Sublime Markov Chain
There comes an indelible moment in a girl’s life when she becomes suddenly, horrifically aware she is perceived in a way uncontrollable. I remember the first time I was catcalled, walking alongside my mother through an underpass, at age ten. Voices from a passing car jeered, commenting on the previously innocuous tightness of my jeans. From then on I instinctively sought to control my narrative and reclaim power in any way conceivable. I could exude panache by wearing more makeup, cutting off my DIY dip-dye, or tying back my shirt with a hair tie—but I was no longer sure how, or if, I wanted to fit in. I found the more feminine I looked, the more attention I received. I was uncomfortable being confronted over prettiness, something I found so dissociated from my personality.
Probabilities clouded my decision-making. The fears keeping me up at night shifted from whether I was the last awake to whether my humanity existed within others. My dilemma of being loved, becoming the perfect girl, complicated as I grew disgusted with the idea of what that could entail. Worse, I pondered what my friends could be saying about me behind my back, as they too had matured in learning it was passé, too undeniable, to be anything but passive-aggressive to my face.
III. AnyaGAN
The complexities of my socialization are encapsulated by an equally involved Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) trained on the fight between my instincts and the social expectations of my peers. We begin with me, blithe Generator of verbal and non-verbal Samples produced in response to the Random Inputs of others. We have some subset of Real Images, in this case expectations of behavior, simulacra envisioned via the nuclear family, pop culture, school, work. Finally, we have The Discriminator of the peer, frequently the producer of the random input, and/or object of my social desires (the dreaded crush, philia or eros). The discriminator will compare my sample to that of the real image with the goal of correctly labeling either sample as ‘real’ or ‘fake.’ This process produces a
- Generator Loss: a reaction that will be used to correct or reinforce my future behavior in hopes of tricking the discriminator into thinking I’m ‘real’
and a
- Discriminator Loss: the discriminator’s expectation of my future behavior, manifesting in differentiated treatment toward me, whether good or bad
As an early example, examine the elementary school cafeteria, my first day of Kindergarten. Here we have the input of unspoken social intricacies involving lunchtime seating: the discriminator, my new classmates. Upon taking my seat, the girl to my right graciously promised me M&Ms the following day should I stop sitting by her. I agreed and, upon arriving home from school, retorted the anecdote to my mother with claims of friendship.
Although the generator loss provided here was non-negligible, the issue with being autistic is, compared to the GAN of a neurotypical, discriminator losses are often higher, and generator losses, lower. I did not end up leaving the girl alone, although I can’t say she aided in it. I was taunted for the rest of the year, with my understanding that their attention was of disdain not dawning on me until adolescence.
…
As much as I want to believe I don’t need love or validation outside of my inner circle, survival in the modern world demands some amount of the optimized self. I cannot, for example, shout at someone in a moment of overstimulation as I may have when I was younger. Despite this, I’ve spent the years since primary school in search of the unsimulated self, rejecting neurotypical conditioning and moving further from expectation. Entering the labyrinth and untaming my being, the beast in the center. Embracing my unpredictable tenderness—something warm, real, blissful.
𝓪𝓷𝔂𝓪 𝓹𝓻𝓲𝓬𝓮
anya price is a multimedia artist and writer based in dallas, texas. operating across digital and physical landscapes, her work explores permanence, liminality, and identity in an increasingly surveilled world.