Hey readers,
If I had £1 for every time someone has said, But... aren't autistic people supposed to love LEGO?
I'd probably have enough money to buy one of those ridiculous £700 LEGO Star Wars sets.
I still wouldn't buy it.
For some reason, LEGO has become one of those hobbies people seem to assume every autistic person enjoys.
Right up there with trains, spreadsheets, dinosaurs, and knowing every fact ever discovered about a random species of beetle.
Here's the thing: autism isn't a starter pack.
Some autistic people adore LEGO.
They build cities.
They build castles.
They build entire galaxies.
I feel the urge to throw the instructions out the window.
It always starts with optimism.
How hard can it be? I think.
About fifteen minutes later I'm staring at 438 nearly identical grey bricks wondering why the designers decided there needed to be seventeen different versions of slightly darker grey.
Who looked at that colour chart and thought, Yes, people will definitely tell these apart under normal indoor lighting.
Not me.
Then comes my favourite game: Find the Piece.
The instructions confidently tell me to use a tiny 1x2 plate.
Fantastic.
Where is it?
Apparently it's somewhere in the plastic equivalent of an archaeological dig.
Twenty minutes later, I discover it was underneath another piece that looked exactly the same, except this one had a microscopic bump facing the other direction.
Brilliant.
Then there's the physical experience.
People joke about stepping on LEGO because it's funny.
It's funny until you're the one wandering to the kitchen at two in the morning, standing on one brick, and suddenly discover sounds you didn't know your body could make.
I'm convinced stepping on LEGO briefly disconnects your soul from your body.
And don't even get me started on taking pieces apart.
Some bricks grip each other with the determination of a toddler refusing bedtime.
You're pulling.
Twisting.
Questioning your life choices.
Eventually they come apart so suddenly your hand flies backwards and you nearly punch yourself in the face.
Apparently that's just part of the building experience.
Lovely.
People also tell me LEGO is relaxing.
Relaxing?
At what point?
Is it when I realise I've put one brick on backwards 87 pages ago?
Or when I have to dismantle half the model because Future Me is paying for Past Me's inability to count studs?
Nothing says peaceful evening quite like undoing two hours of work because one tiny blue connector was meant to face east instead of west.
The instructions somehow make this worse.
They're beautifully designed.
They're clear.
They're colourful.
And yet I still manage to convince myself I've skipped a page.
So now I'm flicking backwards every thirty seconds like I'm revising for an exam I didn't know I was taking.
By the time I finish, I don't feel like I've built a model.
I feel like I've completed an engineering qualification.
Then there's the famous creativity argument.
You can build anything!
Can I?
Really?
Because if you handed me a box of random LEGO bricks and said, Build whatever you want, I'd spend forty-five minutes wondering whether to make a spaceship or a toaster before giving up and making an accidental rectangle.
My imagination isn't the problem.
Decision paralysis is.
An empty pile of bricks doesn't whisper endless possibilities.
It whispers, Good luck.
And then laughs.
Storage is another nightmare.
You don't just own LEGO.
LEGO owns a corner of your house.
There are drawers.
Boxes.
Tiny sorting trays.
Little plastic organisers with thirty-six compartments because apparently every variation of transparent blue needs its own apartment.
If you don't organise them, you can't find anything.
If you do organise them, congratulations you've accidentally taken on a part-time job as Warehouse Manager.
Then there are the missing pieces.
Everyone says LEGO never loses pieces.
Interesting theory.
Could someone explain where mine go?
I swear LEGO bricks obey the same laws of physics as TV remotes and odd socks.
You put one down.
You blink.
It's gone.
Three months later you find it in a room where you've never built LEGO in your life.
Scientists should study this.
The biggest surprise, though, is people's reaction when I say I don't like LEGO.
It's as if I've announced I hate oxygen.
But you're autistic!
Yes.
I also don't fit every stereotype you've ever seen on television.
Being autistic doesn't automatically unlock a passion for colourful plastic bricks.
It just means my brain works differently.
Sometimes that means I love things other people find boring.
Sometimes it means I hate things other autistic people adore.
That's normal.
Autistic people aren't clones assembled in the same factory.
If anything, we're proof that one size definitely doesn't fit all.
Now, to be fair, I completely understand why people love LEGO.
The finished models can look incredible.
Some builders create works of art.
Entire cities.
Moving machines.
Massive replicas that leave me wondering whether they secretly have engineering degrees.
I genuinely admire the skill.
From a safe distance.
Preferably without being asked to help.
Because if someone hands me a 5,000-piece set and says, This will be fun, my first instinct is to check whether saying, no thanks still counts as being polite.
Life is too short to spend six hours hunting for Brick Number 482.
I'd rather read, play a game, watch a documentary, or hyperfocus on one of my own interests than spend my evening wondering whether Piece 614 and Piece 615 are actually different or whether LEGO is running a social experiment.
So yes, I hate LEGO.
Not because it's a bad hobby.
Not because people who love it are wrong.
I hate it because it turns me into a frustrated detective searching for tiny plastic rectangles while questioning every decision that led me to opening the box in the first place.
If LEGO makes you happy, that's brilliant.
Build your castles.
Build your dragons.
Build the Millennium Falcon.
I'll cheer you on from the sofa...
where there are absolutely no LEGO bricks waiting to ambush my feet.
If you're aiming for a blog that reads like a stand-up comedy routine, this style leans into exaggeration and self-deprecating humour while making it clear you're talking about your own experience rather than suggesting all autistic people feel the same way.
Cheers for reading X
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