For a few days now one of the games I downloaded when I was in Poland sends me an unusual notification every evening: ‘Love is everywhere. Just look for it.’ There is a heart symbol at the end.

When I first saw it I thought it’s really strange, why a game would send this type of notification? Especially that it’s nothing to do with romance. But when I saw it on the second day I felt like someone really wants me to have a good day. And mind you, I’m perfectly aware it’s only notification on my mobile, but that’s how it worked. I asked myself how can I look for love and the response was, possibly I should be super sweet to The Boyfriend, as we were just exchanging emails, but it felt like it should apply to my whole life.

I’m now waiting for that notification every day and it seems like it really improves my mood and helps me focus on positives in this difficult time. But if someone told me I need to focus on positives to improve my mood, it wouldn’t work, and possibly it would even make things worse as I’d want to resist.

It is my understanding that we, autistics, respond to notifications, which don’t necessarily have to be on mobile, they may be from the environment. For example when I was in the process of looking for a property to buy the price of the flat where I live now has been reduced so I decided to buy it without much thinking. The price reduction was like a notification. It is difficult for me to decide what is best for me and what the consequences may be so I often make this type of decisions.

It is also my understanding that we respond better to the communication, what I call, ‘from the system perspective’ instead of from people, that’s why this notification puts me in a better mood. It’s really strange, isn’t it?

I really hope this notification won’t get switched off! I don’t know what I would do without it.