I’m autistic – and I couldn’t be happier than when I’m lost in a huge crowd

LLike many autistic people, I often feel uncomfortable around others. Put me in a one-on-one and I freeze. In a group of people around a table I say nothing – and leave as quickly as possible. But give me a huge, swelling crowd and I couldn’t be happier.

It confuses people who assume I hate crowds and am agoraphobic; more people means more pain. But it couldn’t be further from the truth. I have been going to Manchester City matches for over twenty years. And nowhere am I happier than on the other side, right at the front, locked in a crowd of people, singing, singing the songs, screaming my head off.

Last year I went to Glastonbury for the first time. My family was a little afraid of me. Could I handle it among the 200,000 strong crowd? Handle? I was in heaven. On the final day I couldn’t bear to leave the Pyramid stage as I sang my way through the Bristol Reggae Orchestra Windrush Choir, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, The Chicks, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Blondie, Lil Nas X and Elton John. I wouldn’t move for food, drinks or the toilet. I wouldn’t let my father do that either. He wasn’t exactly happy about it; he eventually pees himself, but that’s another story.

So why do I like crowds? Simple. I lose myself in them. My form of autism is called pathological demand avoidance syndrome, and one of the biggest symptoms is self-consciousness. But in a crowd, all that disappears. I am part of the vast collective and am unaware.

There is no way I would sing in a small group, but in a huge crowd of people no one cares if I sing out of tune or use the words wrong. No one cares what I say, no one can see me. Much of the rest of the time I feel different – ​​isolated, unwanted and painfully self-conscious. But in a crowd I lose all my inhibitions and feel like I fit in easily with the human race. I feel like I belong. And it’s bloody brilliant.