I think that I might disagree with you about how much bullying Chris experienced. Knowing my own experiences with being bullied, Kids would've singled Chris out specifically because he's autistic and he isn't really one to fight back. When Chris isn't raging at someone, generally he seems to be very soft spoken and naive, but also very paranoid. I am autistic myself and some of my peers singled me out for many of the same reasons.
This.
While I don't know if Chris experienced as much bullshit as I had, I wouldn't be surprised if Chris was bullied far more than he's been letting on. Remember when we got the email from one of his old classmates only a few months ago? I think we've learned from the trolling that Chris was too easy a target because of the affore mentioned reasons...that and also because he frequently acts like an asshole. If Chris was an easy target online, then I bet he was one in real life as well. It just makes sense to me
I wouldn't be surprised if Chris has depression, some form of social anxiety, or both. Again, knowing my own experiences, couple those with the trolling, the bullying, and the autism, all those factors likely exacerbate his stress. I know sometimes it's easier to write off Chris's stress because most of us don't have very high expectations of him, but just hear me out. Chris probably takes all these bad experiences to heart, and while when he says things like "you've shattered my heart" or "you broke up the best relationship I ever had in this pitiful adult life" he may just be doing it to be dramatic. But even then, remember Chris picks up most of what he knows from television and video games, so he probably expresses things the way he does because it's the only way he knows how. Borb didn't really offer much of an independent perspective, Chris's autism impaired his social interactions, and when Chris saw what he perceived to be "normal" behavior on TV and in video games, he took it and rolled with it. I know that I have gone off on a tangent here, but do you kind of see where I'm going with this?
Eh, I guess it's more not that people wouldn't have bullied him, because they did (a little), but it's that if they had, we would know about it. And I didn't say he's not a target, but there's more distinctive targets than him. Bullies would need to be pretty hard up on people to be dicks to, to fuck with Chris,
and just coincidentally that that would be the one hardship in Chris' life that he didn't bitch about constantly.
He bitches more about the slow-in-the-mind kid who smacked him in the back of the head than bullies. He does bitch about bullies throwing pennies at him. And it's not just physical things he complains about, he complains about emotional taunting too. He complained Bob calling him a fag, for example.
Chris probably does have depression and social anxiety. And when Chris gets all dramatic, he's not doing it just to be dramatic. It's because he does, genuinely, feel such emotional pain and he gets dramatic because he does feel his pain warrants such drama. It's not one or the other, it's
both.
The purpose of childhood (in my mind, anyway) is to slowly introduce little pieces of adult stress into the child's life, so that if they get dumped into the ocean of life, they're not completely lost. It's what it means to "grow up." Borb fucked this up. They made Chris into... y'know, Chris.
Autism did affect his social interactions, but I feel like it was far from a major cause. I think it's more that Chris was just permitted to take the easy way out. Personally, it seems to me that he experienced a little bullying
once and immediately ran crying to Borb. Hell, maybe not even bullying, maybe just the joking around teenaged boys do with each other. Just being a little rough. And Borb got him the galpals, so he'd never have to experience discomfort ever again.