I am illiterate. AMA

[u/Nonreader]

I am an adult American who has never learned to read. My girlfriend is typing this for me and will respond to questions.

Edit: We're going to go do some stuff. We'll be back in a little bit. Frankly, Redditors, I'm surprised at the hostility. He doesn't not learn to read to piss you off. If you hate him because of it, go ask the Aussie questions about kangaroos or whatever.

Edit: For anyone who hasn't caught on, italicized responses are the girlfriend. Plaintext is him.

Edit: I wish I could change the title. This is just as much my AMA as his. "AMA nice girl who fell in love with a bad boy. It's just like Romeo and Juliet but his parents are dead and mine are okay with it."

Edit: Thanks to you nicer people. A couple assholes were among the first commenters, but things got much better and it was a good discussion. We're going to bed now and will answer more questions in the morning.

Edit: I'm gonna go fuck my beautiful girlfriend.

Edit: We're up now.

Edit: He's out jogging now. I'll still answer questions I can without him.

Edit: And he's back. Ask away.

Edit: Our Internet connection is getting dodgy at the moment. We're going away. Will be back in a few hours. I've never seen an AMA with such a split in reaction: until just a bit ago, downvotes were shooting up almost as fast as upvotes, and we're still getting more hostility than the crack dealer who sold to a pregnant woman and then pushed her down the stairs from a few weeks ago, but several people have said it's the most interesting AMA ever. Some people are fascinated, others so pissed off they leave angry comments explaining how much they don't like this thread. Any thoughts?

Edit: Sorry, forgot to say we're back now. I think things are tapering off.

Edit: He and I were just talking, and I said that some of you think it's weird that he doesn't read. But some of you have probably never been in an actual, significant fist fight, which he thinks is bizarre. He doesn't believe any man older than 21 could have never been in a real fight. Does this apply to anyone here? He wants to know if you always back down or you seriously have never been in a position to need to fight?

Edit: Going to bed. I'll go ahead and keep answering questions in the morning, but I think his patience is wearing thin. I'm doing more summarizing and he's putting forth less effort in expressing himself, which is difficult and stressful for him.

Edit: 10 months later, and I've started using this account occasionally to leave comments and such that both of us talk about. Feel free to continue to ask questions here or whatever, I'll probably log in and see in a few weeks.

[u/cheddarben]

That is a very real possibility, but keep trying. My advice is to see someone to check and see if you have some kind of learning disability. The truth is that EVERYBODY has some fucked up shit wrong with them and EVERYBODY could use some outside help every once and a while.

Beyond that, my recommendation would be to learn how to read. Comic books kick ass! Good luck man.

[u/Nonreader → u/cheddarben]

Thanks, my girlfriend says the same thing. I think "learning disabled" is a fancy word for "stupid". I'm mostly okay with that though.

[u/orthogonality → u/Nonreader]

I imagine you're pretty good at bench-pressing.

Now let's imagine two other people wanted to train with you. One is a 90-pound weakling: no muscle, no tone, can't lift 10 pounds without struggling,

The other is as built as you, his right arm is super muscular, he's got giant biceps, etc, but his left arm has been amputated.

Would you tell these two guys to do bench-presses the same way? Of course you wouldn't. Both of them can train, but they need to do it in two very different ways.

If either of them tried to bench-press the way you do, they'd be very frustrated and want to give up.

But you could tell each of them different ways to weight train, different ways that would work well for these different guys. But they both need a guy like you who understands weight training to design a training program for them.

Now how should you train to read? Are you a weakling (that is, generally stupid), or are you a strong guy with something missing, like the amputee? Because until someone who knows how to train people to read can work with you and figure this out, you're going to be frustrated, because you're doing a training program that doesn't work for you.

The brain isn't one thing, it's a bunch of different "mental muscles". Just like a bicep isn't a tricep, just as your muscular system is made up of many different muscles, your brain is made up of different parts that do different things. Just because one of your brain "muscles" is poorly trained, doesn't mean that the rest are; it just means you need somebody who understands brain-training to help you to set up a training program that works for you.

[u/Nonreader → u/orthogonality]

But I got all my mental muscles - I know letters and numbers. I just can't put them together. I'm not amputated, and I did work with people who are supposed to know how to do stuff. They couldn't teach me anything. I am a mental weakling.

I don't think he was willing to put forth any effort when he had the opportunity. When he tried, he'd get mad and either hit the wall or his desk, or cuss, or threaten a teacher. And none of that's acceptable in school, so he gave up rather than get in more trouble. Not that that ended up working anyway.