An autistic man has lost an entire day of his one wild and precious life attempting to pronounce an Italian word with way too many variables, it has been confirmed.

Dexter Livingstone, 37, accepted a dinner invitation with school friend Niamh Callaghan, 38, but was struck with anxiety when Callaghan chose an Italian restaurant with 4.6 star rating, three £ symbols and a menu full of fancy foods he didn’t have a chance eating, let alone saying out loud with his face.

Livingstone explained: “Naturally, I researched every item on the menu to ensure I could order without having to ask ‘And does that have mushrooms in it?’ so I could briefly come across as a completely normal adult.”

“I did a pretty good ‘tagliatelle’ and ‘penne arrabbiata’ but what the fuck am I meant to do with ‘gnocchi’??” Livingstone continued. “Obviously there was no chance of me ordering it, it’s a textural black hole, but Niamh’s neurotypicality meant there was a high risk of her asking ‘What looks good to you?’ before discussing the entire menu in a pointless social ritual designed to embarrass me, personally.”

“I started my gnocchi odyssey by researching how hard to hit the silent g: perhaps a selectively mute g or give the listener a soupçon of g?”

According to confused housemates, Livingstone then spent 45 minutes repeating “soupçon” to himself before forcibly shifting his attention back to a word he did not want to be researching, despite having chosen to do it.

After watching several hours of YouTube videos featuring regional Italian accents, he reportedly discovered that it’s not oc-chi, it’s o-cchi, which led to 90 minutes of Romance language suffixes, and then a deep dive into how the Roman Empire introduced the broad category of ‘Italian dumpling dish’ across Europe, but it wasn’t until the 19th century that potato was considered as a recipe option in said Italian dumplings, at which point it was time to leave.

“I think I just won’t say the word at all,” Livingstone added. “I’ll just leave the talking to Niamh. Neev? Niay-mee? Niam-ah-ha? You know what, fuck it – I’m just going to cancel, stay in and watch stand-up comedy special Stuart Laws Three-Way on YouTube.”

Stuart Laws Three-Way is a new half-hour stand up comedy special by acclaimed and autistic comedian Stuart Laws (BBC, Off Menu, It’s A Superpower??). It’s a chaotic, freewheeling and hilarious special that features a hatred for small talk, inanimate objects getting anthropomorphised and a realisation about clothing labels.

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