‘We’re doing it for Rocco’: Adelaide coward punch victim inspires neurodiverse dating service
Coward punch victim Rocco Brasile is looking for love but admits there’s one major challenge that stops him striking up a relationship.
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Music-loving Rocco Brasile has his heart set on a “nice, kind” girlfriend to share his passion for live bands and movies.
“I’m looking for someone compatible, interested in movies, going out, seeing bands,” he says.
But neurodiverse Brasile, 49, struggles with the social skills and cues needed to strike up a new relationship.
He’s living with the cognitive challenges of an acquired brain injury, which he suffered in a horrifying assault 30 years ago. On a night out at the old Heaven nightclub on West Tce, the then-19-year-old was fresh out of high school at Christian Brothers College when he was blindsided by a coward punch. He woke up in hospital with no memory of the shocking attack and had to relearn basic skills like walking and talking.
“I ended up getting all smashed up … I don’t know why it happened,” says Brasile, who has wrestled with depression and anxiety ever since.
“Things changed a lot after the accident, heaps, too much. I was in hospital for quite a long time but when I got out of hospital, my condition got worse. It makes it hard now to find somebody. I’d like to learn confidence, how to talk to someone, don’t talk negative thoughts and be nice, don’t be full-on or intense. That’s the sort of things I want to learn.”
Brasile’s heart-filled quest for love has become the “instigator” for a new course for neurodivergent people that will teach them the skills they will need in their search for love – and hopefully even help them find a new partner.
The Steps to Connect program has been set up by his friend of five years, relationships coach Bindy Taylor, and her colleague, speech pathologist Dana Baltutis.
“He’s always talking to me about how he wants a girlfriend,” says Taylor, who has an
18-year-old neurodivergent daughter.
“The inspiration for the course was a real combo of wanting to help Rocco and my daughter and from speaking to a lot of parents who are really concerned about their kids – that they’re not getting that social connection.
“I’ve worked with a lot of parents and a lot of their pain points are their children getting older, teenage and adult years, and there not being services around to help them navigate the dating years. Everyone needs connection.”
Baltutis and Taylor share a passion for helping neurodiverse people reach their life goals. Their six-week Steps to Connect course, which kicks off in February, will host online and in-person classes for neurodiverse people, including those who have acquired brain injuries or are on the autism spectrum.
It will cover the topics of “friends first” and “more than friends”, which will focus on developing more intimate connections.
Baltutis, who established the disability support and service organisation My Therapy House in Mitchell Park and hosts her own podcast, The Empowered Parent, says the end goal is to “help make their lives better”.
“Our hope is that we can help people find someone for themselves,” she says. “We want to bring friendships into their lives, communication, community, belonging. So many people with disabilities, they’re very isolated. There’s just loneliness and things like helplessness. A lot of people that are neurodivergent have anxiety. We’re looking at people who have difficulty in relating, difficulty communicating, finding friends, not knowing what to do on dates. These people are not necessarily labelled but they’re out there.”
Baltutis says she can relate to the struggle to find someone special. She was in her mid-40s when she finally found love with her husband of 10 years. They met through an old-fashioned dating agency in the city. After a string of disappointing dates, she had almost given up on meeting her person. But then she was offered one more date with a tango-dancing accountant.
“Our lives were really parallel and here we are 10 years later, so happy,” she says. Now she wants to help others write their own love stories.
“I basically felt that navigating relationships was quite difficult,” she says. “I would have loved to have had someone in my life who helped me with that. I’m a very sensitive person and I understand anxiety from lived experience.”
For Rocco, the new dating course – which culminates in a night of “mock” dating at the Mitchell Park Sports and Community Centre, where the participants get to test out their new-found skills and possibly meet someone special – is an opportunity to meet his “right person”.
“I’m going to meet that girl, I’ve got to be ready for it,” he says.
“If I keep being positive, I will find someone. There’s someone out there for me, this is the time. I’ll have to be honest with her, positive about her, don’t talk about the past. I’ll find somebody and I’ll make sure it lasts.” ■
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