Re: Suggestion Regarding the Forum and Problematic Posts
@21, I do get where you're coming from. Recently I had a lady stop me by yelling "Excuse me!" I was on the way to the busstop to get my older two kids. Part of me was like, "Ooooo, Kaaaay! Here goes an embarrasing experience, but lets have at it!" Turns out she wanted to invite my kids to a birthday party for her kid, but being as how I was apparently ignoring her on every occasion she ever tried to speak to me she felt she would be far more direct in her approach this time. In her words, "You never talk to me!" I calmly apologized to her and told her that on top of being blind, I was also moderately hearing impaired, so sort of a double wammy there. ON top of not getting the whole visual cues and eye contact, I also don't always hear when you're trying to address me specifically and may tune you out without meaning to because I'm not expecting a conversation, particularly if I'm on a mission, completing a task of some kind, such as taking out the trash, walking the dog, bringing in groceries and so on.
And it's embarrasing, because I'm the only blind/visually impaired guy I know on a personal level who went to mainstream school and spent most of his life around sighted individuals. While I too am more of an introverted not overlly seeking huge social gatherings, I'm not deliberately going out of my way to ignore people, so it's always relieving in many senses when someone comes up to me and says, "Eh, you're ignoring me, whether you realized it or not!" That being said, I'm not going to pretend I hold a candle to everyone else who didn't attend public school. I'm well aware there are blind people who escaped the stigma of blind schools even though they were educated within their walls, just as well as I know that there are blind people who went to mainstream schools and didn't come out of them any better than socially inept blindies.
And yes, as much as I hate the word, I just used it. That whole idea of birds of a feather flocking together seems to fit really clearly here. People will always work with and talk to those they feel most comfortable around. It's hard to seriously stick blame in this case, because I don't feel like sighted people are all that welcoming toward the blind, anymore than I feel like blind people really want to be open to the advances of the sighted. As long as we keep viewing ourselves this way, that'll always be the issue, because we're split into two camps based on the fact that there is a visual divide that distinguishes us from one another, sighted versus blind, with no way to bridge the divide let alone try and heal the damage and the bleeding caused by such a schism brought on by the differences in how we view the world around us.
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