It’s precisely because most of the time “no thanks” does work that we’re even having this conversation. Most people intuitively understand the line between nice and pushy and respect that line; it’s the occasional few that suck at doing this and need to be reeled in.
The refusal dance usually goes like this.
“Can I open the door for you/offer you a cookie/take you out to dinner?”
“Nah I’m good but thanks.”
“You sure?”
“Yup, but much appreciated anyways.”
The above is what happens 99% of the time to most people, and there are no hard feelings on either side. In my experience, its only that 1% of the time when insistence goes beyoud “you sure?”. I can believe that for your average physically handicapped person, that percentage is much higher than 1%.
Not really. It still comes to down to listening, respecting another person’s boundaries, and not expecting them to validate one’s need to feel like a good likeable person.
Telling them to fuck off would work too but we can both agree that’s taking things too far. So maybe the pragmatic approach isn’t the best prism to see this through.
If you really think saying “no I’m good, but thanks” is less adequate than “no I’m good, but I sincerely appreciate your kind offer” then we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I understand and concur that people want to have their gestures of kindness honored and validated and will respond favorably to that. I just think we need to get away from the idea that if someone fails to say the magic words that satisfy our needy emotional needs, then we have an excuse to push and push until we are validated.
Since none of her other behaviors suggest she doesn’t like me or that she’s got some vendatta against me, I don’t think it is likely she’s doing it to piss me off. I do suspect she’s"not quite right" in the head.
It may be a big deal to Ambi. Everyone has their personal pet peeves that they need to work through. But the tongue-lashing he delivered is NOT a big deal. Ambi losing his patience with a person (or even two people) isn’t going to make society a less compassionate place. It isn’t going to push anyone towards"callous indifference". That’s melodramatic nonsense.
I think this is the key sticking point. It’s certainly not ambi’s responsibility to educate people about how to interact with disabled people. I don’t think anyone is saying “hey, dumbass, you are a bad person”. But he did come in to to this thread specifically to discuss the event, so we’re discussing it.
I think k9bfriender made an outstanding point (in fact his whole post was outstanding), which is that “I appreciate your offer to help me but I genuinely don’t need your help and in fact it would make things worse for me” is a tricky message to convey. Because, as he points out, “no thank you” seems like it would literally be the right thing to say, but it also sounds exactly like a polite-but-not-sincere demurral.
As for the question of intent, well, I just flat out disagree that intent is irrelevant… for two reasons:
(1) Someone with good intent at least has the potential to learn and change. Ambi flat out seems to think that people never learn, and hey, I haven’t lived his life, but how often has he had the same interaction over and over with a person, and actually patiently explained to that person what the deal is, and the person still just kept doing the bad thing? I can believe that happens, but my guess is that he’s conflating “individual people never change no matter how patiently I explain things to them” with “I have similar interactions over and over again with lots of different people”.
(2) Ethically, they matter… and we recognize that difference, in contexts as varied as the court system, and kindergarten playgrounds, and World Cup games. I’m not saying it would be reasonable for ambi to adopt a saintly attitude of “well, this guy just fucked me over royally, but his intentions are pure, so I will just smile at him”. But to pretend that intentions are totally irrelevant is just bizarre.
Yeah, but him yelling “fuck you you fucking ableist asshole go to hell and eat shit” also wouldn’t “make society a less compassionate place” on some grand scale. That’s a spurious standard. But many people in this thread (including me) have expressed the opinion that it might make this one individual guy less likely to help people in the future.
Or it might not. It’s just a guess. We’ll never know for sure. But I certainly don’t think it’s crazy to think that might happen.
So we (wheelchair users) should all silently endure this treatment, which occurs on a regular basis, because of the off chance that the person might actually end up legitimately helping someone one day? Why can’t this person be shown the proper way in which to show this heartfelt empathy? If it’s heartfelt, why would it disappear for such petty reasons? If helping was indeed his primary goal, why wouldn’t he listen to a potential recipient trying to show him a better way? If he were told that his help wasn’t actually helping, and helping was his honest intent, they I don’t understand why he would be impervious to change.
If someone told you what Ambivalid told that guy, would it make you less likely to show kindness–any kindness–towards another person?
Or would it just make you less likely to fly across a parking lot to play Mr. Hero when it is clear the person doesn’t want that?
I mean, yes, the guy’s heart might turn to stone because of what Ambivalid did. But this same thing could happen to anyone who is told to pump their brakes–in situations where feelings shouldn’t be spared. I don’t think worrying about people turning callous is a realistic fear, nor is it something that Ambivalid should feel extra obligated to worry about.
However, I do agree that he should formulate a better script to use in the future. Personally, I’m a fan of, “Bro, I said ‘no thanks’ so that I didn’t have to deal with you standing in my way like this. Please listen the next time.”
If it did, I think it actually confirms that Ambivalid was right about him helping for self-serving reasons. People who are helpful to others because they actually care don’t suddenly stop being this way because of a few stern words from one person. That’s the type of behavior you’d expect from someone who thinks of it all as just a performance to impress others. The instant they come across someone who is not impressed, bye bye goes their motivation.
Never attribute to malice that which can be accounted for by stupidity.
My guess is that the CMF is socially clueless. Yes, it’s dumb, but I’ve seen dumber. She might also be driven by loneliness and a need for approval, which she tries to “buy” with her unwanted gifts.
Just for shits and giggles, since this thread has run, what 7 pages now, I’ll share the worst incident I’ve ever had regarding unsolicited “help”. This one involved me getting my wheelchair back into my car.
The scene was a gas station parking lot. I had stopped there for non gas related purchases, so I parked in the parking spots on the side of the building. As I returned, I began the quick process of getting myself and my chair back into my car. As I passed the pumps on the way to my car I saw a car full of guys in a junker car, with the two guys in the front seat staring at me. This was 5 years ago, so I was 33 at the time. I’d put the approximate ages of these guys in the late 30s.
Anyway, I jumped in the drivers seat of my car, folded my chair up and opened the suicide door, preparing to pull the chair into the back. Well as I was concentrating on what I was doing, my eyes were focused on my chair and I didn’t see one of the guys in the junker car get out and approach my car. He didn’t say a word as he came up to me.
I didn’t know he was there until he leaned into my car and grabbed my chair which was already 3/4 of the way inside, proclaiming, “I gotcha man!” All I knew was that suddenly, someone was inside my car and putting their hands on my chair. It alarmed me to a great degree. “Get the fuck away!” “Get your hands off!” was my immediate response, as I pulled the chair fully into the back seat and away from his clutches. His reply was unforgettable…
“Man, fuck you! I’ll kick your fucking ass!” “I was just trying to help!” :eek::eek:
In my state of shock and anger I just told him, “You don’t just put your hands on other people’s shit like that! You were in my fucking car!” I was admittedly fucking mad.
Now that it’s been years since, I look back at that with humor. He takes it upon himself to just violate all sorts of social norms by actually leaning into my car and grabbing my personal belongings, without even saying a fucking word. One second he is just trying to help the disabled guy, the next second he is threatening physical assault on the disabled guy. Priceless. Now should I have let that happen because his intentions were good? Should I have said nothing because he may have been deterred from “helping” someone in the future otherwise?
On second thought maybe further consideration should be given to the punching the guy in the nuts approach?
If someone entered my vehicle, even if only partially, without asking my consent I would tend to think it was a carjacking in progress. That such person might be trying to help would not enter into my mind.
It really is simple. Asking if you can help is ok. It might be tedious to be asked this all the time if you are disabled, but societal norms indicate that asking is ok.
But refusing to take “no” for an answer is unacceptable. It is rude and demeaning to the disabled individual and shows a disrespect for their personal autonomy.
And putting your hands on me because you think you are helping despite me clearly declining the offer of help is not ok. It’s assault.
He fucked up in sneaking up on you, and you missed another teaching opportunity for another idiot who fucked up. On the one hand, I can’t fault your response, because you were invaded. But why so alarmed? Because of your inescapable helplessness that you work so hard to shed? Well don’t worry, it’s not just you, it’s all of us. We’re all at each other’s mercy, like I said. Nobody, in a chair or on two legs, can outrun a bullet for example, or a drunk driver, or some nasty words, or a bomb. I have the luxury of a certain perspective on this because I physically put myself in the hands of others every day in a tangible way, yet it’s a) voluntary, and b) non-permanent. What I realize though, is that everybody does this, they just do it in a more inadvertent and forgettable way. We’re all inter-dependent. Nobody is independent. You might die. Fuck it!
Not at all.
(a) There’s a fine line between “should” and “has a responsibility to” and “here is some feedback”, and I hope I haven’t come off as trying to tell you how you should live your life, or presuming to give you advice, although obviously it’s easy to end up in that neighborhood, given the type of thread this is
(b) More importantly though, to the extent that I am suggesting anything, it’s not that you “should” have been silent and just smiled, it’s that you “should” have chosen your words (and your tone, to the extent that we can infer your tone from your description of what happened) slightly differently. There’s a big difference between " Im going to go thru this door but i want to be clear, you did not do this for me. You did not do this to make my day any easier. You did this for yourself, to make yourself feel better, at my expense. So lets just be clear whats happening here." vs “I honestly appreciate the offer, it’s very thoughtful, but in this case it’s actually much easier for me to do this by myself. Seriously, thanks for the offer, but please respect my wishes”. More hassle for you, lengthier, might have to be said through gritted teeth, but more likely (imho) to end up with him feeling appreciated-but-chastened as opposed to feeling attacked.
I disagree. Humans are complicated. There’s not some dividing line where on one side are perfect selfless saints and on the other side are posers-who-are-just-doing-it-for-self-image or something. And it’s not some “he will NEVER BE NICE TO ANYONE AGAIN” thing, it’s just that, from his experience, he was trying to do what felt like a genuinely nice thing, and got unpleasantly snapped at, and reacting to that and changing his behavior going forward, even ever so slightly, is how humans work.
Now, it’s certainly possible I’m wrong. Maybe he will take exactly the “right” lesson from this, and he’ll be just as generous and helpful in the future, but will always remember Ambi’s words, and be vastly more respectful of others. Or maybe he won’t be helpful again. Or maybe he will try to be helpful but totally miss the social cues for the situations where “no thanks” actually means “oh, yes, I would like your help, but it’s polite to decline it on the first request”. Or none of the above. None of us know for sure.
Did you answer monstro’s question about what your future likelihood of helping someone is if you were ever accused of overstepping bounds one time, by one person?
Yes, humans are complicated. But I truly can’t imagine coming away from a minor encounter with a stranger thinking I’m never going to offer to help anyone ever again. This idea is just as foreign to me as saying I’m never going to be honest with anyone ever again just because one day my frank response to the question “does this make me look fat” ended up offended someone. If you ever see me saying anything like this on this board, you have full permission to brutally slap some sense into me, not indulge this immaturity with assurances that this reaction is normal and reasonable. Because it really isn’t.
Why the hell is Ambivalid (or any other wheelchair user, or person with some other disability) obligated to provide “teaching moments”? WTF?
So, in addition to whatever occupation a disabled person has, plus dealing with whatever inherent annoyances come with their disability, you are now requiring them to be a teacher as well?
No, people with disabilities are not obligated to “teach” others. Unless they are paid to be a teacher. Otherwise, they should be able to get on with their lives like everyone else.
God god, his legs don’t work but that doesn’t mean he’s “helpless” - the rest of his body works just fine! Plus, given his workout routine, I wouldn’t be surprised if, in a physical fight, Ambivalid couldn’t [del]kick[/del] pound the ass of Average Able-Bodied Guy.
Back when my spouse was a young man in his late teens/early 20’s he couldn’t run away from a fight, but the local thugs left him alone because they discovered if they got within arm’s reach the guy with the funny limp would beat the living shit out of them if they tried to start something with him. When he was older a would-be mugger up on Howard and Western in Chicago discovered the same thing - the guy unsteady on his feet and walking slow wasn’t “helpless” at all. He couldn’t run, but he certainly could take care of himself.
Frankly, what the guy at the gas station did was borderline assault in my view - sneaking up on someone/touching their stuff/being in their car is threatening. The party in the car can’t know the other person’s intentions, whether this is someone “helping” or a prelude to a robbery/carjacking. Because “helping” IS one of the ways bad guys get close enough to a person to mug them or otherwise harm them. The fact that Able Bodied Guy at the Gas Station though it was okay to violate someone else’s personal space like that just because he was disabled, and that you seem to think it’s OK, too, just shows that both of you do NOT view someone with a disability like everyone else. The fact ABGatGS reacted so negatively shows that he was NOT doing it solely out of the goodness of his heart but more likely to look good in front of his buddies. He was using Ambivalid to score social points.
I heartily empathize with Ambivalid’s feelings about over-the-top “helpers” who are so intent on Doing Good Deeds that they can’t see how offensive their behavior is.
Reading the OP I got a flashback to a scene in “Strangers On A Train” where the psychopathic killer (just after leaving an amusement park where he’s committed a murder) takes a blind man by the arm to help him cross a busy street. The old guy is appreciative, but I suppose it would’ve added a touch of interest if he instead had bawled out the killer for startling him, and whacked him in the balls with his cane.
It’s flattering of you to attribute to me the omnipotence to “obligate” and"require" things of others, but it’s just not so. You completely missed my point too.
This is not my intent at all. Ambivalid expressed a concern about the way that people are interacting with him. I agreed with him on his reaction, though I don’t know that he lost his temper, and do not fault him one bit his scathing words to the “helper”. I don’t think that they were the words that the guy wanted to hear, but that guy’s feelings are not our concern here.
However, it is not the reaction to the guy’s help that I have any advice on, it is how to avoid that situation in the future.
It is possible that this guy will learn, and the next time he sees someone who he thinks needs help, will offer to do so, and respect any decision on the part of the helpee. That is the best case scenario, and in that scenario, exactly one person has been changed to no longer cuase Ambivalid these sorts of frustrations. Worst case (realistic) scenario is that he no longer offers to help people who he perceives as needing help. This also removes this one person from adding to the frustrations. Either way it only effects one person.
I certainly would never say anything like that. The only thing I said is that those 5 words seem to make a huge difference. I may be wrong on the why, it was speculation on the psychology of people, but it does. It gets people to stop offering things that you don’t want.
Dr. Who says that there are 12 words that will make someone fall in love with you, these are 5 words that will make them leave you alone.
I discovered this entirely by accident. I always had people offering me shit that I didn’t want. I have calendars and books, and even a lord of the rings trivial pursuit game that people have insisted on giving me (not due to birthday or Christmas even), that I was resentful every time I saw taking up space in my house. People offer me food when I’m full (and fat), people offer me coke when I’m trying to go to bed soon, they offer me cigarettes when I’m trying to quit. And they don’t take “no” for an answer.
Until one day, I said, “but I do appreciate the offer.” and that was the end of it. They stopped insisting. Then I used it on someone else, and they said, “Okay, just let me know if you change your mind.”
Not always always, and I’ve done some variations, but those 5 words have changed my life.
Use that on your cookie monster, and I give good odds that she’ll back off. “Let me know if you need anything/change you mind.” is the most common response, and that is a good response. That way, if by some chance you are at work, and you find your blood sugar being low, you can say, “Hey, cookie monster (maybe use her real name), can I take you up on that offer of a cookie?” and she will be happy, you will have a cookie, and unicorns will fart rose smelling double rainbows.
And based on my interactions with you here on this board, I would absolutely agree.
And she is, IMHO, desperately trying to show a way of reciprocating. You are helpful to her, she wants to be helpful to you. She just doesn’t know how, and continues trying in the same wrong way, even though it has failed.
Nah, in fact, I almost posted last time that it would have been fair to run over the guy’s toes, and say, “See, this is why I asked you not to hold the door.”, but that runs into a host of problems. But, would he have been in the right if he did so, I think yes.
The only problem is, is that he, or any of us, can only change one person at a time, and that takes a long, long time. This is actually not something that I was aware of in this way, and I have to admit that had I been in that guy’s position, I may have done the same thing, out of ignorance, not out of malice. I like to think that I would not now that I know better, but I am only one person. I can try to pass the story along to other people, and it is possible that if I make a campaign out of it, I may be able to affect as many as a hundred people over the course of the next couple of years, maybe a dozen or so will actually listen and change their behavior.
Communication is a two way street, and the guy was a jackass, but you have to communicate with jackasses too, if you want them to get out of your way.
I can see that, and there may be something to pushing for some sort of wider recognition, PSA style, that “No means NO!” I’m not sure how to go about that. I actually have already shared your story with a few of my friends, and I think that they were contemplative about it enough that should they ever encounter you in that situation, they would probably listen to you, and only help you if and in ways that you actually ask for help.
For the rest of humanity, I got nothin.
I don’t know that it is society so much as just general empathy. It’s harder to be in a wheelchair, and people know that. People see someone that is having a hard time, and their natural instinct is to want to help out, and the declining of an offer of help, especially from a stranger, even when help would be appreciated, is someone that is cultural, and has nothing to do with disability.
An example: Last night, I had a couple friends over. One of them said something about it being a bit cold. I asked her if she wanted me to turn up the temperature, she said no. Being mindful of this conversation, I said, “Ok.”
She gave it a few awkward moments before she said, “Actually, if you wouldn’t mind turning it up just a bit?” She actually did want me to offer again, and it put her in an awkward position having to ask for what she had just declined.
I don’t get it either. I don’t really like it either, but that’s how many of these hoo-mans are wired.
People want to help but they don’t know how to help. They take your declining of offers to help as a simple cultural courtesy, and ignore those delcininations due to the cultural expectations, not because they see you as unable to make those decisions for yourself.
I get your frustration at this, and having been on the receiving end of things that I didn’t want to receive, I absolutely agree how annoying it is to have your wishes ignored. If there is enough momentum here to make a cultural shift in that, then I am all for it, I always prefer straightforward level communication to the games most people play with dialogue, and if we could affect that change, I would be most happy.
Until then, it’s coping mechanisms. How to deal with things we cannot change. How to limit the harm to ourselves in a world that seems out to harm us through misguided intent.
Misguided empathy can be better guided. It requires not only education on our part, but listening on theirs, but it is something that is possible to be done.
Yeah, that story was pretty messed up. That guy you could have run his toes over with your car, and still be in the right. It’s one thing to offer help, or insist when it is declined, but actually entering someone else’s vehicle and messing with their property, that guy is beyond just misguided, he’s a straight up asshole.
In the end, I guess god sorts that out. Short of that, it is not the intent of a single act that determines its help or its harm, it is the results of that act. OTOH, intent does matter if we are looking for people to improve their interactions.
And, before this thread, I may have as well. Had I seen a person standing by while someone in a wheelchair struggles to open a door, I’d think fairly poorly of that person. This has given me much to think about in that situation, but I’m just one person, most people will be unchanged by this conversation.
People are assholes sometimes, and treat eachother will indifference to their actual wants and needs. Being in a chair magnifies this, and certainly personalizes it to a specific feature of your existence, but it does not create it out of whole cloth.
Slight off topic here, but do you consider people who don’t need it using the accessible stall in the bathroom to be callously indifferent? Or reserved parking spaces for that matter?
I don’t think that there is much indifference that would be directed at you, if there was, you wouldn’t notice, indifference being a passive thing and all. But, I do see quite a bit directed at the needs of the disabled in general.
I have no idea how to address this other than to take it under advisement for how I will interact with people that I may perceive to be in need in the future. I have to admit that I have been guilty of this my whole life. Not in seeing that people need help (and certainly not feeding anyone), but that a small effort on my part could decrease someone else’s difficulty substantially, and that is something that I want to do.
If I saw you at the food court getting ready to leave, I would offer to take your tray for you. If I saw you in the parking lot, I would offer to get your car door for you. (I wouldn’t mess with the chair, unless specifically instructed on how to do so.) I’d like to think that I would respect any of your refusals in those actions, but I don’t know that, I may take your refusal as just the normal courtesy that is extended strangers that offer help.
With this thread in mind, I can only hope that my empathy is a bit less misguided, and my ignorance is a little less gaping.
I’d be a bit upset. I don’t think that I would take it out on other people, but there’s a decent chance that I would complain to friends or even on a message board about a scathing response I got to an attempt to help. If I did not understand the context, I would be a bit confused and frustrated, and it would lessen my chances of putting myself out there the next time I perceive that my assistance could help someone.
A single encounter shouldn’t make you make a decision like that, no. But it does have an effect. You would be less likely to help. If this sort of thing persists, then you become even less likely. Either people are not appreciative of your help, or your help is not helpful, either way, you become less likely to.
OTOH, you do have people that would probably take this one incident that way. For instance, this winner here. Not that anyone would ever want her help.
If you ever see me saying anything like this on this board, you have full permission to brutally slap some sense into me, not indulge this immaturity with assurances that this reaction is normal and reasonable. Because it really isn’t.
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Normal, no. Reasonable, I don’t think so, but they didn’t put me in charge of that.
Again, you’re making it absolute. Is one single interaction going to completely alter my behavior? Presumably not. But people respond to stimulus. That’s how we work. If there’s a thing that I do, and when I do it something unpleasant happens, then that tweaks the knobs and dials in my brain.
Sure, I’d like to say “doing X is the right thing to do, therefore I will ALWAYS do X no matter what, no matter what unpleasant interactions I have when I do X”. I’d also like to say “I’m totally immune to marketing”. Doesn’t make it true.
