I can understand how a person becomes jaded. Now I just need to avoid it.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

One thing a recent trip to Meijer made me realize is that I have become so programmed to react in a certain way when people come up to me and ask me if I need help (since the overwhelming majority of the time these offers are inappropriate and not in the least bit needed), I can have a hard time recognizing when a genuinely heartfelt and understandable offer is made to me. I mean, shit, the very last time I went to Meijer, one such inappropriate incident occurred.

But this time, a man was walking past me as I was bagging up my groceries. As he passed, he stopped and asked me if I needed a hand bringing my bags out to my car. Now, I only actually had two bags of stuff (plus my wheelchair backpack) but it was spread out over a bit of space and looked like more than it was. Now, once it was all bagged up, it was just going to be one of those hand-held carts on my lap and a thing of water in my backpack, so I didn’t need the help and I didn’t say anything rude to the guy when I shook my head “no” to him. But I had a decidedly annoyed look on my face, I’m sure.

But after the guy walked off, I got to thinking. He really did ask me a reasonable question. The help he was offering me was the sort of help I really DO find quite handy when I’m out doing what I need to do. I’m just not used to being offered that sort of help. The “help” I am used to being offered is the sort that is for things that are convenient for the person offering the help; things that will make that person feel as though they’ve done a “good deed”. In short, things for which I don’t need help. When I DO need help, however, I often find a shortage of volunteers. Because it’s not “convenient” help that I need. So when I actually encounter real empathy, I can misread it. Like I did at Meijer. And I felt bad. I wish I could go back and at least not have given the guy the annoyed look. I mean, I still would have declined his offer (it really wasn’t needed) but I definitely would have let him know it was appreciated.

2

Nothing wrong with being jaded. And now that helpful guy is one step closer to being jaded himself. Soon the world will be filled to the brim with jaded assholes and we can get to work on those death camps I’m always mentioning.

3

A simple “No, but thanks anyway,” goes a long way and is like water off a duck’s back. Try less of looking annoyed and saying something in a neutral way instead. You don’t have to be jovial or anything, just not peeved all the time. Unless it’s some cheesy dude who calls you “sport” or whatever.

4

Exactly this. Not jaded behavior at all, just not very polite.

I thought this thread would be about jaded behavior – to which I could say, sorry, you won’t ever get rid of that attitude (IME) short of hallucinogens/sensory deprivation/meditation/head transplant.

Hey, what’s the hate on the kind of people who call you sport? Just say, “Hey, slugger, I’m doing OK, but thanks.”

Example: bought some smokes the other day, and the jovial shopkeep said, “Hey, here you go, big guy.” I responded, “Thanks daddy!” Well he thought it was funny, and the world was better off.

5

It many times is (just like the guy in the thread I linked to). “Champ”, “Killer” and “Boss” are probably the aliases I get referred to as by strangers the most frequently. :rolleyes:

6

Well the behavior is common with the people who ask me if I need help when I’m obviously not doing anything that might require any assistance (which is the reason it was brought up in the thread I linked to earlier up in the thread). It’s part of the package, if you will. And “Big guy” isn’t quite as patronizing as calling a guy in a wheelchair “Killer”.

And of course, a polite “No thanks” is always what should be said back to these people. However, after fifty billion times of declining such offers, even when all I’m doing is sitting and breathing, it gets a bit hard not to get fucking irritated at the never-ending onslaught of kindness. :wink:

7

And let me guess which people would be the first to go…:dubious:

8

Lemme tellya a few stories, from things I witnessed.

Story #1:
From some distance away, I observed a guy in a chair approach a building with glass double doors. (This was on campus at U. C. Berkeley.) When he got to the doors, he just sat there, without even trying to open them. I guess he couldn’t open them himself, or didn’t want to bother, and was just waiting for somebody to come through. There were enough people coming and going that he wouldn’t have had to wait long.

Should someone have offered to open the door for him? What do you think he would have wanted?

(Resolution: I didn’t, because I was at some distance. But sure enough, somebody came through soon enough.)

Story #2:
Similar setting. I observed a guy in a chair approach a building with glass double doors. But this guy tried to open the door himself. He was outside, and the doors opened out, so he had to pull the door open enough to insert chair and deal with the door trying to close on him when he did. I watched him struggle with the door by himself for a while. I might have offered to help, except that again, I was a ways off.

Should I have jump up, run over there, and offered to help? If I had been much closer, should I have offered to help? Or should I have let him fight it out with the door himself, seeing that it looked like he was going to manage it, albeit with some difficulty?

(Resolution: Since it looked like he could manage it, I felt it would have been best to let him, even if I had been closer. Eventually, he did get through all by his lonesome.)

I agree that Ambivalid has a good case for getting pissed off at people who are just patronizing. (Hey, champ, can I help you put your coins in the coin slot?) But sometimes you can’t know if they really are asking if you need help with something not immediately obvious. Maybe you really did want a case of water bottles from the back of the store, for all the other guy knows.

9

Let’s see if you’ve been paying attention in class.

10

Well, first the communists, then the socialists, then the trade unionists…

11

Offer that is unneeded? “Nah mate, s’all good here”. With a smile

Offer that is appreciated? “Thanks, it can be a bastard doing (x) without a helping hand. I really appreciate yer’ helping me out mate”. Also with a smile.

Now that is in Strine, but I’m sure you can translate into American readily enough.

12

Just go back to that Meijer every day until you see him again, then apologize

13

Seriously? People do this? WTF?

14

I’ll save you the suspense. I haven’t.

15

A friend of mine with MD, before he switched to a motor chair, used a manual mostly just fine, except doors without assisted power were problematic because he had trouble lifting his arms straight out the way he would need to grab a door handle. He could sort of swing his arm out from the shoulder, enough to hit an assist button, but handles, especially when doors opened toward him, were a problem. He pretty much much had to wait for someone to open the door, though especially with a manual chair, he looked perfectly capable of doing it himself.

For me, having been around a couple people in chairs, it’s difficult to know how much help someone needs until I’ve been around them for a while. So I err on the side of asking. But people were more likely to help my friend without even asking after he switched to the motor chair.

16

Absolutely, yes, offer to help. If you see someone struggling, offer to help them. But if you simply see someone in a chair approaching a doorway, don’t assume there is going to be a struggle and run to the rescue.

17

Well why not err on the side of not saying anything at all unless asked? Or unless the person is struggling? A person in a chair knows when they need help and knows when they don’t. It’s not your job to determine this.

18

I’m going though the same sort of self-reflection. I’m unnecessarily nasty when there’s no call to be. I always think everyone is doing things to offend me, like having their music up too loud on the bus so I can hear it, or sniffing or whistling or anything I don’t like.

I got a really good dose of karma the other day. A lady had stopped her car right on the cross walk at a very busy intersection. We’ve had a lot of snow that has melted and made the roads disgusting. People crossing the street had to go in front of her car, about a foot away from passing cars and buses, getting sprayed by mud in the process. When I passed by her car, I sort of knocked on the hood of the car and said something like “fucking nice”.

Then I made my way to the other side of the street and, thinking I was stepping through a shallow bit of slush, stepped ankle deep into a huge frozen, muddy puddle. If I hadn’t been in such a haughty huff, I might have been paying better attention to where I was going.

I find I’m having to constantly remind myself that nobody is doing things on purpose to annoy me; they don’t even know I exist.

It’s been a real eye-opener realizing how selfish and narcissistic I’ve been for a very long time.

19

A very high percentage of all my offers of help are of this variety. Seriously. No snark.

ETA: Like the guy at the gas station who, upon seeing me wheel up to the counter to pay for my water and gum with my debit card, came out from behind the counter and took my card out of my hand as I was preparing to swipe it, so that he could “help me” by swiping it for me.

20

This advice is contrary to my general attitude, whether the other person is in a chair or not. I often ask if I can help, I open doors, all that stuff my parents taught me goes with being a nice person in general.

I have to admit that being met with the attitude I get from your posts here puts me off. I’m perfectly OK with a simple “no thanks, I’m fine”, but I get slightly pissed off if my sincere offer in the spirit of being generally nice to my fellow human beings - able-bodied or in a wheelchair - is answered with a scowl