April, do you realize that the advice that you are being so adamant about that you’ve become aggressive comes from someone else, and not yourself? Did you not notice that you made several comments without being offended by Blackberry daring to ask the question of how to handle this?
And are you unaware that every single person, disability or not, must be treated differently? Treating people the same is a surefire way of insulting half of them.
And April, fact of the matter is, is that you really can’t treat mentally disabled adults the same as mentally normal adults. Have you honestly ever had interactions with them?
Yes, be nice to them…but the simple fact of the matter is that they cannot function like mentally normal adults!!! At ALL.
I understand that, but also get annoyed when people automatically treat them like children.
And**Blackberry **has posted on the SDMB before about a situation she got herself in with a guy. The last one she posted about happened to be married with children, and everyone in the thread told her they suspected as much and she still couldn’t say no to a date. She places herself (she admitted she gets herself in these situations with guys “all the time”) in these situations, then posts a thread about it. I am getting less and less sympathetic to her self imposed plight.
I am dealing with a similar problem.
There’s a street guy who’s taken a fondness of me. He’s not homeless, but he is unemployed and lives off disability in some type of board-and-care place. He’s schizophrenic, with–I am assuming–some type of sordid past because he receives court-ordered Haldol injections. I know these details because the guy basically gives me a recitation of his life story every time I see him.
He’s very nice. He calls me “Miss Monstro” and will limp real fast towards me when he sees me coming.
He’s not slow, but his disease and living in a marginalized way has destroyed his social skills and all sense of appropriateness. For instance, he will tell me in frank terms how much I “excite” him, which really makes me uncomfortable. He’ll ask if he can kiss me and I will decline politely. So why do I even put myself in his presence? Because his story is so sad and I can tell that he really needs someone to talk to. He says he feels so happy talking to me, and I know he has very little to feel happy about. So I interact with him out of a sense of pity and guilt, I guess.
I do stand firm on the no-kissing thing, though. I have even told him that I have this policy about everyone, just so he knows it has nothing to do with him, and he seems to understand.
How stupid is this argument? April, go drink a glass of warm milk and lie down. Blackberry, tell them you’re already taken. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Agree!
Quit hijacking this thread with your reasonable suggestions! Some of us want to see a screaming match! 
Milk sounds good. I think my pregnancy is making me extra cranky.
Well, there’s your problem! 
That’s a mans favorite kind of woman!
Well, at least my life doesn’t suck as hard as his does.
Good on you for being willing to talk to him.
Oh good, someone understands! Do you ever find yourself avoiding the places you know you’ll run into him?
Monstro + schizophrenic suitor= match made in heaven. Amirite??
Yes, sometimes.
April, this is MENTAL disability that we’re talking about. They are pretty much emotionally and mentally children. That’s not even an insult b/c it is TRUE!
No, they’re not. They may appear childlike in many ways, but they lack one crucial element - they are not going to develop any further, and may well be unable to learn from things that children would be able to.