Let me start off by saying I was extremely hesitant to start this thread, as it seems any time I share anything related in any way to my disability, a certain small (but loud) group of members attacks me for (among other things) never talking about anything else; which is clearly ridiculous.
I started this thread because I am quite curious as to how other people, people who may or may not have a disability, might interpret the interaction in question. I purposely omitted putting my feelings or my reactions in this story because such things aren’t relevant here; I want to know what others think without being influenced one way or another by my feelings, even if many might believe they know what those feelings are. This isn’t a gripe, a complaint, a commentary or a joke; it is simply a way to hopefully broaden perspective.
The gym I use has a steam room in it’s men’s locker room. This steam room is controlled by a temperature sensor; when it gets up to a certain temperature the steam shuts off and vice-versa. I enjoy using the steam room when the steam jets are on and blasting and when I got into it today the jets had already shut off. So in order to quickly lower the temperature and get the steam back on, I opened the door and held it open for a couple minutes to get all the static steam out of there.
As I was sitting there holding the door open, a man walked past and saw me. He stopped. looked at me for a second and said, “Do you need me to close that for you?”
My question to the Dopers here is, if you were the recipient of such a question, in a situation like this, what would your first thoughts be? What do you think of this man’s question?
So much is conveyed by demeanor and body language, I suspect that there will be little agreement. But since I will never be accused of having a good handle on social reality, you should probably ignore anything I say.
I would think the man is mentally ill. Because I have two legs and no obvious disabilities (except mental–har har har).
Look bro, some people just don’t handle certain situations well, and one of the situations some people don’t handle well is dealing with people in wheelchairs. The guy was just trying to help. I realize you think everyone should treat you just like everyone else, but you aren’t like everyone else, you are in a wheelchair, and some people are going to try to help you in situations where you don’t need help.
Just say “no thanks,” realize that some people don’t handle some situations very well, and roll on down the lane of life.
I’d think the guy was being helpful. Your liking of the steam jets being on requires some explanation (as in, you’ve had to explain it to us), and may not have been immediately obvious to him. I’d think no more about it.
As you’ve stated your OP (but we all know some game changing detail will be added in later)…I would have thought nothing of it. Just to expand on that a bit since I’m not sure why he was asking and you didn’t mention his tone of voice.
If he was asking because you were handicapped he may have just honestly be trying to be helpful. He may have thought you were trying to maneuver yourself into the room and needed a hand getting the door shut behind you. If this is the case, you’re reading too much into it, he was trying to be helpful, nothing more nothing less.
If he was asking in a condescending way he may have been just sort of rolling his eyes trying to figure out what you were doing (knowing you didn’t need help but purposely holding the door open…like when someone fake coughs near a smoker) in which case I would have said “Nah, I’m just trying to get the stale steam out of here” or “Nah, I’m just trying to get the steam to kick back on” in a nice normal voice as if he was asking in a totally helpful way.
Here’s a somewhat analogous situation that you may not find analogous at all, but I do.
I’m a partner at a law firm. Sometimes associates suck up to me and kiss my ass a bit, and I don’t really like that. To me, I’m just another dude at work, I’m not some man on the mountain that needs his ego stroked. But some people don’t handle certain situations very well, and one of those situations is dealing with people who are above them at work. I wish they would just act normally and not weird, but they don’t because they aren’t really capable of doing that. So I just realize what they are doing and get on down the road.
See, this is the kind of response I was hoping to avoid. You actually don’t know what I think as far as how I should or shouldn’t be treated in relation to other people; I just wanted you to stick to your interpretation of the encounter in question.
Like it or not, you don’t operate in a vacuum here. I can’t be the only one to have been thinking, when I read your OP, “was it the police or security who got involved this time?”
FWIW when I read the OP I thought Ambivalid – that guy who’s always posting about the gym
Now probably because I’m British I thought the guy was being snotty about you wasting energy by holding the door open. Knowing what you were doing, and that you were doing it on purpose I hear “Do you need me to close that for you?” as sounding condescendingly polite and designed to shame you into shutting that damn door yourself, right now.
OK, fine, maybe you don’t want to be treated just like everyone else, excuse me for assuming that. But I assume you don’t want people over-helping you, which is what this guy did, and just what some people do in those types of situations. So my point stands no matter what you think as far as how you should or shouldn’t be treated.
I don’t even think it’s a case of not handling the situation well. It’s not like there is a protocol, and clearly Ambivalid was doing something distinctly odd (he explained it to us, but it must’ve looked strange).
If I end up in wheelchair tomorrow, I will not be proficient & with super-strength the way Ambivalid is (right?). In fact, I would be clumsy at first, probably. Say I was coming out of the steam room but was having trouble navigating the door and that man asked if I needed help. Then that would’ve been great & not asking would’ve been “not handling the situation well”.
Unless there is more to the story (which is definitely possible) this man was either being nice, or he thought you were some sort of steam-room-door-troll or something.
My first thought is that the guy probably thought you were having trouble getting into or out of the room, and was offering to hold the door so you could get through. It might not have been obvious that you were just holding the door open to get the steam jets to turn on.
Oh no, no, forgive me; I was outside the steam room holding the door open, sitting in my chair. It was patently obvious that I was holding it open, their was nothing awkward or struggling about my appearance. I had the open door swung all the way back and I was sitting against the door in my chair (with the brakes locked), with my legs folded up Indian style on my lap and my arms crossed over my chest; this is the position I’m usually in when I’m sitting in the steam room. I was relaxed.
OK, that does change it somewhat. I go with Springtime for Spacers’s response: he was being passive-aggressive about unconventional use of the steam room door.
Like it or not, there are always going to be people who are overly helpful, and it’s not just because you’re in a wheelchair.
For example, when I was in high school it was one of my chores to go to the feed and grain store to buy duck and rabbit feed. The bags weighed 50lbs each, and I was okay with carrying them. But the guys who worked there would take one look at my then 5’2" 120lb self and decide that I needed help, which I always declined because I didn’t like that they seemed to think I was too weak to handle the task on my own. I didn’t realize that they were trying to be helpful, the same way I was when I recently helped a woman my mom’s age wrestle a shelving unit into her cart since I knew how awkward they were, not being condescending. I eventually became aware that it’s possible to volunteer to do something because it comes easier to you than someone else without automatically assuming that they’re not capable of managing without your help.
You don’t need to accept an offer of help, ever, but realizing that it usually comes from a place of trying to be nice rather than an attack on our egos is something we should strive for as adults.
When I envisioned this to begin with (based on the OP) I sort of pictured you either in the steam room with the door pushed open (so it may have looked like you were trying to pull it shut) or half in/half out (so it may have looked like you were struggling to get in). But the way you were positioned I’m going to assume it was a passive aggressive remark (like fake coughing around a smoker) unless he thought you didn’t realize you were keeping the door from closing.
But, you have to admit, what you were doing did warrant some kind of remark or at the very least a question as to what you were doing.
Also, don’t forget, there may have been other patrons that wanted to use the steam room but opted not to because you were sitting there with the door propped open. If that’s something you do on a regular basis I wouldn’t be surprised if the management asked you to knock it off.
I’d suggest you find a more discreet way of doing it. My thought would be that before you go in just swing the door (about a quarter of the way) open and closed 5 or 6 times to exchange the air a bit. If a couple of big billows of steam come out, it’ll probably kick on the jets. But what you were doing some might consider rude so you might just want to use in the same way everyone else does.
What I think this situation illustrates is the mindset that can come over some people when they encounter a person with disabilities; this mindset is overwhelming to the point of being irrational that a disabled person needs help, period. Whatever it is that a disabled person is doing, they need or would be better off with assistance at that task. I say irrational because, as this encounter shows, the help can even be totally counter to the goals of the task of the disabled person being offered help.
This man wanted to close a door I was purposely holding open. I don’t understand where he got the notion that closing the door was somehow my ultimate goal when he saw me sitting there. But he did see me sitting there, so I had to be needing some sort of help, else why would I just be sitting there in the hallway of the locker room in my swim shorts?
Yes, this man absolutely was being nothing but polite, friendly and nice. I never thought anything to the contrary. But he also was a prime example of this mindset some have that the disabled need help with any/everything they do in life. It was funny to me. If I would have taken him up on his offer of help, I would have needed to move out of the way; this action in and of itself would have accomplished his task. He actually would have needed to grab the door to keep it from shutting before he could do it himself.
