Kevin and I have talked at length about our concerns with regard to getting married. It is very important to both of us that we develop a good social network, both as a couple and individually. We need to balance out the time we spend on our own relationship, time we spend on other relationships, pursuit of personal interests, etc. We cannot do this without good social supports. This will take significant effort on our part–we cannot expect people to simply come to us. It will also take effort on the part of others–relationships are reciprocal in nature, and much frustration comes from blaming ourselves solely for problems that occur when others do not return the effort we put forth.
When people learn that I am concerned about forming good social networks, the first suggestion is often that I look for a group of blind people. Perhaps, to people who have never experienced blindness, this seems normal–it is an attempt to help us find others who share something of our experience. While we do have many friends who are blind and we are both involved in advocacy activities via the American Council of the Blind, we both also have other interests which are quite strong and are shared by people who are not blind. It is vital that we form relationships with people who share those interests. It is also important to both of us that we maintain relationships with friends who are sighted. On a daily basis, we interact with people who are sighted as we go about our normal activities. The norm for us is to live as part of the sighted world. We are accustomed to making the adaptations necessary to do this; and it is important to us to have friends in this environment as well. We have never had the expectation that our social interaction should be limited to people who are like us. Suggestions that are meant well can also be isolating. Most people who say these things would, if they lost their sight and found themselves in this position, respond by saying, “I’m still the same person. I don’t need people like myself. I need my frieds.”
Much division occurs in the community because we perceive we cannot relate to people because of differences in physical condition, skin color, place of birth, etc. We could begin by examining similarities: things we both enjoy, things we both appreciate about life, etc.
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