Having a visible disability means that sometimes when I meet strangers they’re very keen to talk about disability, and something that they know about it. For the most part, I don’t really mind these types of exchanges. I know people are probably just trying to find something to relate to, but occasionally there are interactions that just frankly suck – they’ll stick with me for some time.

Late last year I was at a social function and I was talking to a stranger. He was an older person and we were having a conversation about a friend of his who also has a physical disability. The conversation was flowing just fine, until he said:

“So being in a wheelchair and all, is there anything you can’t do that you wish you could?”

I paused for a moment, processing what he was asking and why he was asking. The way he’d asked the question so suddenly threw me.

I replied that I don’t really focus on the things that I can’t do, because there’s a lot that I can do.

Unsatisfied, he persisted with this line of questioning. He really wanted me to list all the things I couldn’t do and desperately wanted to.

I gave him a couple examples, realising we couldn’t move on until I did, “hiking, maybe” I replied. After a pause I added, “even though I can’t do those things in the way you expect, there’s a lot of ways that people do unexpected things everyday, I have some friends in wheelchairs who went skiing using a small sled that could be pushed around. There’s always a way to do something if you try to think it through”.

He looked at me, and said very little for a moment. Then he said, “yeah, but it must be hard”, and continued talking about his friend with a disability.

These types of encounters are commonplace. Was he intentionally trying to be rude? Probably not. My feeling is that for some (unknown) reason, he thought it was okay to talk this way to a stranger.

We give able bodied people the space to choose how they want to live, but it seems so much harder give disabled people the same.

As a society, we have been conditioned historically to feel like living with disability must be one of the hardest things in the world to live with, and when we meet disabled people there’s a push to verify that viewpoint.

What I find hardest about this type of talk is that it reduces me. It reduces my experiences as a person with disability and makes it sound like whatever things I have in my life that I really like or that I’m proud of, that we must throw to one side because I couldn’t do ___, if I wanted. Not sure if abled bodied people got the newsflash, but I know tonnes of people that could go skiing or hiking (or whatever) if they wanted, but they don’t. We don’t march up to them and demand an explanation. We give able bodied people the space to choose how they want to live, but it seems so much harder give disabled people the same.

Sometimes I don’t entirely believe its lack of awareness that causes people to act this way. At times, I think it’s a type of wilful defiance. The majority of people would have to be aware that it’s very rude to approach people in this way. I wonder if it’s just that some people are trying to push their own view about disability, and when they come up against someone who challenges that norm, they need to find a way to right their own thinking by reducing their experiences.

Something to ponder at least.