Confused about reaction
 

I was at a bar that I have never been to today, younger people (20s & 30s mostly).
Every third person that walked by or in the door would stop and stare at me like they just saw a snake or bomb, as if "OMG! A guy in a WHEELCHAIR!"
Seriously, staring right at me with this shocked expression on their face for a good five seconds.
Then they would quickly look away, sometimes at the ceiling and briskly walk away, giving me a very wide berth.
It was HILARIOUS, and VERY creepy at the same time.
I would waive at them or smile, and they would freak... in a very "frozen" kinda' way.
What the hell?
We never did figure it out (the people at my table).
My wife thinks it's because I'm "young" and it was "weird" to see someone who is not very old or "sick looking" in a wheelchair for young people (It was mostly the 20ish kids doing it.
But, I don't usually get that kind of reaction in public...
It was just weird.

They probably didn't mean to stare. Their reaction was the light bulb going off over their head. They were thinking, Why didn't I think of that? Back when I used to go to bars, a wheel chair would of come in real handy.

Not really, it is a huge pain in the ass in a bar. Once you get in a spot, after you have had the ENTIRE bar rearranged for you, you stay, unless you are willing to make everyone move again.

That's weird rk. Horrible having people stare at you, I think. When I was a kid my eczema used to get so bad I'd be covered in bandages, and my face would swell up. People stared, one woman even pulled her kid away from me; I think she was scared her kid would catch whatever i had :P

It proababy wasn't the wheelchair as a whole. It was probably because you're so dammed good looking.

I'm not albino, but I might as well play one on TV. The absolutely most accepting group of people in a huge crowd that I've ever seen is at science fiction conventions. A few other geek type events, too.

My experience with twenty-somes lately is all family. They are amazingly narrow-minded and insular, to my way of thinking. My sister's kids and their friends... I'd hope they would take a wheelchair user in stride, but I don't know anymore.

What the fuck do they think wheelchair ramps and access are for? Skateboards?

Good point Sky!

Right now, I have a bandage high on my forehead. I could have used flesh colored paper tape, but used the white that was handy. Now I'm thinking of taking my dog to the dog beach, but wondering if I should wear a hat or change the bandage to something less obvious. I don't care much about people staring generally, but I think I would train my dog to sic if people annoy me too much today.

Yesterday, a kid visiting at the neighbor's house borrowed a junk bike from me. I took my dog out later. Quiet cul-de-sac, no leash on a border collie cross golden of advanced years. Pepperoncini perked up when she saw our bike and a strange kid. The kid dropped the bike in the middle of the circle and ran into their open garage. It really pissed me off that a ten or twelve year old kid did not know how to behave safely around a dog. My dog is fine. She's never bitten anyone, but she is overly protective for good cause. She could have killed that kid if she was just any dog. My biggest problem there is lack of personal responsibility on the part of the parents raising that kid. You take a kid like that, bring him down to the islands and he behaves like that and he'll be losing a chunk of his leg. Forget the Caribbean, that could happen in some neighborhoods and rural areas around here. So what planet did those parents grow up on? Did they pass their parenting classes? Oh yeah, you don't need to prove you have enough smarts to have a kid, you just do it.

RK, was your fly open? :D

Because of my hydritinitis I am shunned allot. and it hurts. Back in the day when I would go out and one of these things would break open I would go from hurting to stinking instantly. It has affected me personally and professedly. People will move away from me and call me names. I understand being the center of attention I dream of being like every one else. I don't go out without preparation and planning I carry a canvas bag with me all the time with pads, and drugs. When I was having to ride the bus and I had this bag with me people thought I was a shoplifter or worse. It attracts unwanted attention. Living with a handicap is not hard, getting other people to believe that you are not a danger to them is.

I think your wife and sky are exactly right. Their little schema of the world doesn't include good looking people in wheelchairs. They think wheelchair and automatically see in their heads some frail old guy in his 90's in a Hoveround or a "retarded" kid who is drooling on himself.

Screw 'em, go back with some buddies and enjoy your beer. OMG he has friends too???!?1

Seeing someone in a chair, that's obviously not old or maimed, has got to raise curiosity. Just about the time (talking seconds here) the questions are formed in the mind, the memory of Mom grabbing you by the ear and saying, "don't stare, it's not polite... be quiet... move along", kick in.
If the person in the chair has noticed, then it's deer in the headlights awkward, followed by flight.

See, it's always Mom's fault.

Maybe you were a little slice of reality in the middle of a bunch of drunks escaping it. *shrug* You were a bouncer, you probably understand drinkers better than most.

People do tend to stare when there's something out of the ordinary. Doesn't matter much what it is. I work with mentally disabled people in the summer, and people always stare at us. Boys in their teens will make jokes and laugh at us as well, which is incredibly rude behavior. It makes me want to kick their asses sometimes (but I'm representing, so I have to hold my tongue). And as mentioned before: people are brought up with their parents telling them it's rude to stare, so they get used to ignoring anyone out of the ordinary instead of just not caring wether they're there or not. If we weren't forced to "not stare" as kids, we'd probably be less akward when we got older.

Maybe if they're all young they've been on the hooch an didn't expect a new person to be there which made them 'paranoid maaaan'. ;)

Bugger them!

As I get older, I'm starting to understand why my parents used to compain about young people being rude.

It's a shame that we react that way as it gives the wrong impression. I don't believe it's anything more than the element of surprise at NOT seeing what you expect - i.e. a person sitting in a chair. The trouble is that we, as human beings, aren't very good at dealing with these situations. The obvious thing to do might be to say what we feel - would a 'hey, sorry, you threw me there, must have looked as though I was staring at you because you're in a wheelchair, but it's just that I was expecting a chair not a wheelchair - I feel an idiot!' not be more straightforward and appropriate? But feeling that we have made one mistake by 'staring' rather than put the record straight we tend to try to cover the impression we believe we are creating (staring at someone in a wheelchair) by avoiding the issue of putting matters straight - and then we end up making things worse - we overplay the act of trying to ignore the situation - and that draws even more attention to it. There's an old saying that goes 'if you put yourself in a hole the first thing you should do is stop digging' - the trouble is we seldom do.

Maybe I'm being overkind with my explanation? I don't really think so. Sure, there are a few people out there who might deliberately berate someone in a wheelchair, but for most of us it's the surprise element and then we screw up by turning the surprise into something that can be conceived as being rude and distasteful by what we do next.

A little more background, if you please, rkz...

Were you alone? if so, that may be it, wheelchair or no
With regulars at that bar? if so, then their curiosity would be peeked
with a group of other people who had never been there before? then you probably stuck out like two sore thumbs rather than one.
were you near the door? If so, you're probably the first thing the saw while adjusting to the light, adding an extra element of suprise
Was it easy for you to get it?
If not, you may be the first person in a wheelchair they've seen in there and if they never go anywhere else it might not occur to them that people in wheelchairs can visit bars.

Whatever the scenario, it sucks but it's life. You know that. people will look at the different, Some people do not have the manners to apologize or explain when caught out, some won't even make eye contact. That makes them the lesser person, but maybe, next time, they will.

Not really horrible. I wasn't trying to make it a negative. It's not. I was an actor for a very long time, so I'm not weird about attention.
I'm just confused about it.

I was near the front door, but the whole front of the bar is windows, no light adjustment. I was with mix of regulars and new people. Honestly, I go to concerts at bars from time to time and have never had this happen, but they tend to be "harder" bars or more rock oriented, we/I just don't get that kind of attention in those bars. A lot of them were actually were our age (mid thirties and some were even older), it was an Irish pub. I was not upset, I'm really curious.
When people just come up and ask why I am more than happy to tell them and help them understand. People need to feel comfortable with illness and mortality.
Now that I think about it, perhaps my being with an attractive woman was weird for them?
Ok, that is just weird.

yup, it's weird.

You've got a handle on human nature. That's for sure!

Good imput cycle!

Yes, I think he nailed it, also

You are probably closer to it.
Much younger people will actually just come up to me and start asking questions, which I enjoy.

I'm not sure I get the the whole story here.

When you say perked up I assume you mean barking, or looking threatening in some way?
In which case I can't see how the child is at fault. A dog he doesn't know acted in a way he didn't expect and he ran to the nearest available refuge?

If dogs kill people for doing this, then I submit it is the dog owner's fault for not controlling their incredibly dangerous animals. I appreciate your dog isn't dangerous, but the boy did not know this.

Also I can't see how the parents could be at fault. I was certainly never taught not to run from a barking dog. It never came up. Which is why I'm questioning this now in case I got the wrong end of the stick.

Anyway, back to the OT. I think people here have nailed it already RK - the people in question were surprised by what they saw. There's a number of factors that would be unusual, especially taken together - the motorised chair, your age, your appearance (shaved head, natty dress, apparent health) the fact you were behaving like a "normal" person - conversing, having a drink (as opposed to someone parked in the corner, dribbling).

I have to admit it's hard for me to relate. I grew up close to a hospital that specialised in spinal injuries - people came from all over the UK (and even the world) for treatment. At least once a year we had visits at school from people in wheelchairs. I remember a young woman who was a victim of drink driving - who read us some rather bad poetry, and a guy who was on the Olympic basketball team with bright red hair (a classmate asked him cheekily if the other guys picked on him for being ginger). I think it was intended as social integration. The town would be inundated with wheelchair athletes for the Games every year - we were more interested in hearing real American, Australian etc accents than we were phased by the chairs.

Funnily enough, the school I went to gave me a good grounding on stuff like that. We were a 'mixed' school, in that we were set up to deal with a variety of disabilities. We had ramps everywhere and several kids in wheelchairs; all the teachers had those microphone things for talking to kids with hearing aids and many of the teachers signed as well. Seeing people in wheelchairs was never really an oddity.

Coincidentally, there was a youngish guy in a wheelchair at the restaurant today. Probably because of this thread, I noticed.... that no one took much notice.

That is the norm for me... why it was so odd there.

No leash laws where you live?

maybe people were just drunk enough to forget to be polite. or they've been going to the same bar for years and never saw a wheelchair there before. 'tis a shame.

Again, going to bars is nothing new for me. This was very odd. Perhaps a full moon effect for some shit.

but you'd never been to that bar, right?

. . . or maybe they were just idiots

It really pisses me off that you had your dog off its leash in a public area and you are blaming the kid for being a potential victim. It is 100% your responsibility to be in control of your dog. The kid has zero responsibility here.

It may be wise for parents to teach their kids how to behave around dogs, but it's certainly not required, and you have no right to be pissed off that the kid didn't know how to act around your dog while you were on a public street.

Damn, she beat me to it. Seriously, rage, you have quite a strong character that just beams out of you. Sometimes you post a pic of yourself and I feel like you can see me through the computer screen (luckily I'm at work and we aren't allowed to be nekkid.) I imagine they felt a bit of respect for you, knowing you have had your crosses to bear and can still turn the heads of women, and a few guys too.

That is very kind of you. I mean that.
Who knows.
The other places I go, the kind of people that go there, if/when they get drunk, they just come up to me and ask "thfuckswrongwitya' man? I like yur hat..." and buy me a drink. Bikers or psychobilly people don't stare they ask... they get stared at a lot, I guess, so they probably don't want to do it to others.
Now that I think about it.

I once belonged to a forum, and every other post was a reference to Sienfeld. So at the risk of Sienfelding up the place, I have to bring up an episode. The only thing I remember from the episode, was this guy in a wheelchair, and his wife starts screaming at him, "You didn't wipe your wheels. It's only common courtesy to wipe your wheels when you come inside."

It reminded me that people do treat someone in a wheelchair differently. We want to do the right thing, but we fail. When someone, like the guy's wife is exposed to someone in a wheelchair everyday, they begin to treat them as a "normal" person.

What do you tell them? I mean how deeply to you get into your explanation to strangers in the bar? Does it vary with how drunk they are? Do you wing it depending on whether the question seems perfunctory or genuine interest?

That and how interested they actually are.
It is courteous to wipe your wheels if it is wet outside or going onto carpet. I have a towel and wipes in my backpack just for that. The wipes are for that and the fact that most disabled bathrooms are trashed.

I think you're bang on.

rkzenrage - what happened to necessitate the wheelchair?

I have a number of disorders, they are congenital and degenerative. A few are advanced arthritis, osteoporosis, degenerative connective tissue disorder, a few birth defects in my spine and epidural space and a few other issues. It's complicated. I can go into it more if you wish.

Damn.

I hope inadequate/impossible pain management isn't included in the few other issues.

I have pain management. Adequate or not would be a long conversation.
They are doing all they can and I am grateful for the care that I get.
The fact is that the technology is just not there yet to be able to deal with the level of pain that I am in.
I'm not complaining about the pain, just that it causes other issues and complicates existing problems.

I have a bit of an idea of some of the issues that long term chronic pain can create. Not only are there the obvious issues but there's more subtle and indirect physical, emotional, and intellectual effects as well.

Absolutley.