The most important thing is to ask a blind person if they need help/how that help can be best provided.


That being said, This kind of thing isn't usually the kind of thing that would annoy me personally, because holding a door is the kind of thing sighted people would also do for one another.

I've never understood why some people get annoyed at things like this. If she wouldn't say it, thanks for trying to help her.

Please don't judge all blind people by this experience.

Just remember to ask first. Don't push or pull, offer your elbow and let someone walk beside you, one step behind.

I personally wouldn't have minded at all, you were just being polite. Maybe she was having a bad day or something.

As the dissenting voice, I can understand being annoyed by this, depending on the situation. However, she should have explained why she was annoyed in that situation to you to make the interaction less negative. Personally, I get annoyed when:

1. The person opening the door for me is standing in the door themselves. I can't see you to go around! If you're standing in my way, this could mean bumping into you, or increased anxiety having to figure out how much of the door you're blocking while holding it open for me. If you're holding the door open, make sure you're standing somewhere where I won't bump you trying to go through the door, or if you can't do that because of the layout, call out so I know where you are.

2. You didn't fully open the door. Again, sometimes you can't, for various reasons. But if you're holding a half-open door, I'm likely to misjudge, and just walk into the door itself, rather than through it. Painful! Or just try an go through on the wrong side. If I open the door myself, that never happens, because I'm holding onto the door so I know where it is.

3. You didn't tell me you were opening the door for me! This results in a situation where I know I'm approaching a door, so I slow down, and hold out my hand, looking for the door. Then...know door! I move slower and slower...am I lost? Where'd the door go? Awkward, and puts me off my feed. Then five seconds later I realize someone is standing there holding the door. And they're probably judging me, wondering why on earth I slowed down in the middle of the door and held out my hand. OK, you're probably not judging me; put that feeling down to personal anxiety.

But any of those things are simple to explain. A simple "Woe, dude! I didn't know you were blocking the door...almost bumped into you!" or "Oh, I didn't realize you were holding that for me!" or similar would explain why I was annoyed without making the interaction negative. So if any of those things is the case, failing to explain is on her.

My thoughts on this kind of thing have evolved and changed a lot over the seven years that I have been blind. First of all, let me just say there is no black and white, one size fits all ideal approach for either offering assistance or receiving assistance, because every blind person will have a different preference, and every sighted person will try to help in different ways. As several people have already pointed out, I do think the most important thing for sighted people to do is ask first. On the flip side, I believe the most important thing for blind people is to try and not react with frustration or resentment when sighted people offer to help them in a reasonable manner. To open a door for someone, as you did, is reasonable and I do not think it was right for the blind person in question to express frustration towards you. However, you could not imagine some of the insane, unreasonable things that sighted people do which we blind people have to deal with. It is a pretty regular thing for people to touch us and grab us without our consent. People will follow us, even when we have explained that we don’t want their help; to be touched or followed like this takes away all of our agency and is the kind of experience that is normally reserved for children, although who thinks it’s ok for a stranger to grab or follow a child? When facing such treatment, I believe it is understandable and even advisable to make it clear that the “assistance” is not appreciated.

When I first lost my sight and learned mobility skills, I was very resentful when sighted people offered help. I had worked hard to regain my independence, and it felt like these sighted people were questioning this independence. I eventually mellowed out, because sighted people normally have good intentions and making them feel bad does not accomplish anything. Occasionally, I would make an effort to help sighted people understand the proper way to offer and provide assistance. For example, if I was dealing with a friend or coworker who I knew I would be interacting on a regular basis. However, for most polite sighted people who I would encounter it would simply not be worth my time to try and explain the intricacies of interacting with blind people, so I would just politely refuse or accept their help, depending on the situation.

A year ago, I lost a great deal of hearing in one of my ears, so it is much harder for me to get around now. As a result, I find myself needing more assistance from sighted people then I required in the past. On the other hand, however, I will say that with my decreased hearing I do find it more difficult to deal with doors that people are holding open for me. I’ve always found it easier as a blind person to simply find the door myself, but now this is even more the case because I have decreased directional hearing. In other words, it is harder for me to tell exactly where someone’s voice is coming from, so it is much easier to walk into them; this combined with the fact that it is often difficult for people to correctly offer left/right directions can result in some annoying situations. For me this is a great example of how you can never know what assistance a blind person might need, so it is always best to ask; likewise, as a blind person, you can never know what a sighted person’s intentions are, or what their previous interactions have been like with blind people, so it’s best to try and default to a polite understanding approach. Honestly, with most human interactions it is best for our default to be polite understanding with limits on preconceptions, weather or not our eyeballs work.

Maybe she felt you were trying to take her independence, I'm visually impaired but I like it when people hold the door out of politeness but I can understand people having a problem with it

The only time I get annoyed with help, is when people scare me by grabbing my arm or elbow without asking.

Some people get annoyed at everything. She probably would have gotten annoyed if someone didn't hold open the door, either.

I wonder if she got a small spike of anxiety at not knowing how the door is being held open. You know, just not being in control of that transition from one room to the other. When you are in control of the door and that transition you have a good idea of where the door is, how fast it may close, you're stabilized by the handle to encounter a possible out of shape rug that may trip you, and you know exactly where a step down or a raised portion of the bottom of the door frame may be since you can feel the door and it's frame as you open it.

If she's an anxious person, I think this momentary loss of certainty could be the reason she expressed in annoyance.