I have a fairly small circle of friends, but that’s more because I’m an introvert, than because of my sight. There are things that are often more difficult, sure, like recognizing someone you’ve only met a few times. But if I was fully sighted, I expect I’d probably have about the same number of friends.

Most of my friends are fully sighted, though a few of them have other disabilities or issues. However, mostly we bond over the various nerd things we all like that was how I met most of them.

I have a fairly wide circle of online blind friends, but much of our discussion revolves around things we have in common: a love of sci-fi and fantasy books, games and movies, that sort of thing.

In terms of sighted friends, I chat to my neighbours sometimes, occasionally do something with work colleagues, but honestly my time is pretty full with work and my kids out-of-school activities. I wouldn't really have much time to just pop to a friend's place for a coffee for example, and even if I did have the time you'd be looking at taxi money on top of whatever I'd spend whilst out.

Online, again, many of the people I hobby with are sighted, some of them know I'm blind but it doesn't really impact (I moderate web forums online, read for LibriVox, a few things like that.

I don't know how much of the width of my friendship circles are due to my blindness, and how much just to my personality and lifestyle.

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I wont say im in the exact same situation, but i find it hard to make friendships, mostly because as legally blind / blind it seems like i live in another world then them.. But for now im not that much worried becuase of Covid-19 makes it all more difficult..

In all honesty most of my friends or fully sighted. My two best friends I've known one for 21 years and the other for 16. I do have a nice mix of blind friends as well though.

As a kid, most of my friends were the outcasts; the poor kids, the disabled kids, the socially awkward kids, the weird kids. I feel like it had more to do with being poor than being blind though, honestly. It was the out of style hand-me-down clothes, missing activities with friends because they cost money, eating slop from the free lunch line when others would be sharing awesome packed treats from home, not being up on the latest cool trend/toys because we couldn't afford them, etc.

For me, though, making friends as an adult has been *way* easier and those friendships have been a lot more meaningful.

Do some of them drift away over time? Yes. The roommates I had in college, I haven't talked to in decades. The group I was gaming with 5yrs ago has moved on to other things and there wasn't enough else in common there to keep us together. But that's all just normal life stuff. It's just how it works.

Others stick around. I'm in my mid 40s and have many friendships that have lasted 10, 15, 20+ years (one of whom is blind). My circle of friends is not huge, but I'll take quality over quantity. Still, if I wanted to count them all, I'd have to take off at least one sock.

While my 10% acuity lasted I never had trouble making friends anywhere, never felt discriminated, and never got bullied. My circle of friends grew even more after I got Internet access at home and started organizing a group of geeks of roughly my age on IRC. After dropping out of high school at 17 to pursue a career in tech things changed a little, as I've always made sure to keep a barrier between my professional and personal lives, but outside of work my group of friends remained strong, with the most fun moments being the gathering events that we organized together such as LAN parties, wardriving adventures, and group dinners.

After going blind, however, things changed drastically, I closed myself to the world due to shame of having lost my sight despite it not being my fault, slowly lost contact with my friends, and although they still meet on the very same IRC channel that I founded in the 90s, they stop gathering up for real life events at some point, and one of them has since died in a car accident.

These days I have zero friends besides my own family, and I do miss the gaming, coding, and learning that I used to do with my Internet friends, but the world has also changed a lot since then, and we're all in the 40s or getting there, so I doubt that we'd continue to do the same things even if I hadn't gone blind. However I'm not sure whether in my case the fact that I have no friends now has anything to do with my blindness or my shame of being blind. Fortunately I'm quite introverted, so having no friends doesn't bother me much; not being able to enjoy technology the way it was intended to be experience bothers me a lot more.

Sighted person here, I just want to throw out there that the COVID Epidemic has made everyone collectively insane. I’ve found it especially hard to make friends in the last two years. It seems like most people have retreated to a few close connections. Also it seems as though COVID has marked an uptick in the social-media-ification of many people, and it seems fewer people Are connecting in real life anymore. I get that you are probably speaking my to an experience that extends outside the epidemic, but, things seem to be especially challenging these days.

Are you sure it’s the disability keeping you from making friends? I’m blind and the majority of my friends are sighted

I am an introvert, so this is never been a really big problem with me. But I still know how you feel. Literally all of my friends are blind except for about two sided peers. We’re all so introverted, we rarely go to each other‘s houses. But we’re all super good friends. My circle is small, but they’re the best people I’ve ever known. That’s how it works for me.

I’m pretty active in my local community (Temple volunteering, Girl Scouts, Busking etc) and I use a blind cane for all of it.

The only place I’ve had genuine difficulty making friends would be Girl Scouts as the other parents often would act as if I was another scout(!!!!!!!) or act as if I couldn’t help with setting up tables for cookie sales.

Ended up having to get the GSA involved when one parent attempted to pressure me into dropping out as she felt having a disabled person being an active leader was “setting unrealistic expectations” for her child (who had a different disability). That was the messiest thing I’ve ever dealt with, coming from someone who I originally thought was decent.

I have about 5-6 sighted friends but am of them have another disability. The most “abled” person I am friends with struggles with internal pain.

I’m able to walk fairly long distances so I’m able to pop in for a bit at a few of my irl friends places at a whim.

Moving to a city really did help increase my social life as I am now able to regularly get out unlike when I lived rural.

Not gonna lie, aside from my sighted boyfriend, my parents, and those who help me, I haven't really interacted with anyone my age who's sighted. I haven't particularly gone out of my way to do so - my uni is online and the thought of going to something like a MeetUp group by myself makes me kinda... anxious? Plus things like board games that I enjoyed doing with sighted people when I saw more, I don't know how to make accessible now. So, tbh, my friends are also blind/vision impaired.

I don't know how anyone does this. Are there even enough blind people in the world to have a circle of friends who are all blind? How does that even happen? Other than the people I mentor, who I've specifically joined up with, I know literally no other blind people as friends. Is this something that happens to people when they've been to special schools or whatever?

As to actually making and keeping buddies... well, that's a two way street. I could see fine until I was 19 so I have been on both sides of this. One of the problems you will hit is that everyone is terrified of saying the wrong thing to you and this is something that modern social justice politics is making way worse, by making everyone hypersensitive and encouraging people to look for ways to take offence . Needless to say, that doesn't help very much with making friends. They will make mistakes and so will you and that's just normal human interaction. I have been accused of having a very canned laugh I do when people say awkward stuff, but I guess I mean it in the best way possible!

Even with the best will in the world though people will be cautious around you because they don't want to annoy you, and that's fair enough but I think we all know it makes it harder to make friends. In the end you will probably have to take some responsibility for solving that, be friendly, be a buddy, ask them questions about things they care about. You can take the position that it shouldn't be our responsibility to solve the problem of other people feeling awkward, but practically I think it has to be to some extent.

Eh. Idk if this is just me or if the world agrees but friendships died a while ago.

Its gana sound cringe but the loner role suits this day in age. I'm 24 and already wish to be the old hermit no one talks to.

I’m a sighted person. I always felt the opposite, in that my visually impaired friends didn’t want to hang out any more/drifted from me. I miss them!

I relate to this so much.

I have no sighted friends IRL, there’s one online but we hardly talk, and two blind friends.

I hardly hang out with one and when we do it’s mostly at restaurants and the other one is working so we don’t hang out.

It really is hard to make friends.

I would say I have around a dozen friends, with my sighted friends things I've done include having dinner out at restaurants, going swimming, going for picnics, playing card and board games, and streaming shows. I just want the world to get out of pandemic mode so I can visit people more often.

I would say not very good at friendships in general and if you’re prideful or sensitive you’ll not like me.

I am also a workaholic. And not good at keeping in touch.

So yes I can say I have a bit of trouble with friends but it’s my doing. I use to or sometimes misattribute it to blindness but I think there are other reasons for sure.

I would say do some self awareness work and maybe you’ll find it.

I would say that as a blind, we overall form deeper friendships when we do form them. But, today's world, is so fast moving, people change places, jobs, homes, and it's obvious that they will change friends as well. Don't worry about it, I've had countless blind and sighted friends come and go, we just keep forming new friendships.

I think that the fact that you care about your friendships, surely puts you in a good friend category.

Edit: some of blind friends of mine, do think that sighted friends hold them in a lower respect or social category or something. I totally disagree. You can't hold any human being in lesser respect just because of their disability, if they do, they are not friendship material.