Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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How do you meet new people? (self.Blind)
submitted by mdizak
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I've always been the type who loved to walk the city streets, pop into cafes and bars along the way, meet and talk to various interesting people throughout my journeys, and generally just go where the wind blows me. Whether that's befriending a homeless guy down on his luck, or meeting a semi-retired gentleman at a pub who's spent his life working in hostile takeovers, or meeting a cute guy who works for the US State Department in a gay bar in Budapest, or whatever. I've always found it helps provide balance to my life, as constantly meeting new people and listening to their stories helps me retain a down to earth and realistic perspective on things.
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Naturally, going totally blind puts a bit of a wrench into this. Simply finding the bathroom in a cafe / pub is now an issue, let alone finding and getting to the place itself. Then obviously, meeting new people via eye contact, body language, or just being able to scan the room before you decide where to sit is all out the window.
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Any tips or tricks on how to scratch this natural human urge to socialize in this manner? Am I really stuck to meeting purely online or through a friend of a friend, and that's it? No more just random encounters while I'm out and about, or?
I've always been the type who loved to walk the city streets, pop into cafes and bars along the way, meet and talk to various interesting people throughout my journeys, and generally just go where the wind blows me. Whether that's befriending a homeless guy down on his luck, or meeting a semi-retired gentleman at a pub who's spent his life working in hostile takeovers, or meeting a cute guy who works for the US State Department in a gay bar in Budapest, or whatever. I've always found it helps provide balance to my life, as constantly meeting new people and listening to their stories helps me retain a down to earth and realistic perspective on things.
​
Naturally, going totally blind puts a bit of a wrench into this. Simply finding the bathroom in a cafe / pub is now an issue, let alone finding and getting to the place itself. Then obviously, meeting new people via eye contact, body language, or just being able to scan the room before you decide where to sit is all out the window.
​
Any tips or tricks on how to scratch this natural human urge to socialize in this manner? Am I really stuck to meeting purely online or through a friend of a friend, and that's it? No more just random encounters while I'm out and about, or?
akrazyho 5 points 1y ago
I’ve met a few good interesting people through POF and Bumble. Also in bars I seem to be approached a lot, at least a whole lot more than I’m used to from when I wasn’t blind. Which is funny because I’m I am super shy and this being a Hidden at bars it’s totally a new world for me.
Of course I only go to the bar with friends but we’ve been using a binary system to keep me out of trouble. A one is a green light to talk to her and a zero is means that she probably is trouble or I shouldn’t be spending any time on her. For the record I’m not terribly popular at bars but I seem to be asked about my blindness once or twice during a bar session.
For the record I don’t use the binary system to see if I should or shouldn’t talk to a girl, or to see if she’s hot or not. It’s more of a danger run sort of thing. But again even though I can’t see them I actually enjoy talking to girls because I’m totally shy and this is very different to me.
Of course I only go to the bar with friends but we’ve been using a binary system to keep me out of trouble. A one is a green light to talk to her and a zero is means that she probably is trouble or I shouldn’t be spending any time on her. For the record I’m not terribly popular at bars but I seem to be asked about my blindness once or twice during a bar session.
For the record I don’t use the binary system to see if I should or shouldn’t talk to a girl, or to see if she’s hot or not. It’s more of a danger run sort of thing. But again even though I can’t see them I actually enjoy talking to girls because I’m totally shy and this is very different to me.
TechnicalPragmatist 1 points 1y ago
Why can’t a totally blind person do just this? I do this stuff all the time. Sounds like me. I don’t do the bar scene much but I just say hello and talk to people or walk up at a social event say hi and talk to them. Sometimes talk to the person you asked help to get to the bathroom. I was standing in line asked the lady in front of me to tel me when the line moved and proceeded to have a very fascinating conversation with her. Learnt she was a preschool teacher and we talked about that. And I turned around and had a small chat with the ladies behind me. It was fun, didn’t learn as much. I had a store clerk walk me back to the pharmacy and we talked a bit, found out she lived a few cities over, new to the location and was apparently trying to find her way there today and wasn’t very successful. Etc….
At church I just walk up to random groups of people and say hey good morning how is it going? Then start a conversation. At events the same. At a coffee shop I’ve met many people and started conversations too.
And why can’t you just get on a bus or a ride and go where you want to?
At church I just walk up to random groups of people and say hey good morning how is it going? Then start a conversation. At events the same. At a coffee shop I’ve met many people and started conversations too.
And why can’t you just get on a bus or a ride and go where you want to?
DrillInstructorJan 1 points 1y ago
Just being able to go out and do stuff is what gets to most people. I've mentored a couple of people who have been in the same situation and I know what it's like from personal experience. It's a problem solving attitude. I can give you an example, a few days ago I went on a trip into the nearest big city with one of my advanced padawan learners, got on the train, got cabs, went to a restaurant for lunch, went for coffee, and we just organised it. Yes there were problems and it took planning, so it's hard to be spontaneous, but if you call ahead and always have a backup plan you can do it.
I could go into the details but I don't want to post a wall of text. Is there anything specific you want to do that we could talk about?
I could go into the details but I don't want to post a wall of text. Is there anything specific you want to do that we could talk about?
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