Getting to know you, getting to know all about you...

With the onset of my own impairment, I became almost morbidly sensitive to the social position and treatment of the disabled, and I began to notice nuances of behavior that would have gone over my head in times past. One of my earliest observations was that social relationships between the disabled and the able-bodied are tense, awkward, and problematic.
-Robert Murphy

One of my earliest ventures out in my wheelchair after my accident was to a local mall. After shopping a while I was waiting for my friend to come out of a store when a 50ish looking woman approached me. She began a conversation with me that seemed innocuous but quickly escalated to an inappropriate and intimate one - considering we had met seconds before.

After telling me she just had several surgeries, including a hysterectomy and another procedure I cannot recall, she flat out asked me if my bladder worked. I remember blinking at her and not responding. She smiled and repeated the question, adding "Surely you don't mind. I'm sure with your disability that you're used to talking about these things."

Not with total strangers, I remember thinking, as my friend walked up. I never did answer her question and, quite frankly, if it happened today, I have a repertoire of ways to respond because over the decade I've been visibly disabled that same kind of behavior has repeatedly happened .

I'd label it inappropriate and intrusive, but I suppose it might fall into the category of tense, awkward and problematic. Certainly some would say that when people ask intrusive questions, they "don't know what else to talk about" to which I respond "How about those Mets?"

The same social rules do apply in social interactions with people with disabilities. It's inappropriate to walk up to a total stranger and ask her questions about her bladder and it's the same when a person has a disability. Yet it's amazing how many people seem to think that getting to know a person with a disability is only about asking questions about the disability- which include intimate and intrusive questions sometimes. Rather than talk about topics of general conversation such as movies, books, sports, etc, some people make a beeline for the medical information.

I'm not saying, on the other hand, that it's not okay to ask at all what a person's disability is at some point. And sometimes when people hold back asking that question it's almost painful to watch them dampen down their curiosity. I have had a few conversations where folks were talking about other topics but kept trying to find out exactly why I was in a wheelchair - like one woman who kept bringing up TV movies about disabled people in wheelchairs and then asking me pointedly if I could relate to each character. I felt like screaming "It's a spinal cord injury!" after five minutes of that.

If there's one way to reduce the tension and awkwardness that people sometimes feel upon meeting a person with a disability, it's this - social encounters with people with disabilities need to acknowledge the person who has the disability. Just like you would with anyone. And getting to know that person takes time just as it does with everyone else.