What is it about introductions?

Throughout my life, I’ve noticed that the way sighted people introduce themselves to blind people with whom they have some kind of connection is variously completely straightforward, problematic, embarrassed, over-expectant, annoyed or even a thing of fun/malice.

 

It should be  pretty obvious that unless you know a blind person really well, if they’re expecting you, or you have a particularly distinctive/strange voice, it is most helpful to greet them and tell them who you are. However, my experience is that most sighted people don’t greet me in this way. The encounter might take place in anything from a meeting to a train, a noisy pub to a swimming pool - the person might be someone who I know quite well, have met once, who I haven’t seen for years, or who I’ve never actually met but who attended a workshop I ran in 1997.

The fact that enough people do get it enough to introduce themselves saying who they are (Hi, it’s…) and (if the connection is distant or obscure) the context in which they know me (Hi, it’s… from…/we met…), is gratifying. however this makes me most interested in those people who don’t and what it’s about.

It seems to be a fairly common  belief that blind people hold a quick-access and entirely accurate internal database in their heads of everyone they’ve ever met (however fleetingly), and will be able to instantly match a mere ‘Hello’, ‘Alright’, or ‘How are you doing’ delivered in any situation (however noisy or out of context), with everything they know about a person.

Of course, there are blind people with highly accurate memories and exceptional auditory recollection, but, for my part, while my memory isn’t at all bad,  I experience the expectation as unmanageable pressure  and, as a result, I tend to freeze and as a result, losing my ability to remember anything  and can even fail to recognise my closest friends and family in that instant that matters.

It seems that many people are simply unable to think logically about how to approach a blind person in a non-patronising, but nonetheless helpful way. I can understand that there might be an element of discomfort, people don’t want to be thought patronising by giving too much information (in case I really do remember everything about them in that instant when they utter the first syllable). Mostly of course , people will clarify who they are when they see my discomfort and realise I don’t know. Others though, while my difficulty must be obvious,  nonetheless  maintain their silence, as if  waiting for me to perform and save their disappointment in me.

 

It’s hard to think of what it is that goes on for them in those moments. Perhaps merely this fairly stupid attachment to the belief that I must know who they are really, in other cases though, I suspect it is something more malign that gets disguised by playfulness – as if those moments of what must be my obvious discomfort are somehow enjoyed, savoured.

 

I occasionally manage to say “ok, are you going to tell me who you are?”, or more often “sorry, can you remind me”, or “who is it?”, but most often, I feel frozen with embarrassment at not being able to place them, or having a complete blank about their name, always feeling  diminished by it, wishing that my mind hadn’t gone blank. So often I say nothing and bluff my way through it, pretending that I know who the person is and as a consequence, having a less than connected conversation with someone who I know. People  must find my distance weird in these situations. I can go into a room of people who I know (maybe as colleagues, or acquaintances), and not be able to place any of their voices.

 

It’s all about context and the pool of people who might be in that context. If I pretty much know who who’s going to be there and feel comfortable about the situation, I am fine.  I am thrown though if the context is unfamiliar or different from where I’d usually come across the person, if I’m taken by surprise by someone I know but out of context, or by a noisy environment.

 

That’s enough for now. I have to remind myself that this is a blog and not an essay that has to be well argued.