Hi everyone. I hope you enjoyed Christmas and are relaxing during this holiday season.
If you have a moment I have some questions for you. I faced a situation last night that never occurred to me before. It flummoxed me and I'm still confused.
I attended a holiday dinner with friends, all of whom are nice people and all of whom are intimately aware of my health struggles. I see these same friends every Christmas. We ate a lovely meal. Afterward instead of chatting someone suggested we play a game. We'd never done that before. Of the 15 people present about 10 expressed eagerness to try a game. I was among them.
We moved to the living room and sat on couches eight feet apart. The game's suggester described how the game works. Every player gets a little plastic card (about 1 inch tall) on which they write a word. Players then show their cards to other players and talk about the words. One rotating player doesn't get to look at the cards and tries to guess what others wrote. The details of aren't important.
I tried to play the game but it became immediately obvious I couldn't due to my visual impairment. My eyesight isn't good enough to read small words displayed eight feet away. After five minutes of frustration I gave up, withdrew from the game and sunk back into the couch. I listened to everyone else talk excitedly, laugh and continue play without me.
I didn't sulk because that's not my nature but I did feel sour. I felt like my friends abandoned me.
I'm sure nobody wanted to exclude me but the requirements of the game had that effect. When I stopped playing I explained the reason for withdrawing (inadequate vision) but nobody paid attention; they were too excited to continue their fun.
Afterward I felt trapped: I couldn't find any way to discuss my exclusion without making the situation worse. No matter how I might try to explain things I feared people would get defensive and think I was criticizing them for playing without me. I know nobody was trying to hurt my feelings so I didn't want to give that impression. And I didn't want to ruin everyone else's fun.
Some questions for you. First, if you invite someone into your home, to what extent do you accommodate their physical limitations? Second, in the future is there any way I can avoid this situation repeating? Everyone at the party knew about my limited eyesight so mentioning that won't change anything. Finally, is this just something I need to suck up as another sad consequence of losing eyesight? Am I tilting at a windmill here?
Thanks.
I think it's a very difficult situation, especially if the group in question was both aware and again made aware of your limitations. It's definitely unfair that a group that large excluded you, but I also think people who aren't facing limitations just don't realize the extent of how those things affect you.
ReplyDeleteThe last couple of years have shown me just how isolating medical dietary limitations can make living, so I can only guess at how challenging a visual limitation can be.
In my case? I'd feel like if a friend was coming, I'd want to talk about ways to help them feel included by asking what their ability and limits let them enjoy. Obviously a game relying a lot on a sight would be out, just like I'd never serve a roast chicken to my vegetarian friend (I make a delicious stuff shell dish) because I know that friend does enjoy cheese/dairy, but I know that because I asked.
Similar vein, I met up with a blogger friend in a wheelchair in a place she knew was accessible to her, but I didn't include my at-the-time home because I knew the stairs in and out of the home would pose a problem. Instead we had a great day checking out a flea market, but that also took consideration and discussion.
It took work on my part as the friend too, to understand that my friends had those limitations and that I had to consider how that played into our fun.
However, I also think if I saw a friend drawing back, I'd probably sit myself out and talk with them instead. Some of that may come down to social awareness and maybe the group you were in was lacking it, unfortunately.
If you do feel assertive about it, maybe think on some group games that would work to your strengths or at least work with what you can manage. A game like Scattergories for example might work in a similar vein but wouldn't involve needing a small cue card, just voices, and someone to play score keeper. Or a game like Wavelength (a hot and cold game, use chili peppers as a scale to mix it up instead of green-yellow-red).
It can feel like people don't care or aren't sensitive to new changes in our abilities, but I think that leads to them not understanding how to change the conditions in which they interact with us. Giving examples of what you can do instead of what you can't may help.
Still I'm sorry you went through that isolating evening.