Dark:
Yeah, sometimes (almost always), people think and treat me as if I know nothing. Liike I am some random idiot, walking along and bump someone not on purpose they go nuts, "sorry about that, oh man are you hurt, are you ok..."
I mean seriously, I try to b accomidating, but not allways does it work.

And then, once people find out I'm blind, well they go bonkers, asking me all kinds of stupid (and obvious!) stuff like:
"hi! Were you blind at birth?"
"yeah."
"could you see anything when you were born?"
"uhh, no... Uhh I was blind at birth..."
"oh, right! Well what was it like?"
"well it's... It's normal I guess, I can get around, do stuff..."
"right..."

And on and on and on it goes.
So, as you can tell some of that stuf was obvious. And, like you dark, people talk to my friends/family:
"oooo... is he blind?"
"yeah, it's andy."

Etc, and I hate when people do this:
"is *he* this. Is *he* that. Does *he* do this, that, and the other thing"
It gets sooo annoying, I've got a mouth, people!

What about other people?

I always like get like people like always saying like after like every like word! Like this:
Like hi, uhh like are you, like blind?
Well the word "like" doesnt have to go after every word lol. But that's not my point. But seriously we've all (hopefully) got a mouth and (hopefully) fingers, and a brain, and other parts of the body, just our eyes don't work as expected. And then there is the idiot way. And I dont know if anyone has had this on them in school or something,
"oooo! Yo man, can you guess who this is?"
"uhh..."
And it goes on and on like that. But I really have time to do stuff, and not enough to waste time wiith kiddy stuff like that. I'm serious; just tell me who you are, got it?Sometimes I dont even answer when the same person keeps bugging me about it, "who am i?" "can you guess who I am?" I just hurry away sometimes, not rude but make up some excuse,  like "I'm late for xxx", and then hurry away.

Myself when people ask questions I try to answer as best I can, on the basis that there is one person in the world that is a little more illuminated hopefully. So far I haven't had two questions asked in different ways but with the same underlying meaning like Andy. I have hower heard of someone who was asked to go talk to some kids at a school to which one of them asked "How do you go to the toilet?"

Also at college I've had a few incidents such as "Look out for the hole/wall!", and had to dodge a football in one area leaving one building into a small courtyard area. Yes it was the round type football not the American version. I've been hit by it several times, well not the same ball but in the same place, during my time there and it always made me nervous. It's not as if they permitted it technically either.

I did once though have my grandmother complaining to me about how annoying tactile paving is under her feet, saying she supposes there is a reason for them but she didn't seem to know what.

That as I mentioned was one thing I haven't had, not sure how anyone can be that stupid. I have had people talking to people who are with me though asking them instead of me, and if I'm walking down the street alongside someone my mother thinks they give her funny looks if they have to dodge me as if she should be dodging me around them.

Well, if the person was asking constantly as you say Andy, it might be that they were just being immature. Kid's reactions can be less pleasant than addults, but maybe I'm prejudiced  sinse I had a pretty awful time at secondary school, ----- as much to do with the fact that the school was an absolute hole as with my site.

the ball thing is rather bad Cx2, mostly because people caught up in playing football don't tend to notice. I've quite often had to walk past a bunch of people playing football in colidge, but luckily on the occasions where the ball's come close to hitting me the, people have stopped playing for the few seconds it takes me to get passed.

As The speaking to others thing really! get's on my nerves, especially when it's something involving me, eg, once when paying for cinema tickits on my switch card, the person behind the counter said to my friend "can you ask him to sign?" I must admit at those points I find it rather difficult to reign in my sarcasm so I said to my friend "Can you ask him to talk to me, sinse it's my card"

i do quite often regret these sorts of impulses.

For the street thing, I've found it very much depends upon the part of the country. In nottingham people are quite funny about things, as it's a very large city in the midlands. My dad once told a cyclist off quite seriously, because the cyclist was riding down the pavement, had to stop and wait for me to pass and gave me an incredibly dirty look, ----- especially sinse legally the cyclist shouldn't have been on the pavement in the first place. these sorts of reactions though, are luckily not too common.

the problem I tend to find with people's reactions mainly, is what I said about the 2nd reaction, ----- people who spend so much time thinking about me being blind, they never actually considder me as me.

Again though, this is by no means universal. I've just come back from my Ad&D session (unfortunately probably the last one until september), and met a couple of people who hadn't been there last time, but they were absolutely fine, ----- one of them was incredibly impressed with the Gma dice program that I was using on my laptop, and is going off to download it himself.

Well in the end Andy, it unfortunately all just comes down to diplomacy and good people skills. Despite what I've said in this topic, the majority of the time I try to be fairly friendly, relaxed and open with people, even when they're doing the talk to someone else style of reaction. As my mum once said, it's important to remember that people mostly do this because they're nervous of something strange, -----  a visually impared person, and have no idea how to deal with it. even though I'm naturaly fairly intraverted, most people don't pick this up because I've found ways to talk in a relaxed fashion and put people at ease.

for instance, if in a restaurant the waiter/waitress was taking people's orders, and asked my friend "What would he like?" I'd respond myself with something along the lines of:

"well, I can't quite decide, ---- er ---- that Barbacon steak thing sounds nice, what exactly is Barbacon source?"

And thus start a conversation with them, ----- though of course, I wouldn't ask anything I didn't actually want to know in the first place sinse that wouldn't be genuine, but the important thing I've found is to remember that they're the onese who are bothered and to try and get them to be comfortable.

Generally this isn't something you can plan, it's just a case of being relaxed, and showing the other person that your a reasonable human being despite having less functional eyeballs.

It also helps if you have friends who understand this, and will contribute by being decidedly unhelpful.

I remember one occasion, similar to the restaurant situation I mentioned, when I was out with my wonderfully tactless and rather sarcastic russian friend.

when she was asked "what would he like?" she instantly came back with "how the hell should I know, you'll have to ask him" which was entertaining, if slightly extreme.

with a teacher though, getting in trouble wouldn't be good, ----- I also wonder if this is a case of slightly mistaken motive. I've known lots of teachers come out with things like "I hope he's bought his homework" to one pupil about another.

well my friend is rather like that, ---- in her spare time she does viking reenactment and clobbers people with large broard swords.

It is true that on those sorts of occasions, perceptive friends can help, ---- but all this generally comes down to people skills once again.

hey guys,
I just had a fews things to say about this matter.
I hate when i am walking down the hallway at school and i bump into kids, especially girls, and they just sort of crumple backwards away from me and go about laughing and such.
I have had some stupid instances like this kid asked my older brother if I was blind and he said yyes so he asked my older brother if he could show him some sign language. haha so stupid!
As far as the thing wher other people ask the person next to you a question that should have been spoken to you, I have not noticed that too much but probably as time goes on...

hi!

i have gone trough both discrimination and not-talking-to-the-blind-girl-but-i-talk-to-her-friends-instead.
i was on the store with my best, kind and only friend Jenny. we should buy soft ice cream.
"What do you want?"
"chokolate."
"and what does she want?"
"talk to her, it's not dangerous and she will understand you!"
she seemed surprised and then she asked me. from then, she allways asks ME. when we got out we had to stand resting, both were laughting.
another time i should buy chocolate, i was alone, the cashier asked someone behind me!
"which kind does she want?"
"Wath, who do you mean?
"sorry!" i said "please! talk to me! ask me! i have ears!"
the other person started to laught and agreed to me.
"it's right, why not, she knows and we don't need to send the question around."

another time, when i was on a school trip, we were on a competition.we were three persons in each team. the contest was in threee parts, so every contestants should do a part. who was left outside?
"she can't do annything"
"she is useless"
they was whispering for a long time. they treated me like air!  i tried to tell the leaders of the contest, they didn't care, when they'd talked to the team. the whole trip was boring untill i had to rescue one of the team members. she fell out of a boat!
is it wrong to stand for it's own rights when you are prevented to do something that you use to do?
my art teacher got so angry with me when i sat cutting paper.
"you should ask for help instead"
" not really if i know how to do it, i've done this fiftyelevenmilionstwentytrillions of times."
"that can't be true. i will talk to your parents"
she got a surprice when she heard the answer:
"yes, she use to do it"

sorry for the long, strange post and the spelling, punktuation and grammar errors.

Just for the record "smacking her across the face" would be entirely disproportionate and would not help your case any.

However if felt necessary an official complaint to the school would.

Anyone who would strike someone for such an action might consider anger management classes, assuming you weren't exaggerating a little.

Hmmm, yeah people always ask me, "how can you live?"
Well it is obvious that anyone can live, wether they've got an eye issue, their hearing's not too great, whatever it may be; it's  there...
so I replied with "Uhh yeah; and?"
"and what?"
"and youy mean..."
"well, I thought blind people die or something."
"what? Oh no..."
And to myself:
"what the hell, is he nuts?"

"or, right, well se you later, then."

And I hate when people think that blind people die, like actually just caboom! and your dead...