Like many others I eventually succumbed to the lure of Facebook and have steadily built up my list of friends - some are great friends of old, others I have met more recently, mainly through work.
The danger I've found of being open about your disability on facebook is that you can attract 'devotees'.
For those of you not in the know 'devotees' are apparently aroused by disabled people not because of their vivacious personalities, sharp wit, intelligence or flirtatious nature, but purely because of their disability.
Perhaps devotees think they are doing us a favour because they think no one else will go for us. My personal experience is that there are plenty of very 'normal' people who do want to go out with disabled people because of their positive qualities, rather than just because they have a disability.
There's far more to me than my disability so when a 'devotee' picks me out and asks me to be their friend it is really not flattering in the slightest. Ironically in my younger, less experienced and at times more deparate days I might have been flattered.
Nowadays it just seems perversed that someone should pick me out when they don't even know me and for some reason has the audacity to think I might be so desparate as to sign up to be their friend. Who's the saddo, not me.
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
Monday, February 9, 2009
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