Keeping the Public Informed

Tonight, I "revealed" twice in the span of a couple of hours. One mention at a meeting for an upcoming teaching project, the other after a show I had just seen. Both went fine.

The first one went something like this:

"By the way, I know that some of you aren't aware, so you should know that I'm slightly blind. The only way that should impact you is that if you hand me a written note and expect me to read it, I won't be able to do that. But if you want me to pretend I can read it and make it up as I go along, I'm pretty good at that."

The key seems to be getting the other person to laugh. This has always been Governor Paterson's approach to setting people at ease, and it's something I learned by trial and error over the first ten years of being not-not-blind. It does work, in that it gets the information across while simultaneously conveying that I am not a total weirdo.

Humor is a warm connection that does not require eye contact. But there's also a part of a reveal that, subtly, makes people feel more distant. There's a reading that does, "Oh, you're mysteriously blind? That's different from me. You're not quite like me." Not to say that people consciously think this, but I do feel that there's an element of that, even in social surroundings.

Whatever the case, it's necessary, and it does feel good to get a laugh from a room. I've known the latter since I was nine years old, and it's taken me a while to figure out the former.