When's it okay to dislike "special" people?

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I'm going to echo what some people are saying here: just because someone's mentally handicapped doesn't mean they're free from judgment, but it does mean that you have to consider exactly how they're handicapped in your judgment. If they're acting like they do just because they aren't understanding that it's bothering people instead of malicious intent I'd say your grounds for disliking him are a fair bit slimmer.

Honestly it's a really hard thing to say. There's certain things you'll judge socially inept people for that it's not considered acceptable to judge mentally handicapped people for. Things like the jokes that you mentioned. Regardless of what disorders they have some people will just tell really bad jokes and not get that they aren't funny. That's usually considered a perfectly acceptable reason to dislike someone for provided there isn't some sort of medical reason for it, even if the problem resulting in the bad jokes is the same.

I'd say that it's perfectly acceptable to be annoyed with someone like the guy you're talking about or even dislike them provided that you're keeping the reasons they might have for it in mind. So really just how you should treat everyone else

 

[RiseUp]

I normally try to make certain allowances for people's conditions. I work as a lifeguard at a public pool/waterpark, and as you can imagine, I run into a lot of people with special needs. How much I let them get away with is situational, but there's always a line. When they cross it, I do tend to feel angry with them. I don't blame them (even though they still make their own decisions, they're influenced by their disability, which is impossible to fault them for), but it's not wrong to get angry at someone for violating rules of social conduct.

The movie theater example above raises a good question though, how to react to situations like that in public (outside a professional environment). For that, I don't have any answers.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

If the person is an asshole, then yes. It shouldn't matter if they're disabled or not, if they're jerks, then you shouldn't feel bad about that.

Let's just say... I've had experience with people that have disabilities, and I've found that there are all types. (Thankfully, most of them have been nice people, though some weren't so friendly...)

 

[SKBPinkie]

I dunno - I feel like it's something that needs to be analyzed on a case-to-case basis. Is it the disability that's causing the rude behavior? Or is he simply using that as an excuse? Is it something that's triggered by something and happens very rarely or does it happen often? Can he be cured at least such that he doesn't disrupt other people?

The more I think about this, the more I feel like labels like "special" or disabled are in need of change. As helpful as they might be for classification / organization, peoples' use of these terms often leads to unnecessary prejudices.

 

[Queen Michael]

He makes stupid jokes.

What are those jokes? I can't help but chuckle at the idea of a "special" person annoying people by making horrible jokes. Can you give us examples :=)

I can give you one.

Let's say he's chatting to my boss. The other people usually try to make a little small talk with the trashcan-people when they're in their office collecting the trash. To avoid an embarrassing silence, I guess, though I hate hearing it since people talk so unnaturally to them. In a kind of "I am being nice to the retard" kind of voice.

Anyway, the conversation might be something like this:

Trash guy: I'm done for today in an hour.

My boss: Then you'll have to make sure not to miss the train home.

Trash guy: If I do that, I'll have to run after it. And try to catch up with it. [Annoying laugh]

 

[Caiphus]

Ah, well. It's a tough question. As long as you realise that these people probably lead rather difficult lives, and sympathise with that, then you probably aren't doing too much wrong.

I worked retail for a couple of years in a mall, and a mentally incapable man would "visit" around once every week. A couple of the other employees would hide when he did so, and it was left to the remaining staff to deal with him. And he would shriek and yell near other customers, and we'd have to babysit him for a while and make sure he was happy so he wouldn't panic and cause a scene. No idea if he had a carer and, if he did, where the hell they were. But yeah. It was frustrating and annoying. What can you do though? The man clearly couldn't control himself; he had the brain of a two year old.

So yeah, I must say I disliked him for causing me grief, and for annoying/driving away other customers. But, whatever. It would have been worse if it was a normal, fully intelligent person coming in and making a damn fuss every week. If it was, we would have called security.

 

[The_Echo]

It depends on what you mean by "special," as special needs can mean a variety of things.

It could be that this special person just has a learning disability, or someone like my brother, who holds little control over his muscles and is effectively mentally limited to the extent of a toddler.

And your leniency should depend on how "special" they are. Some people with special needs just plain cannot and will not ever work in a manner we might consider acceptable. Others have the capacity to learn and adapt despite their circumstances. The former portion generally won't be in the workforce. Special needs people who are capable of work and self-sufficiency have no excuse to act inappropriately, and in a worst-case scenario are effectively abusing their deficiency for a free pass into social acceptance.

Unfortunately I think America (dunno about the rest of the world) just stamps every special needs person with the same "don't be mean to me" stamp, and they wind up getting special treatment by default regardless of how much they may or may not actually need it.

At the end of the day, "special" people are still people. Treat them as such.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

If you know the guy personally or work with/around him daily then by all means, it's fine to dislike the guy. There's always going to be an asshole in a group, even among the special needs group. Likewise, there are going to be people who shame you for disliking a single special needs person no matter how well you know the guy.

 

[Evil Smurf]

Anyone can be a dick, you can dislike anyone for it.

 

[AgedGrunt]

"Okay" is rather subjective; it will mean 100 different things to 100 different people.

To me it is always okay to like or dislike people. That is, it's your right to an opinion. As far as what other people think of that? It's your personal experience with the individual, not theirs.

Special needs' people can be an exception, but it's important whether or not their behavior is willful. They may not have control over it or simply don't understand. In the end I'd say it's more about that behavior than the person, unless they are one in the same (if that makes sense).

 

[Korolev]

Well, it depends. His behaviour may be annoying, but is he really responsible for his actions? Is he acting that way BECAUSE he has a mental impairment, or would he have acted that way just because that's his personality? It's a difficult question. If I were you, I'd give him the benefit of doubt. Proper social etiquette actually requires a fairly high degree of intellectual functioning, which he may not have. Many special needs people DO act inappropriately, and on impulse, because they can't control themselves as well, in some circumstances.

 

[xshadowscreamx]

I haven't really found any 'special' annoying, but to kind of change the subject, there is this girl in my class who unnecessary adds to conversations when it was not at all needed or wanted with her annoying voice.
a symptom of asbergus , not that I'm an expert and I do have friends who do have it. It just jarring to me.

 

[lee1287]

being a dick is being a dick, with no legs, legs, blind or not blind. Being "Special" doesn't entitle you to be mean, I'm certain some people see it that way though.

 

[Wolf In A Bear Suit]

Well this is one of those situations where a person can justifiably be treated different. It's not like the hitting a woman debates that were circulating over the past while, the person has a disability and isn't fully responsible for their actions. You don't have to like them but be a little bit more patient. Obviously it depends on the disability though. If the person can't behave properly though, say in a workplace they probably shouldn't be there. Not fair to other staff.

 

[scorptatious]

Boy does this question hit close to home.

My brother and I were both diagnosed with autism. He was affected worse than I was.

He's not a bad guy, in fact sometimes he can be fun around.

He has these annoying aspects to him though that are more or less symptoms of autism. He gets freaked out when things don't go EXACTLY his way, he's not very social, so he has a very limited amount of things to talk about beyond video games and movies, and he lacks the ability to understand most social cues so more often then not, he'll just keep rambling on and on about stuff that most people don't really care about and won't realize that he's been talking for too long.

He also has this annoying habit of not learning from his mistakes. We tell him that all the above stuff I mentioned can annoy people and it has gotten him into trouble in the past. He does realize what he did got him into trouble, but he just goes back to doing those things anyway.

It makes him be rather hard to be around, and as awful as it is for me to say, I can't help but resent him for being this way. I wish he would change himself for the better, but deep down I know that that's most likely never going to happen.

At the very least though, he doesn't know how to use a webcam and upload videos on the internet. Because then he would probably end up like this guy:

Spoiler

Even then though, he's probably smart enough not to do the things this guy did.