What Real-World Folk Need to Know

My intention was to write the blog roughly chronologically in terms of the physical condition of blindness. For reasons that include the declining condition and the fact that my mind works by association rather than in any linear fashion, that’s not quite practical.
I am not seeing too well.
When people approach me, more often than not, I cannot recognize them. I have always been good at voice identification, which helps. People with distinct body shapes provide better cues automatically.
Environment of where I know people narrows down the field, but is far from foolproof. The smaller of my two bowling leagues has an active roster of fifty-four people. The larger approaches eighty. More people are not on the active rosters. I’ve lived in same neighborhood for eighteen years. I’m in a successful community group. I’ve worked in countless places, many with large staffs. I’ve managed seven apartment buildings over the past twelve years. I have more family than I can count, even if there are so very few actual relationships among them. I have three years of college and went to a high school with some four hundred people per graduating class. Frankly speaking, in my younger years I was a he-ho. I know a lot of people from a lot of different places.Please do not be offended if I do not recognize you, even when we are in an environment we regularly share
This happened twice in department stores in the past week. The second time went well. Voice helped, and the person casually said something that identified from where we knew each other. As contact is still regular, he knew I probably couldn’t place him, and I think he was slightly flattered that I did correctly identify him.
The first incident went badly. First off, the person touched me as first contact. I was big on personal space even before I went blind. I mistook the touch as some ignoramus in the store bumping into someone he could not identify as blind. When he said my name, my sneer turned into a squint of trying to see to identify. There might not be as much difference between those two expressions as I might hope.
In those circumstances, I have become quick in waving my hand in front of my own face and saying I don’t see too well and asking who I am talking to.
Please ignore the fact that after that point, I have a hard time with the social grace of pretending to remember someone that I just don’t remember among the thousands of people who have passed through my life.
My advice in any circumstance is to identify yourself when you approach, and if we are outside the common environment where we met, indicate from where we know each other. And don’t be insulted..