I had one friend who was blind (sadly passed on).
Hope it's not inappropriate to post a story on this thread, but I had one outing with the man which taught me a lot.
First, "don't touch the blind person, let the blind person touch you." Or as he added, "You lead and I follow, but I'm not a dog on a leash. Let me know when you're ready for me to grab your arm - don't grab mine."
The irony: we went to a 7-11, or Wawa (don't remember which) that he was familiar with and he had me order him lunch - the entire thing was automated and I'm technologically behind the times so I didn't know how to operate these machines. He had it all memorized - and the crowd was kind of getting a kick out of how the blind man had to instruct the sighted man on how to order lunch.
But then he got into a verbal altercation with the cashier when she had questions about his card. She kept addressing her questions to me - so my friend spoke up and said, "The card is mine. I'm making the purchase." She kept talking to me and, even though he couldn't see that she wasn't looking at him, he said, "Why are you talking to him? It's MY card. Stop looking at him and talk to me! I may be blind but I'm not deaf!"
He was very good at standing up for himself.
Also, once at his house we got him some fast food and in trying to be helpful I unwrapped his straw & utensils for him. He asked if there was another straw still wrapped, there was. He explained that he preferred to inspect and unwrap anything he was going to put into his mouth himself.
This is very common. Obviously doing something a number of times and tend to remember, which is fine until it is moved or altered in some way, lol.
There is a lot to be said for the kindness of strangers though, and generally speaking it comes from a place of good intentions... but that doesn't stop me from having a near on heart attack when I'm standing and listening to cross the road and focusingon listening for the cars coming and going in either direction to guage when it is safe... only for someone to grab my arm and take 2 steps onto the road before they say anything, like "i'll get ya across, big fella etc", which like i say is a good intention... but it doesnt stop my heart from near launching out of my chest when it happens, lol.
Generally people are pretty considerate and helpful and it is appreciated. And that includes the staff at the cinema that I am a regular at - usually once a week but making a day of it when I do, and sittign through 3-4 films in a day, and more often than not am unaccompanied when I do. Am on first name basis with like half the staff, and they are all very helpful and considerate. And that is the case with other places that I frequent - train station, cab drivers etc.
Although one thing that I do find kinda ironic is that if I'm walking down the street, I tend to stick to the walls of buildings or shopfronts etc. Which dpes mean sometimes people will be stopped as they are doing something on their phone or having a smoke or whatever... but the ironic thing that always gets me is that if there are a few of them, say in fromt of a cafe or resteraunt or whatever and are having a chat, I can hear them talking which is fine, because if they are talking its like a radar, I can figure out how far ahead etc they are and try to go around, but literally everytime when they see me approaching the conversation stops and they are all silent, as if that is somehow going to help me when I've kinda lost where they are how far etc, lol.
So if you see a blind person coming, by all means feel free to clear a path, but don't stop chatting etc on our behalf because hearing the voices helps us avoid bumping into other people, lol.
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