At the beginning of lockdown I was bored and on Tinder, not unusual, and met this woman called Lara. We began talking and agreed that we should meet up once restrictions had lifted. She very early into talking warned me that she was severely deaf, but I’ve met deaf people before so this didn’t bother me.
She came over to my apartment and we at the beginning really got on. She didn’t look exactly like her pictures but I thought it wouldn’t hurt getting to know her a little bit. A few minutes after we got situated and comfortable with each other, I asked her some questions about herself, which she didn’t answer as she said they were too personal.
She then made a comment about her deafness, so I took that as an opportunity to tell her what I knew and ask her if she’d ever considered a cochlear implant and such.
She rudely interrupted me and told me I was getting some of my facts wrong and when I asked her how she’d became deaf, she said it was meningitis which I was unaware could cause deafness, so in the moment I laughed and said that wasn’t true. She left half an hour after getting to my place, and said I wasn’t listening to her nor was I getting my facts right.
I got quite irritated by this as I thought it was quite rude so told her I’d walk her back to hers, to which she refused saying it was fine. I checked my phone later that evening and she’d sent me a long text before blocking me on everything basically saying I’m a massive ass.
When I’ve told my friends about the date they’ve all said that too. AITA?
Conclusion
The date ended abruptly with Lara storming out and blocking him, but the real shock came when he learned his friends unanimously agreed with her assessment. Was he truly the ‘massive ass’ she claimed him to be?
Here’s how people reacted:
You asked a deaf person how she became deaf, and then *laughed* at her and called her a liar because of your own lack of knowledge about the situation.
The correct response would have been, “Oh, I didn’t know meningitis could cause deafness,” not “Haha, no, you’re wrong about the cause of your own disability.”
You’re a troll or this really happened, either way YTA.
Jesus dude. YTA. As if you honestly think its perfectly OK to explain a person’s disability TO THE PERSON WITH THE DISABILITY. Can you even hear yourself?
I hope this is fake.
You didn’t mansplain. You were wrong – and not only wrong, you were arrogantly wrong and that is why YTA
For future reference: don’t say “hey, have you tried X?” In a world where disability is treated like a burden, plenty of people have gone looking for a “cure.” The world should be more in tune with inclusive designing for people with disabilities, not forcing people with disabilities to modify themselves to return to “normal”
YTA.
Edit: grammar
All this on a first date?
Seriously?
>She then made a comment about her deafness, so I took that as an opportunity to tell her what I knew
For future reference, this isn’t a good response. Someone saying “I am X” isn’t an opportunity to do an infodump about everything you know about X. You should generally assume that everything you know is something they already know, because they’re actually part of that group and live with the condition every day. You seem to think this was a natural direction for the conversation to take, but it really wasn’t.
>when I asked her how she’d became deaf, she said it was meningitis which I was unaware could cause deafness, so in the moment I laughed and said that wasn’t true
What? Why would you assume she is wrong about her own life? Don’t you think she knows what happened to her? This is honestly kind of a baffling assumption – why would you think you knew better than her about her own life experiences, and be so confident about it that you laughed at her?
This was all incredibly rude. You need to step back from this assumption that you’re always right and know better than everyone else, especially when you’re talking to someone who obviously knows more about a topic than you do because they have first-hand experience.
I think you’ve got your answer considering everyone has told you yes so far as well.
While you may not have meant it, it was definitely a dickish move. I have my own disability and if someone had laughed at me and said something I said about it was untrue I would have been horribly hurt, especially if this was meant to be someone I “swiped right” for for a relationship of some sort.
I think it’s important when asking about something like that that you let them do the talking and you be there to listen and understand rather than be there to correct what they say. If someone has something, chances are they’re going to know information on it, and trying to correct them is only going to hurt. If you don’t understand how one thing links to another, ask. Not only does that then show that you want to better understand but it shows you’re listening and interested.
She said she didn’t want you to ask personal questions, so you kept asking personal questions and made recommendations about her disability, which you knew very little about.
You asked how she became deaf, so she told you. It would likely have been fine if you’d said “I didn’t know that could cause it.” Instead, you laughed in her face and called her a liar about her own lives experience.