[nabs-l] How to handle creepy blind-obsessed people

[Elif Emir Öksüz]

Hi Kaiti,
What you and your friend have been going through sounds threatening.
Even for stalking you can talk to title 9 of your school.
Here is the link for you.
https://www.udayton.edu/finadmin/campus/nondiscrimination/
Title 9 is the unit takes care of assaults and harassment's especially
sexual ones.
Title 9 guys will help you to whether to report or not. They may even
ban him talking to you. I remember one instance. One of my clients was
kind of fall in love with a girl, but the apparently does not
interested in.
He started fallowing her. They were in the same dorm. One day she saw
him in front of the girls’ bathroom area, right after she took a
shower.
Then she did report the incidence to title 9. Then he was prohibited
from texting, talking, and fallowing her, and his dorm was changed.
My suggestion is, talk to title 9. At the first stehp, ask them what
to do rather then reporting him. If you need to or want to report they
would help you.



2015-10-19 7:29 GMT-04:00, Karl Martin Adam via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>:
> Hi Kaiti,
>
> It seems to me that the issue here is that this guy is creepy not
> that he's blind obsessed.  There's nothing wrong with being
> attracted to blind people if the person goes about interacting
> with the people they're attracted to in a respectful way, and you
> would be in the same boat with this guy if he were attracted to
> say clarinet players rather than the blind.  I do think that
> telling him you're not interested politely and preferably through
> say facebook not when you're alone together and certainly not in
> front of others (that would embarrass him pretty badly) is the
> best course.  I understand the fear of how he'll react, but not
> telling him no, in his mind, will almost certainly mean that
> you're ok with what he's doing.  This is partially a cognitive
> impairment thing--many people with cognitive and emotional
> impairments don't really understand subtlety.  It's also a guy
> thing; most guys will respect a flat out "no," but many can
> convince themselves that anything less direct is a "yes" in
> disguise.  This is because of our cultural beliefs that women are
> coy and are supposed to resist advances by men even though they
> really want them and because some women actually do follow this
> cultural script making it difficult for a man to tell whether an
> indirect rejection is an actual rejection or a form of flirting.
> You might also try talking to a counselor or someone in the psych
> department about how best to communicate with people who have
> emotional and cognitive impairments that stop them picking up on
> social cues.  Of course if he does anything after you tell him to
> stop, that is reportable.
>
> Best,
> Karl
>
>  ----- Original Message -----
> From: Kaiti Shelton via nabs-l <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
> <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
> Date sent: Mon, 19 Oct 2015 00:41:40 -0400
> Subject: [nabs-l] How to handle creepy blind-obsessed people
>
> Hi all,
>
> I'm sure you're wondering about the strange subject line, but the
> situation is exactly how it sounds.  This guy started pestering a
> friend of mine who is also blind on campus, and since we've
> started a
> disability organization and have been seen together and he saw my
> cane
> he's now starting to do it to me.  Apparently he has some
> neurological
> problems that are supposedly controled, but the odd behavior
> isn't
> something that we're aware of that can be related to seizure
> disorders.  He has admitted to my friend that he has a thing for
> girls
> with disabilities, and since meeting her has been fascinated by
> blind
> chicks.  It was a little disturbing to me when he started sending
> me
> really forward facebook messages and mentioned my friend, and
> when I
> asked her about it the next day she half-jokingly referred to him
> as
> "Her stalker," and told me she'd fill me in further in private,
> which
> she did.  He seems fairly harmless for the time being and she's
> so far
> been successful in just ignoring him or not giving information,
> and
> she certainly made it known that she does not return the liking
> he
> says he has for her, but I still am creeped out a bit by the
> pattern
> of going after blind chicks.  Obviously I haven't given him any
> information and have mostly ignored his messages he's been
> sending me,
> but I'm a little hesitant to just block him because he'll
> probably
> show up to the club meetings now that he knows about them.
>
> I've been advised by a male friend of mine to just tell him to
> back
> off and leave me alone, but I'll admit that as a woman who is
> fairly
> identifyable as the only one with a cane and who is unable to see
> him
> coming I don't know if that is the best approach or not.  He
> hasn't
> done anything at this point that is reportable, so I don't quite
> know
> what the best approach would be.  I am pretty creeped out how he
> targets disabled women and blind women in particular now, but
> that
> isn't a crime in and of itself.  Thankfully I had class the time
> when
> he showed up to our table hours for our awareness week on campus,
> and
> he didn't show up to the described movie night we just had like
> he
> said he was going to.  I usually have chapter meetings for
> another
> organization directly after the club meetings so I do have an
> excuse
> to leave club by a certain time, but I'm not thrilled by the idea
> of
> this dude showing up and being weird with my friend and I while
> we're
> trying to get work done, or meeting me in person and making it
> harder
> for him to miss me when I'm going about my business on campus.
>
> Don't get me wrong---I totally have ignored creepy online people
> before in the few instances where they have sent me strange
> facebook
> chats or what have you, but the fact that this is a sighted dude
> on my
> campus who is going after a specific disability is really creepy
> to me
> and I do not feel comfortable about it.  Advice?  Also, I do
> understand that this topic kind of verges on adult conversations,
> but
> please keep your responses G or PG as I do not intend to break
> any
> list guidelines and nothing grossly inappropriate has happened
> here.
>
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