Tanzeela was in Singapore for the first time to research accessibility for people with disabilities, and I was so excited to have her visit me for a couple of days. When I moved to Singapore six years ago, she had introduced me to someone who later became my strong friend and support system through COVID. That connection meant a lot to me, and having her here felt special.
Tanzeela wanted to load up on proteins, so we decided to meet at a local chain restaurant famous for their steaks. As we arrived, I had already waited for 40 minutes in this huge queue. Tanzeela, being Tanzeela, tried to use her "wheel-chair card" (her joke, not mine!) at the reception to somehow get us a seat faster, but the staff just smiled and asked us to get back in the queue like everyone else.
Our stomachs couldn't take another 40-minute wait, so we decided to go somewhere else. As we moved around looking for food places, we saw crowds everywhere and couldn't find any seats. We kept checking different places, and after looking at a few, we finally found one restaurant that had space—though it was almost full except for a few seats at a table occupied by a group of three. The waiter politely asked if we would be okay sharing their table.
I nodded that we were completely fine with sharing and went over to ask the group if they were okay with it too. I stood right beside them, but they were so engrossed in their chat, talking and laughing with each other, that they didn't even notice I was there. I tried again by coming around to the other side of the table, but still no acknowledgment of my presence whatsoever. They just continued their deep conversations and playful banter, completely absorbed in each other.
I told Tanzeela to just come over and join the table, and I said something like, "Look at them, they're so busy and having so much fun, they definitely won't mind us sharing." As we continued our dinner and caught up on each other's lives, Tanzeela remarked how the group seemed so busy in their chat that they hardly acknowledged our presence at all. I told her I actually aspire to have that level of focus and attention in my own life.
Then after we finished the main meal, we decided to get dessert at the nearby mall—my absolute favorite Tokyo Cheese Factory ice cream. As we got our ice creams and were enjoying them, we heard this familiar laughter sound. We turned around to look, and there they were—the same group. As both of us looked at the group, we turned back to each other with surprise because we noticed they were walking with blind sticks, the three of them tapping their way through the mall.
They were visually impaired.
We both stared at each other, as everything from dinner suddenly replayed differently. I had stood there beside their table, trying to make eye contact, waiting for acknowledgment—making that moment about me, about us, about our need to be seen. But their behavior had nothing to do with us. Nothing at all.
They weren't ignoring us. They simply didn't know we were there. They were navigating their world through sound and conversation, completely present with each other in exactly the way they needed to be.
It's such a human thing, isn't it? To make other people's actions about ourselves, to interpret their behavior through our own lens, forgetting that their reality might be completely different from what we assume.
Tanzeela, who had come to Singapore to study accessibility, had just given me a lesson I would never forget.