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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Being called a cripple

80 replies

IWantToBeASleepingCat · 17/06/2024 10:34

I haven't dated for ages..acquaintance put me in touch with a man .. who hadn't dated for ages. We only chatted. Had loads in common.. music especially ( big passion for us both) he's got a motorbike ( l used to be a big biker). He's an hippy kind of guy.. just my type.
Both had similar jobs etc..we are now retired.. he still rides his bike ( he also has a car). Gosh we talked on the phone for hours. .
He asked me out and said...perhaps we can go for a ride on the bike.
I said l now use a walking stick due to breaking my hip and now have osteoarthritis and couldn't get on a bike.
He went quiet.
I said are you still there..
He dithered answering then said..
" l don't think l could date a cripple"
I put the phone down and blocked him..

OP posts:
AGodawfulsmallaffair · 18/06/2024 16:12

Pinkbits · 17/06/2024 18:28

Come down from that high horse. My point is the gent probably comes from a generation where the word was commonly used, and didn't have the negative connotations it has today., i.e. he wasn't intending to cause offence by the word. If he'd said disabled it would have been less offensive, but the sentiment was the same.

He’s no gent. It doesn’t matter how old he is - unless he’s had his head in a bucket of sand for 40 years he absolutely knows that’s offensive.

RaininSummer · 18/06/2024 16:14

Nasty man. I think it would have fair maybe to say that he really enjoyed talking to you but he wants a partner who he can ride with. Nowhere near so blunt, cruel and downright rude. Who even uses that word to describe someone?

IDontHateRainbows · 18/06/2024 16:50

Mirabai · 18/06/2024 14:53

….

🤣

DotDashDot24 · 18/06/2024 17:01

the gent

I think you got the first two letters of that word wrong.

Don't worry, spelling is not everyone's strong point.

FlippingFliperoo · 18/06/2024 21:47

Pinkbits · 18/06/2024 14:37

@NeverDropYourMooncup
The C word, as i mentioned is obviously derogatory but as I mentioned, to use it as a verb in perhaps a description of a strangulated economy is a different matter and could maybe cause confusion. Could the chap here have picked better words, definitely. DId he purposefully set out to hurt, unlikely.
The S word you mention died out much later and into the 90s was a mainstay on many a UK highstreet. It had been an insulting term since at least the 80s so don't know why the charity took so long to ban it.

Edited

It is bizarre, the way you’re persisting with excusing and minimising his abhorrent behaviour.

Even if you are determined to minimise the word choice as somehow accidental, he literally told her he can’t date her because she has a disability.

It’s breathtakingly offensive, and totally inexcusable.

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