Guest post by Interesting Facts About Space author Emily Austin
Emily R. Austin was born in Ontario, Canada, and received a writing grant from the Canadian Council for the Arts in 2020. She studied English literature and library science at Western University. She currently lives in Ottawa.
Releasing on January 30th 2024, Interesting Facts About Space is a fast-paced, hilarious, and ultimately hopeful novel for anyone who has ever worried they might be a terrible person—from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead.
I’m blind in one eye. I often accidentally bump into people. This usually happens in grocery stores. I turn around an aisle and collide with an unforeseen human or a grocery cart. People can’t tell I have a significant blind spot, and sometimes react by scoffing, or by shouting, “Watch where you’re going!”
This experience partially inspired my new novel, INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SPACE, which is about a space and true crime obsessed woman named Enid who has an irrational fear of bald men and is convinced that someone is following her. Enid is deaf in one ear, and sometimes she’s yelled at in grocery stores like I am.
When people shout at me it’s likely because they assume I’m careless. It might surprise them to learn I’m actually a hyper-vigilant, profoundly anxious person who rarely wants to be perceived let alone to collide physically with strangers. I worry I might care too much. I walk into stores with my credit card already gript in my hand to avoid having to fish it out of my wallet, God forbid I hold up a line. I’ve injured myself trying to dodge out of other people’s way.
There have been many times in my life when I misinterpreted other people’s behaviour. For example, I had a few friends as a kid who never invited me over to their houses. When I was growing up, I thought of being invited to your friend’s house as a key milestone in solidifying a friendship. I wanted to see their Barbies. The colour they painted their walls. Because some of my friends never invited me over, I assumed they didn’t really like me. We must not actually be friends.
Years later I found out one friend was abused. Another’s parents were divorcing. Some families just weren’t accustomed to having kids over. Some were busy and didn’t have the time. There were lots of reasons why I didn’t get an invite that child-me hadn’t considered, and that had nothing to do with whether or not my friend liked me.
I was recently riding the train and saw a woman I’ve encountered before who I know has untreated mental health problems. She was shouting at someone. They were yelling back that she was “a Karen.” I knew that her behaviour was not motivated by ignorant entitlement, but by the fact that she is mentally ill. I tried to communicate that, but everyone was too angry to listen.
In addition to being shouted at for bumping into people due to my poor eyesight, there have been other instances when I was surprised by people’s interpretation of me. Like many people, I have my own secret challenges that I generally keep close to my chest. Because of that, I have seemed disengaged when I was actually depressed, or unfriendly when I was actually anxious, or impolite when I didn’t understand a social cue the way other people did.
Some people are secretly battling grief, abuse, illnesses, or other stresses. Some people are partly blind, or deaf, or mentally ill. Some people have strange phobias that impact how they interact with people. I think most people behave the way they do for reasons that others are not fully in-tuned to.
It’s important to stand up for yourself. I don’t think we should passively allow folks to run us over in grocery stores, or to yell at us on the train; however, I think it’s also important to acknowledge the possibility that there are non-malicious reasons why people behave the way they do. We aren’t privy to the whole picture, and we often don’t understand.
Sometimes when I accidentally bump into people, they don’t make a face or yell at me. Sometimes, even though they don’t know I have one blind eye, they give me a chance to say, “Sorry”, or they smile at me.
