Friends and Relations
=====================

Friends
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All your friends gone? Deserted you? Don’t like
gimps?

It’s easy to feel alone. Let’s assume the unlikely
worst. You *are* alone, or virtually so. Your old friends
have lost interest. What is difficult to see from your
perspective as novice wheeler is that you can’t *move* in
this world without meeting people and forming
relationships. The only social tragedy which can befall
you is not to move, to hide yourself. If you are visible,
if you see *anyone*, then the only way you can prevent
social ties from forming is to not want them.

.. epigraph::
   
   “If a person can learn to like himself enough
   to project that feeling of good feelin’ about
   himself to other people, then it’s just a matter of
   time before the other people are going to come
   around and get to like him as a person. They’re
   not gonna look at that wheelchair anymore —
   they’re gonna like him as Joe or Bill or Suzanne
   of whoever.”

   — Rick Harry