On the ableism of “a good fit”.

And power

We’re looking for a dentist for A-. I got a whole bunch of recommendations, mostly those specializing in working with disabled kids, but one from a dentist who works with all ages including “neurodivergent” people.

In my emails back and forth with them, one statement stood out. It was something like “come in once and then we’ll see if this is a good fit for you and if it’s a good fit for us”.

First of all, you’re a dentist. You aren’t a good fit for anyone. We show up and your job is to poke our gums with sharp, pointy things and literally drill into our bodies. When I say a dentist is a “good fit” for me, I mean that of all the horrible fits, you’re the least horrible. A GOOD fit would be that I show up and it ends up you’re actually a speakeasy that gives free massages and doesn’t touch my mouth at all.

But I digress.

I know this is just a phrase. “We’ll see if we’re a good fit for each other”. Probably just said out of hand.

But there are people who are almost always considered a good fit for people and places (I’m one of these people), and people who are almost never considered a good fit.

For whatever reason, I have pretty high confidence that if I show up at a business I’ll be considered a good fit. Maybe it’s my proximity to typicality and privilege, maybe it’s very skilled masking. But I’m fairly confident that I’m usually getting 5 star guest ratings at an Airbnb and 5 star Lyft rider ratings. I can’t ever imagine a dentist saying I’m NOT a good fit for them unless insurance declines them.

After an unpleasant experience, I’ll feel the consequences of being in a place that isn’t a good fit for ME (consequence of masking). And maybe I won’t go there again.

But there’s so much power in being the one who gets to decide “this isn’t a good fit for ME”.

So what about those who are constantly deemed not a good fit? Not for school, not for class with the other kids, not for this restaurant or that extracurricular, not for this doctor or that dentist. The person getting 1 stars on Uber because they demand too much (I understand that this is common for disabled folks - neurodivergent folks and folks with mobility differences who require accommodations for a taxi).

It’s not like we live in a society with an even distribution of “fit”. That every person has 10 places that are a good fit and 10 that aren’t. That’s just the story we tell ourselves to feel better when we exclude someone.

I know that because a non-disabled kid gets sooooo many school choices here, and my kid gets one or two on a 1.5 hour bus ride away.

So I guess it’s a throwaway phrase, but one that triggers for me A-‘s past and future of others, over and over again, nicely saying “this isn’t a fit”. Whether it’s a school, anapartment, a city…….