The Real Reason Slow Walkers Make Us So Angry
Hugh Grant has a famous rant about the unbearability of slow walkers. From road-raging speed demons to travelers rushing to board airplanes, most of us recognize the simmering irritation that comes from being slowed down by someone else. Impatience is still a socially acceptable emotion and we laugh at Hugh Grant’s outrage because we get it. It’s funny because it’s true.
I myself used to zip through malls and airports, dodging toddlers and grannies, rolling my eyes at anyone who got in my way. I was an expert at navigating crowded subway stations, spotting openings, always ten steps ahead, like I was in some kind of video game. Wherever I was in the world felt like space that belonged to me. Even if, technically, it was shared, it didn’t feel like we all had the same right to be there.
Our culture values productivity and efficiency, words synonymous with speed. We wear our impatience like a sign telling the world that we are one of the good guys – busy, in demand, super effing important. We’ve got places to be.
Meanwhile, slow is something we associate with words like lazy. Stupid. Selfish. Someone who has their head in the clouds. Slow is self-indulgent. Those sloth-like dawdling lookie-loos who stop to smell the roses deserve to be met with ridicule and rage.
And then one day, I was forced to get out of the fast lane. Well, not one day, but gradually, as my MS progressed. When I started having trouble with my gait and balance I left my crew of slow-haters behind and became one of the hated.
Thanks to a combination of weakness and spasticity, it takes me a full four minutes just to put on shoes. On a good day, it takes me eleven seconds to walk 25 feet. I know this because the Timed 25 Foot Walk Test is a quaint if archaic diagnostic that’s still used to assess disability progression in MS. Eleven seconds doesn’t sound like much until you’re stuck behind me at the mall. And eleven seconds feels excruciating to me when all eyes are on my (lack of) progress.
As frustrating as my pace is for me, I am hyper-aware of how frustrating it is for the Hugh Grants of the world. Friends, family, even strangers see my slowness and often try to “correct” it.
More than one Uber driver has tried to hurry me into the back of a car by lifting my legs without asking, even as I’m being charged Wait Fees for the time it takes to put my mobility aid in the trunk. Once, while slow-walking through a hallway, some dude asked if I needed a push. I thought he was joking because I was in a hospital using a rollator, and not in a park on a swing, but then I felt his hand on my back, urging me forward. Like I just needed some encouragement.
At least once a week, someone clocks me moving slowly (usually towards the elevator they’re holding), and tells me to “take your time”. Often it’s said through gritted teeth which has the effect of making “take your time” sound more like “hurry up”.
Even when “take your time” is meant to make me feel better, the gesture implies that time wasn’t mine to take in the first place. Tolerance, after all, suggests that I am something to be tolerated.
I know that people are mostly trying to be nice, or at least fill the awkward elevator silence, but I feel like my body is constantly being observed, watched and commented on and why can’t you just stare at your phone and pretend not to notice me like you would do with everyone else?
Living in the MS Time Zone means that while everyone is waiting for me, I am waiting for me too. But I can’t help that I move slowly and I’m not convinced I should feel bad about it. While the world tries to hurry me up (don’t bother, I have never lost a game of Sidewalk Chicken), I’m not trying to slow anyone down. If you want to live in the fast lane, that’s cool. You do you.
Maybe what people really mean when they complain about slow walkers is that they resent having to yield to bodies they deem inferior. When speed functions as a moral demand, taking up time becomes of measure of taking up space. Presence can feel like a social transgression when simply showing up becomes and act of insistence, of resistance.
As we stand (or sit) on the edge of a new year, collectively counting seconds and watching clocks, promising ourselves we’ll do more and faster next year, maybe this is a moment to question what exactly we’re rushing toward. Impatience is a choice. We can decide that there’s room for all of us, and at every pace.
Happy New Year, Trippers
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I love this post and so relate to it. I’m always trying to find that mobility aid to help me move faster while still working on my ability to walk with debilitating drop foot. Today I headed out to a new gym in my community that has a walking track upstairs (with an elevator) where you can walk for free. I took my new upright walker, put on my Cadense shoes and headed out. Managed to do walk three laps and everyone there was elderly and so encouraging to me. I think sometimes we just need to search hard to find those rare places of acceptance. I’ll still be heading to the malls and work on my steel face for the Hugh Grants of the world.
As ever, I nod vigorously in recognition and agreement, especially after having a team of flight attendants cheer me on with varying levels of sincerity as I navigated the 38 rows to exit the plane before they could disembark as well.
Yep, first to board but long to disembark. MS has definitely taught me patience with myself, says my glass-half-full self. I try to let her dominate for my sanity!!
The battery was dead in the stair climber for my flight home after Christmas, and so the whole flight crew was engaged in my struggle to get down the metal stairs from the plane – the one with the railing that doesn’t go all the way to the bottom. And also, it was a blizzard. They were cheering me on like I was a toddler learning to walk instead of someone who was put at risk because they didn’t have standard accessibility equipment available. If we had waited for the stair climber to charge, the crew would have had to wait on the plane with me and nobody wanted that.
Great and timely article, Ardra. Having had MS for 32 years, I’ve gone from being a young mom who needs a little extra time to an older lady using a cane or walker. The self-conscious feeling about taking up too much time and space is real. or Lately, everyday I seem to get a little shakier, weaker in the legs and experience the “catch myself” moments even with aids. Not sure what’s next, but I do not look forward to the expense and/or cumbersome process of transporting a rollator or wheelchair. But to the Hugh Grants, I say “if you think you are frustrated, imagine how I feel!” PS: I love Fall On Your Knees: the song and the meme!
FWIF, it’s not too cumbersome carting a rollator or transport chair around once you wrap your head around it. I don’t drive, so I always have someone to put my devices in the trunk for me.
That said, it’s hard to get around in the winter with any kind of mobility aid (and it’s really winter in Toronto, right now). Sidewalks are poorly cleared and curb-cuts get obliterated by snowbanks. I feel like winter wants to kill me and so I’m mostly staying home until spring.
Oh my gosh. In a blizzard? My brain would have freaked out and told my legs to twist and not work and I would have been stuck up on the plane. Good for you for getting down!! My worst nightmare for sure – well one of them anyway
Gosh, Ardra,
As usual, you nailed it. With my 35 years of MS, the last 15 of these years have truly humbled me, but encouraged me at the same time. Most people are kind and want to help. Seeing more good than bad in the world helps my mind keep faith in our world.
I have to chuckle when they say “take your time”, as if I have a choice. I have a bad habit of running late because, in my mind, I can still move normally. The dreams that I have about walking well are bittersweet. I love the dreams until I wake up. At least with all of the NDEs I hear about, most talk about being in a good functioning body at our peak age, around 30 years old.
I think those dreams are our brains trying to remind our bodies of how to move in a healthy way. Mine always seem to take place on the streets of Paris, for extra incentive, I think.
Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year, Gina!
Thank you Andra for nailing this, once again. The “take your time” comment I’ve heard so many times, it makes my head spin! I know most people are just trying to be nice, but jeez! Sometimes I want one of those moving walkways like they have at the airport so I don’t have to try to drag myself from one place to the next. It’s probably all in my head, but I just imagine everybody staring at me thinking “come on lady, go faster!”
I have often wished for moving sidewalks in hospitals! It seems like all of my appointments are in the dead centre of these enormous buildings.
I know, right? I always think walking is good for me, No matter how slow I am, but those doctors offices all the way on the other side of the building make me want to use a wheelchair instead. In addition to making me late for appointment.
Next time someone says “take your time” while holding a door/waiting for me to get in a car/etc etc, I’m going to just stop and sit down on my rollator and say, “thanks, in that case just give me 5” and see what they do. (This was great, articulated so much of how I feel. Moving slowly is the thing that bothers me most about my MS progression and keeps me indoors a lot – I know, I know, I’m working on it)
It’s very uncomfortable to be watched in slow motion. I snapped on my way out of a party last month and snarked, “staring isn’t going to make me go any faster.” The culprits (one was my husband 😬, slowly turned their heads in shame. Not my finest moment, but yeesh! I can only be nice for so long.
I’ve done the MS Walk in Downsview Park a few times. It’s a 5 km walk to raise funds for MS research. It’s not the slow walkers who irritate me. It’s the delayed start. They tell you that the walk starts at 8 am when the actual start is 10 am. I usually finish the walk before it starts and then play with everyone’s dogs.
Fool me once, Joe…
Wow !!! That resonated . No fun being stuck in the road all the time. In fact it’s Hellish. On the other hand, even if I was cured tomorrow I would never go back to being in a hurry again. I make the time now, and then some. I watch everybody wiz by and wonder where they are going in such a panic… When time runs out it’s game over., for every body. No hurry to get there. I’ll take my time. The time I need and to Hell with them.
It’s good to see your still here.
Had me worrying for awhile.
They hav’nt got the time to walk a mile in my shoes.
Blogging less, but still here! I am more more active on Instagram and Facebook. It’s been a busy year promoting my book and I’m working on my next project, so it’s hard to say how much time I will be spending here.
I’ve been a fast impatient walker my whole life, rushing through stores. It turns out that was a response to orthostatic intolerance; my body struggles to get blood flow to my head when I’m upright. It turns out my impatient sighs were actually me gasping for breath due to air hunger. After getting mobility aids I can slow down and catch my breath. And enjoy shopping! So next time an impatient fast walker tries to mow you down, maybe they’re on their own journey of confusing health. Adapting a slower pace has helped me in many ways. What a wild journey it is to have a human body, for real.