Beyond Acquara

One of my goals with the new blog was to participate in more stuff like blog carnivals and collabs. I always, ALWAYS miss the Disability Blog Carnival But not this time! (This one will be Sept. 25 at Temple University Disability Studies blog). The theme is “falling” and one of the suggested directions to go off of that topic was “falling in love.” And I must be all sickeningly mushy-smushy in love because I decided to jump on that one.

I want to talk about something that has come up with me and a lot of other people with disabilities in regards to relationships. We tend to date “our own” while other people, non-disabled people, tend to want us to date able-bodied people. Every disabled person I know has had people (mostly parents, but also friends and even total strangers) tell us that we should “date someone who can take care of you.” Meanwhile, you tend to see a lot of disabled people dating other disabled people.

My parents wanted me to date someone who could drive me around, someone who could see and read for me, someone who could help me walk around at night, someone who could hear noises in the house. But although I have dated non-disabled people, I kept bringing home disabled people. My mother would just shake her head in disappointment. My first ‘real’ boyfriend was a blind guy I met the summer after my senior year of high school. We had a summer romance, and then I went off to college and we continued to do the long distance thing. My mother was bound and determined that I would go away to college and lose the blind guy and find some “normal” guy to date. I started the year by going through sorority rush. (Why, god, why?). In this small college with only four sorority houses and 80% of the student body involved in greek life, I was not selected for a sorority. (I’m quite happy about that, now.) I ended up finding out that one house didn’t want to be the blind sorority as they already had one other blind member. And another house thought I would be picked by the blind sorority. The other two houses were ones that I had not selected. My mother blamed it all on the fact that I was dating a blind guy. I don’t really think anyone realized my boyfriend was blind, they had never met him. But my mother said I needed to get away from disabled people and hang out with regular college kids. Ironically, in the rush situation, the “regular” kids had rejected me because I was disabled. You can’t have it both ways, mom. You can’t have me reject disabled people but then also not have me be rejected for being disabled. I am what she was repelled by.

But her plan to get the disability-cooties off of me by having me associate with non-disabled people never worked too well. I had dated several non-disabled guys over the years. But I never had a long-term relationship with any of them. (Professor dude is a bit on the line. He was born with spina bifida, but barely had a discernible disability as a result. He wore an ankle brace and had a slight limp. He did, however, work in the disability field.) I could totally hang out with non-disabled guys just fine and have a fun time, but I fell in love with disabled guys.

My mother used to say that it is just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor one. And it is just as easy to fall in love with a healthy guy vs. a disabled guy. But I wondered about that. I didn’t think I was consciously excluding able-bodied men. I know that there are able-bodied/disabled relationships that work out great. But I do think they are a bit in the minority. Was I choosing who to fall in love with? And excluding a huge majority chunk of the population? Why did I have so many relationships with people with disabilities? (And for the record, if we define “relationship” as, say, more than three dates…let’s see. That would be approximately, well, 5 men with disabilities and 5 without. (I threw Professor guy into without, there.) But if I look again, The average length of the disabled relationships is about 3 years, compared to the average non disabled relationship clocking in at 4 or 5 months. So, whatever you want to make of that.

So what’s the deal? Well, some of my friends would talk about the issue of “leagues.” Are nondisabled people out of my league? Would they be “dating down” to date someone like me? I’m sure some people think that way. I’m sure there is some truth to that in certain cases. But I have been asked out by a lot of nondisabled men. I have this little blessing/curse of “not looking disabled.” Which is really a slam, by the way. I have been asked out in this fashion on many occasions (well, much more when I was younger and cuter) “You are too pretty to be blind! I don’t think of you as blind at all! Do you want to go out?” And the insinuation there is that I’m supposed to be so flattered by my honorary inclusion to the sighted world that I would just want to jump the guy immediately in gratitude. But actually, that pick-up line produced immediate and harsh rejection.

The truth is, to state this in terms of a gross generality, I strongly prefer dating disabled people. Not that I intentionally excluded able-bodied people for only that reason. And not that being disabled is the only thing I look at, because it is not and it is all more dynamic than that. The reasons I prefer dating disabled people are three-fold I think. With some obvious overlap.

First and foremost, dating a disabled person nearly cancels out the disability. You don’t have to do the months long public service announcement about your disability on every date. You mention it on practical levels, when it is relevant, then it is just not an issue. You never have to think about it. You are not a novelty to be shown at show and tell at every party. You are not looked upon with pity by his friends. You actually get to have a regular relationship based on regular stuff. It may sound odd, but disability is much less of a factor when both people are disabled.

Along those lines is this concept of “the nondisabled partner taking care of the disabled partner.” It doesn’t work in my experience. I’m not saying there aren’t non/disabled partnerships out there where they work this out, but I think it is challenging. There is an implied imbalance of power that can easily  be abused by either partner. The nondisabled person can use power of caregiving over the disabled partner. Or the disabled partner can use his/her need to manipulate the nondisabled partner. It is a tricky road to travel. And then there is just logistical stuff that drives me nuts. Professor guy used to say he would pick me up from work everyday so I wouldn’t have to walk 16 blocks and then catch a bus. I used to wait up to two hours for him to pick me up. I could have been home by then via bus. Pissed me off. And pissed him off that I wasn’t completely grateful that he was saving me from the indignity of the bus. Professor guy and I started really “breaking up” when he got a job offer in a mid-sized town with lousy public transportation. I said there was no way in hell I was moving there. I would be totally dependent on him. He didn’t think that was such a big deal. But no way would I have wanted a life where I would have to ask him to take me to get every carton of milk. Nor would he have liked it either. With “Big N,” for example, we have an equal need for public transportation and an equal understanding of how our lives have to be arranged in order to get around town. Therefore, it is not an issue.

The third issue is just the cultural aspects of the disability community. There is a culture to it with its own little norms and rules and ways of communicating and manners, etc. This just means that it is easier to click with those in the community than those outside of it. It is not a deal-breaker reason for me, but it does explain perhaps why disabled relationships are so easy to come-by. It is just who is “around.” And who you don’t have to work hard to communicate with. There is no having to take on the role of comforting them about your disability or teaching them stuff or whatever, it is just a part of the culture.

Interestingly, my own anectdotal observations are that able-bodied women who date disabled men have much more success than the other way around. It is also more frequent to see. I don’t know if this is because women understand the differential power dynamics more than men or that the so-called “nurturer” is much more accepted in a woman partner or what. Yet, I will say that there is a scene in the movie “Murderball” where Mark Zupan’s girlfriend says that able-bodied women can date disabled men because they have that mothering instinct. I wanted to throw things at the screen when she said that. In all the years I dated and/or was partnered with D, who is a quad, I never saw myself or desired to be in a “mothering” role. Ick sick ick. But I have seen this in other women. I think you find this less in relationships where both are disabled (even when one is arguably “less” disabled than the other) than in nondisabled/disabled relationships.

Again, I want to make clear that I don’t discount the fact that there are “mixed” ability relationships that work very well. But I also wish that people would quit doing the whole, “you need a boyfriend who can take care of you” schtick. Because, well, gross. Recently I was telling someone about my “new” relationship with N and she said, “Well, he sounds perfect for you! The only unfortunate thing about him is that he is blind.”

“Are you kidding?” I said, “That is a total plus.”