|
Disabled Dating - Dating someone with a disability
Additional Reading:
What Makes A Mate Ideal |
Disabled dating etiquette |
Disabled dating Horror Stories |
Women's dating guidelines |
Men's dating guidelines
Disabled dating refers to dating relationships in which at least one of the individuals involved has a disability. Generally when the term disability is used in the context of dating a disabled person, there is an assumption made that the disability is physical.
But dating someone with a mental disability or a chronic medical condition constitutes "disabled dating" as well.
Attitudes about disabled dating, whether people with disabilities should date and whether another disabled person would make a more suitable match for a disabled person vary.
A random sampling of people were asked if they would date someone with a disability. Most were ambivalent with only a small number replying with certainty that they would or would not date someone with a disablity.
Among those who replied that they would not date someone with a disability, reasons included:
- Relationships are hard enough to make work without adding the complications of being with someone who has physical limitations or mental problems.
- Having a disability is like having HIV in the sense that you have something that's wrong with you and you're not going to get better ever; so the quality of your life is inferior and will always be inferior, which means
the quality of life for the person you're with will also be inferior.
Those who replied that they would date someone with a disability gave such reasons as:
- A disabled person is no different from an able-bodied person. Just because someone has a physical limitation doesn't mean they don't function normally otherwise.
- What a person looks like on the outside has nothing to do with who they are
Interestingly, attitudes towards disabled dating vary according to the disability type with more people willing to date physically disabled people than those willing to date mentally disabled people or people with chronic illnesses.
"Not dating someone because they're missing a leg is shallow," one person commented; but the same person believed that individuals with mental disabilities and chronic illnesses would place a heavy burden on the backs of anyone they dated. This individual did not think it would be wise for someone to get involved with a mentally ill person or someone with a chronic illness.
Before you start dating someone with a disability, be sure you know enough about their disability, what it is, how it affects them, the daily challenges they face as a result of it. Even if you yourself are disabled, unless your disability is the same as your date's, don't assume your experiences are the same just because you're both disabled. Someone with borderline personality disorder won't necessarily know what it's like to suffer with schizophrenia for example. You might have Cerebral Palsy and be confined to a Wheelchair, but your experiences won't necessarily be the same as those of someone who is confined to a wheelchair after being paralyzed in an accident.
People with disabilities face numerous challenges each day so you'll need to be sure you can handle the challenges you'll inevitably face.
| 
