I’ve been struggling with this whole romance thing for the last decade. Honestly, who hasn't? But my situation is apparently even more complicated: I have a disability.
I say “apparently” because I want to date—I want the same things any able-bodied woman wants out of a relationship. But I was born with a genetic bone and muscular disorder called Freeman-Sheldon syndrome that's left me with a wheelchair and scars from about 25 surgeries. Despite all that, I’m still a pretty independent woman: I earned a college degree, get around on my own, make most of my own meals, and hold down a career as a freelance writer. My day-to-day life doesn’t look much different from my able-bodied peers’, but my dating life seems to exist in a different universe, one where my desires are nonexistent and everyone assumes I’m looking for a caretaker.
The truth is, though I'm 37, I haven’t dated anyone, mostly because there’s always been this voice in the back of my head telling me that men don’t want to date a disabled woman. The assumption I can never escape is “disability is an undesirable quality…. There aren't many men or women who want to get into a relationship with someone they have to care for,” as one person so bluntly wrote on Twitter. “Melissa cannot accept the fact that men are not attracted to her,” another person commented on one of my posts. “Unfair as it may be, the wheelchair DOES matter. Her disfigurement DOES matter. It doesn't matter how smart, witty, or sarcastic she is. She might have better luck concentrating on men who are disabled and disfigured like her."
I’d be lying if I said comments like this weren’t part of the reason why I haven’t put myself out there. The message is always clear: Disability is a bad word and it makes you undateable. I wish these feelings were just the stuff of Internet trolls, but the reality is they’re not—and it’s gotten to me. Several years ago I asked some of my male friends if they would date someone with a disability. The sheepish response? Quite a few said they’d be afraid of the “responsibility.”
It’s time to set the record straight: I am disabled, desirable, and not looking for a nurse.
Sometimes I feel like I need to put those words on a neon sign in Times Square (or at least on a business card to hand out whenever I meet someone interesting). I know there are many ways my disability does make me different—like the fact that I use a wheelchair to get around—but it’s 2019, for goodness' sake. Twenty-seven million women in the U.S. have disabilities. Don’t we deserve all the same things in a relationship as able-bodied women? My wheelchair doesn't make me something other than a woman, my disability doesn't disqualify me from wanting a rom-com-worthy relationship, my condition doesn't mean I'm looking for a caretaker as a partner.
There are so many things I do want, and brace yourself, because this might come as a shock: I want the same things you want in a relationship. I want a guy who makes me laugh, who is kind and gentle and sensitive, who is family-oriented, who is as obsessed with pop culture as I am. I want to be myself, to be seen, to be loved—disability and all.
Melissa Blake is a freelance writer and blogger from Illinois. She covers relationships, disabilities, and pop culture. Read her blog, and follow her on Twitter @MelissaBlake.
