Disabled Dating: Where Does your Disability End and you Begin?
When the disabled and dating turn to dating sites that specialize in connecting them with each other, they might start to feel like all there is to them is their physical handicap. While it's true that it's sometimes hard to be single and find true love with physical limitations in the way, a disabled dating service is merely a convenient means to an end... it shouldn't help to define you as a human being or make you feel like you belong to and only to a certain subset of the population.
One part of becoming confident in the dating world is to embrace your disability, however minor or severe it is. Whether you like or not, it is a reality you must live with every day and it affects many parts of your daily routine and probably has a great effect on your plans for the future. Don't ignore this fact or try to hide it from potential mates! If you were moving into an apartment and you had a pet dog you had no intention of giving away, would you go looking for apartments that don't allow pets? No. So don't do the same as you look for people to date.
But it's not just practical to be open and honest about your disability with yourself and others, it will also help you to not be ashamed of it and to quickly move onto learning about your whole self, and not just your physical handicap. In fact, if you're so consumed with your disability, you might actually neglect other real character flaws that need work.
But how can you deal with your disability in such a candid and confrontational way without letting it take over your entire self image of yourself? Whether you were born with a disability or had to deal with it later in life, it's not who you are as a person. Everybody is susceptible to defining themselves in narrow ways. Many blond-haired women fall into the trap of defining themselves as a “blond,” as if that's a type of personality, etc. Disabled singles are no different and may be even more likely to do this. But it couldn't be a more misguided way to go about things.
If you want to set yourself up for true love, then you will need the ability to get to know, love, and accept another human being for all they are, inside and out. You can't do this unless you know yourself first! Make a list of all the good and bad qualities about yourself – frequently, if you need to – and constantly remind yourself of all the different details that make you unique in this world. It should be obvious at this point that the disability is a tiny, tiny quality and how it's affected your attitude about life is actually a lot more important. For instance, if you feel you have a stronger endurance for both physical and emotional struggles because of your limitations, then that is a lot more interesting and important than the actual limitations.
One part of becoming confident in the dating world is to embrace your disability, however minor or severe it is. Whether you like or not, it is a reality you must live with every day and it affects many parts of your daily routine and probably has a great effect on your plans for the future. Don't ignore this fact or try to hide it from potential mates! If you were moving into an apartment and you had a pet dog you had no intention of giving away, would you go looking for apartments that don't allow pets? No. So don't do the same as you look for people to date.
But it's not just practical to be open and honest about your disability with yourself and others, it will also help you to not be ashamed of it and to quickly move onto learning about your whole self, and not just your physical handicap. In fact, if you're so consumed with your disability, you might actually neglect other real character flaws that need work.
But how can you deal with your disability in such a candid and confrontational way without letting it take over your entire self image of yourself? Whether you were born with a disability or had to deal with it later in life, it's not who you are as a person. Everybody is susceptible to defining themselves in narrow ways. Many blond-haired women fall into the trap of defining themselves as a “blond,” as if that's a type of personality, etc. Disabled singles are no different and may be even more likely to do this. But it couldn't be a more misguided way to go about things.
If you want to set yourself up for true love, then you will need the ability to get to know, love, and accept another human being for all they are, inside and out. You can't do this unless you know yourself first! Make a list of all the good and bad qualities about yourself – frequently, if you need to – and constantly remind yourself of all the different details that make you unique in this world. It should be obvious at this point that the disability is a tiny, tiny quality and how it's affected your attitude about life is actually a lot more important. For instance, if you feel you have a stronger endurance for both physical and emotional struggles because of your limitations, then that is a lot more interesting and important than the actual limitations.