Tips for Dating with a Disability

Posted in My Nugget of Wisdom for the Week

Hey, guys! Welcome back to The Wheelchair Teen (even though I’m technically not a teenager anymore 😊). When I was younger, dating was one of my fears. In my blog post Asking the ‘Big’ Disability Questions which I wrote when I was seventeen, one of the questions was: Will anyone ever love me? Because I’d never seen a Disabled person in a romantic relationship in real life or on screen or even in books, I wasn’t sure it was possible. I thought that there’d be no way anyone would ever want to date someone like me. And when I was in school, no one was ever romantically interested in me (although in school most people weren’t interested in me full stop).

Me in my wheelchair smiling with my hair in a fade cut
Photograph of me smiling

Over a year ago I tried an online dating site called Bumble and was surprised at how well it went. People weren’t nearly as shallow as I thought they’d be. I actually ended up making some great connections and learned more about myself along the way. Bumble was an amazing tool apart from the photo verification system.

To get your photos verified on Bumble, you need to take a picture of yourself in the same position as someone in a photo they show you. None of the poses were ones that I could replicate because of my Disability though so their system kept denying my verification. This wasn’t very accessible for users with physical Disabilities who couldn’t do the poses in the pictures. So I wrote to Bumble about this and they manually verified my photos instead. With that all done I was good to go!

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My 3 Main Tips for Dating If You Have A Disability

1. Be upfront

Really, it’s up to you how upfront you want to be about your Disability. I know that there are people with invisible Disabilities who would rather people got to know them first before they told them about their Disability but I don’t really have that option. I could never go on a first date without my date noticing that I use a wheelchair. I did, however, attempt what I like to call ‘the Disabled coming out’ or ‘rolling out of the closet’ and it did not go well.

Me sat down in a shallow pool, smiling
One of the pictures where you can’t tell I have a Disability which I had on my profile

When I first started using Bumble I didn’t have any pictures of me from the waist down and I didn’t mention my Disability on my profile. Instead, I’d talk to people and then come out to them as Disabled once they’d already gotten to know me through back-and-forth messaging.

There’s nothing wrong with this approach except it doesn’t filter out the small-minded people who aren’t comfortable dating someone in a wheelchair. It just leads to potential negative reactions when you tell them, rejection, pain, and wasted time. I’ve known people who have had dates walk out on them when they met face-to-face and saw that they were a wheelchair-user. I’d personally prefer not to put myself in a position like that in the first place.

I soon put pictures where my wheelchair was visible up on my profile. I also changed the first line of my About Me to: I’m an independent badass in a wheelchair. This showed people that I owned the way that I was and I was proud of it. Things went much better because people who weren’t interested in wheelchair-users could just skip my profile and I knew everyone who did talk to me was perfectly fine with me being the way that I was. No awkward ‘rolling out of the closet’ conversation needed. And believe me, much more people will talk to you than you think. You’d be surprised how many people don’t care about society’s assumptions and will just love you for you.

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2. Talk about your Disability on your terms

It’s inevitable that your date will eventually ask about your Disability. They’ll usually wait until you meet face-to-face and will think it’s rude to ask or ask if you’re comfortable talking about it beforehand. I always say that it’s completely fine, I get it, and I don’t mind talking about it. However, I have discovered that I prefer talking about it in person on the first date rather than online. It just feels easier and more natural that way. I knew that people felt uneasy asking though so I didn’t want to freak them out even more by saying: “Do you mind if we wait until we’re in person to talk about this?” But I’ve realised the importance of having that conversation on my own terms.

Image of a woman in a wheelchair talking to someone in person
Image of a woman in a wheelchair talking to someone in person by Marcus Aurelius via Pexels.com

When you’re dating nondisabled people it’s a constant dance where you’re swerving between the possible negative assumptions about Disabilities that your date might have, their fear of being impolite since they’ve probably never come across someone like you before, and your own fear of scaring them away – all while making sure to stay true to yourself and be honest. It can be difficult. I find myself sometimes needing to dismantle people’s internalised ableism that they didn’t even realise they had while I’m talking to them about my positive relationship with my Disability. Sometimes I’m too defensive and eager to disprove their negative assumptions about Disabilities, only to realise that they might not even have any. The whole process is just easier to do in person, believe me.

I want everyone I date to know that I’m completely content with the way that I am and don’t mind talking about my Disability at all. But I also don’t want them to have any ideas about me in their head that aren’t true. That’s why I find it important to have this conversation on my terms where they can hear me explain in my own words about my Disability and how it affects my life. It can be empowering when you have this conversation on your own terms so I encourage you to as well.

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3. Be strategic with planning your first date

This may seem obvious to most Disabled people but I’ve been Disabled all my life and even I got this one wrong. ALWAYS make sure that the place you are going to for your date is wheelchair-accessible. ALWAYS make sure that there are wheelchair-accessible toilets nearby. Even if you are going for a walk through the park, check the toilets of the buildings nearby online beforehand. If you are someone who has certain food requirements for medical reasons, it’s also possible to check restaurant menus before your date online too.

Picture of a woman pushing her date in a wheelchair around
Picture of a woman pushing her date in a wheelchair around by SHVETS production via Pexels.com

Also, make sure you are doing things you feel comfortable doing on your dates. I don’t really like eating in front of people I don’t know that well and I went to a restaurant on my first date. I ended up not feeling that comfortable and eating very little. I instead discovered that I really enjoyed when my dates would walk around with me and push me along in my wheelchair (to me it kind of feels like walking and holding hands) so I did more of that. I suggest doing quite extensive planning beforehand. It’ll help you to relax and have more fun on the day of the actual date.

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I’ve thoroughly enjoyed dating and the relationships that it’s helped me to make along the way. I hope you will too. Thanks so much for reading ❤ Do you have any tips for dating or any fun dating stories? I’d be interested to hear about them in the comments below. See you next week!

Published by The Wheelchair Teen

I am a black, disabled teenager and my blog shares my personal experiences, some of the struggles and triumphs I’ve been through, as well as posts that educate people about disabilities to help end discrimination against disabled people.

37 thoughts on “Tips for Dating with a Disability”

      1. Thanks Simone, I’m sure we’ll meet again on one of your visits to your family. All the best in the UK! I’ll be following your news with interest.

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  5. Pingback: Why is your Blog Different This Year? – Fake Flamenco

    1. Thank you so much! I felt like it best reflected me. I’m very happy that you enjoyed the photos and thought that the article was well-written. That means a lot coming from you. Have a lovely rest of the week! ❤️🌻❤️

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  8. It’s a great idea I think in dating sites to post accurate photographs of oneself and be upfront about stuff that people might be interested in, like age, disabilities, children (particularly if they are small) etc. Looks like you are on the right track. The dating world through sites is difficult for everyone, so don’t be discouraged if it takes a while to meet that perfect someone.

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    1. I agree. Disability is sometimes something that doesn’t instantly need to be revealed but I think it’s always best to anyway. Thanks for the encouragement 😊 It is difficult but I’m hopeful that it will happen in the future. Thank you so much for stopping by, have a great week! 🌻🌹🌼

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    1. Thank you so much, I’m glad you enjoyed this post 😊. One of the reasons I like blogging so much is that I can take pretty much anything I’ve learned, positive or negative, and write about it in a post that can be helpful to others. They can be, but they can also be fulfilling too. I hope you have a great week, Cindy! 💖

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  10. welcome back!!!!! hope all is well with you – I replied at my site – would love if you’d contribute another guest blog post, if your time permits. as for dating, I met my husband online way back in 1998, when hardly anyone dated that way & even less admitted to it. I did enjoy that it allowed certain things to be gotten out of the way up front. For instance, at the time, I looked younger than I was & always hated seeing the faces of younger men drop when I told them my age. also, by listing some of my interests, it helped weed out people I just wouldn’t have been compatible with. in your case, you are lovely inside & out & your smile is incandescent, so if someone can’t see that, then really it’s their loss ❤

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    1. Thank you! 😊 I’m doing really well since I moved to London. I replied there too – I’d love to! Wow, it must have been very brave to date online at that time when it was still kind of a ‘new’ thing and there was a lot of stigma around it. True, that’s definitely a benefit. People already know what they’re going to be getting before you meet up so when you do – you already sort of know that you’re kind of compatible. Aw, thank you so much, those are such sweet words 🥰.

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  12. Even though I have been married for fifty years and am not disabled, I read this piece and found it fascinating and informative. You are a talented writer, and I have a feeling this post is going to help a lot of people. God bless you!
    – Annie

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  13. Hi, Simone. I have missed your July posts for some reason—didn’t get notice til the most recent doggie one. So I’m starting here and catching up.

    It’s true: there’s a universality to the thoughts you express and the guidance you offer—and that’s just the point, isn’t it? We humans share so much more than we realize.

    Your photos are just lovely and life-affirming, not surprisingly.

    So glad you’ve returned to blogging!

    Cheers!

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  14. Ka pai! (This translates to something along the lines of ‘awesome’ or ‘great’ in maori.) This is such a cool sharing, and as most of your writing does, continues to open my eyes and encourage me to examine unconscious bias I often won’t even know I have. Thank you for your openness in sharing the things that went well, and the things that went not so well.

    While reading this post I was reminded of a couple that share videos of things that go well and others things that don’t. Maybe you’ve seen them, or maybe not. I do offer the proviso that like any social media it may be a curated selection of things, BUT, I found it interesting to hear what life can be like for a couple where one partner has a Disability and the other does not. Here’s the link to their YouTube channel if it is something you would be interested in watching:
    https://www.youtube.com/@SquirmyandGrubs/featured

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    1. I’d actually never heard of them before, thank you for recommending their channel to me. I read a book written by Shane that I really liked but I didn’t know that he had a YouTube channel. I’ve watched a few of their videos now and really enjoyed them. It’s always great to see people talking about inter-abled relationships and how successful they can be. I’m glad that you enjoyed and were able to learn from this post. Dating is a journey, just like anything else. I’ve learnt and grown a lot more because of it.

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