Dating Someone With a Disability

[Illusional]

well chris everyone has their difference of opinions. overweight, fat, obese, what's the difference?? really muscular people and big boned people are also overweight. i'm saying how i feel and it probably won't change. you on the other hand are probably more willing to look into people for their personality. you considering more aspects of them other than their outward appearance. i'll be blunt, i first look with my eyes, then personality is what keeps me in check.

disabilities are also different. the disabilities that i'm going on are physical ones. i have had a grandmother who had to lose her leg from diabetics. it's not really a fun time to endure and i would prefer to avoid these types of situations if possible. sure, if another family member went through the same process, i would do it again, however avoidance is my key.

for PAgirl, i'm probably not as picky as you may think. sure my posts have really sounded as though i would never date again. hahah. well id unno, i'm just saying how i feel and things may or may not change. every situation is different and all possibilities must be weighed. raverboy

[PAgirl7]

Okay... So if Catherine Zeta Jones had a more OBVIOUS disability, such as SB... But she was still all around gorgeous...???

[sfalexi]

Catherine Zeta Jones DOES have a disability. She only dates old guys.

But I (like Illusional) wouldn't date a fat girl either. I place physical fitness very high on my priority list. Whether you are or aren't, I'd want a girlfriend to at least LOOK like they are, or at least be willing to work out with me to make up the difference.

Everybody has their thing. I have a friend that won't date a girl that has any type of crookedness in their teeth. I have another friend that will ONLY date fat chicks (or at least has only dated them for the past five years). It's all subjective.

Rod Steele

[PAgirl7]

LMAO at the Catherine Zeta Jones comment!

[nomas]

See, again I think we're interpreting the question any number of ways.

My interpretation is: "If a girl was gorgeous attractive to you, but she had some (any) disability..would it stop you from dating her?"

In this case, raverboy would probably say "yes" as physical beauty is important to him. I admit to the same thing...but again, we all way attraction differently. I think most of us (guys and girls) will notice aesthetics first and foremost. This is because that's all that you can know about the person when you first meet them. Are they physically attractive to you? Then you get to meet their personality. Only in situations such as these where you are a faceless text message does it go the other way around. And since we're all in different cities, it's cool to be friends with whom you correspond only on the net. But constantly hanging out, going to clubs, what not with someone unattractive to you...I think you would prefer the pretty friends to go out with.

I think few are the cases where you don't find someone attractive at first, but then their personality...or just the association with the person (the constantly hanging out with them)...will win you over. Don't they say that looks wear off after about 2 months? For example if you start dating some hot girl..2 months later if there is no personality to keep you hooked you loose interest? But back to my point. So eventually when you find someone who's personality you like, then that's when you settle with this person. But until that happens, you probably would have gone for a lot of instances where you went for the pretty boy or gal.

You see this in big social events, clubs, concerts, parties. The unattractive fellas won't get the time of day from the pretty girls...and the unattractive gals won't have as many guys approach them.

I've veered off course.

This must be a Freddie post.

Freddie

[Illusional]

well actually nomas, it's not as weird as you think. when people have too many options, they tend to be more picky and harder to satisfy. think back to elementary where classes were small and everyone tended to like the same girl. this was their dream girl. by the time that high school came around, there were a lot more options so everything had redifined their preferences. i feel that when you make friends online, you have only their personality to judge them on. everything is unbiased. when it comes to friends in person, like you said, people judge first on looks, then personality.

with girls it is usually the same. everyone is different and attraction always catches my eyes first. did you know that it's animal instinct. when birds preproduce, they will go for the more colorful, vivid bird, however this bird must also be symetrical. the more balanced bird will always prevail. this does include disformaties. animal instinct is to pass on their genes and they want to only ensure that their genes will pass on with the greatest chance of survival. raverboy

[nomas]

Yeah, there's animal instinct in physical preferences, but as we've evolved we've changed in preferences..or at least pretend to. In some cases, though, it's true. Look at ugly-ass Donald Trump. The guy is butt-ugly but he scores all these beautiful models. The guy is physically unattractive, but he projects POWER and that's what we've come to..¿learn?..to love and find attractive? Just like clothing styles? Hmm.. I just thought of another dimension on this. What have we been taught to be attractive? Depending on your culture, you find different things attractive. Look at how some African cultures like to stretch their necks or Mayans like the sloped forehead and some sub cultures of the states like the cowboy boots/hats/tight pants, while other prefer the huge pants sagging to the ground and the boxers showing at least to half your ass crack. In this same manner, have we learned that disabilities are secondary? Because as raverboy noted...as a kid, when you are just running on instincts for the most part, you will tend to like the same girl, and make fun of the same kid.

Hmm...

Freddie

[Illusional]

power, that is another aspect of attraction. it's true that with money, you can buy anything, even pretty women. raverboy

[squirrley]

Ok~so we all know instinctively we are attracted by looks FIRST. So then what does that say about someone whose got an OBVIOUS disablity? I mean this is what its about right?

I wouldnt date the Elephant Man. And I wouldnt date Charles Manson. Those are obvoius disabities I have a problem with...now if it were minor things that werent obvious to someone youre just meeting, or getting to know, then I would continue dating that person. People can have some mental disabilties and hell we may not know it for months or even years after being with that person, because they have it under control.

My point kinda goes with Raver and Nomas, your first attractiveness comes from the appearance. So if I were to be approached by someone in a wheelchair who coulndt move from legs down, I wouldnt date him. Because I know even if he had the greatest personality, I want to be with someone who can share Physical activities with for the rest of my life. Yea, it does come down to each their own~AGAIN!

[nomas]

But when you speak of the Elephant Man, that's a disability tied in with physical beauty. In fact, I don't know that this is even a disability. He can still do anything anyone else can do...he's just unattractive. We keep mixing disability with physical beauty.

Freddie

[squirrley]

Nomas he had a physical disablity. It wasnt just his appearance, he had internal disabilties as well. He was like one big walking tumor. I cant remember specifics, but his was rare as hell. I felt for him. The first time I had seen this movie, I cried my ass off in the end when he died, all because he just wanted to sleep like a normal person.

I just used him as an example.

[PAgirl7]

Not that The Elephant Man is the specific issue at hand, but if you'll recall he DID have a specific disability. Remember that he had to sleep sitting up because if he laid down he'd die? Isn't that how it worked? I haven't seen the movie in such a long time.

I can honestly say that I have always had a tendency to steer clear of people with disabilities. Part of it was because I ridiculously associated physical disability with mental disability. For some reason I just thought that a person in a wheel chair, for example, would have slurred speech or wouldn't always understand what I'm saying. Even though I consciously knew how off that was, I still made the subconscious effort to avoid those people. The other reason was because I know that a lot of disabled people prefer to do things themselves, so I was always afraid that if I offered to do anything they would get offended.

I met Aaron online. I found him witty and smart, quick... And very funny! It wasn't until a few days after we'd first met that he mentioned that he had a disability.

For some reason I wasn't shocked or embarassed like I thought I would be. And even as I started to learn more about SB, it wasn't something that I felt uncomfortable dealing with. Basically I was learning that my assumptions were totally wrong, and it felt REALLY good to know that! Of course I was worried in the back of my mind that it would be a totally different story when we met in person. At 27 years old, he's only 5'4". He uses crutches and braces to walk, and has hand controls in his car. He has several large scars that cover the lower half of his body where surgeries and skin grafts have been performed, and he uses a catheter (sp?) to relieve himself. I was TELLING him that these things didn't bother me, but I didn't know for sure.

When we finally did meet, I discovered that I was right all along, and I had no trouble adapting to his situation. It's actually been a lot of fun... In a way I'm experiencing another culture. So, you never REALLY know until you experience it.

[nomas]

My ridiculous association with a mental disability was accents. But it wasn't so much a mental disability as it was a communication disability that I associated it with. I'm not talking about a southern accent vs. a new england, etc. I mean a foreign language accent. Because I grew up with spanish and around people who spoke mainly spanish and I would notice that the more adapted people became to the lingo and the everyday slang and sayings, the better they spoke and the more confident I felt that I understood what they were trying to get accross. Then the ones that were really bad would use words that seemed to fit the spanish equivalent, like someone would say they liked your sunrise. What?? Well, sonrisa = smile, and they thought they were saying they like your smile. So I would tend to loose confidence that someone with an accent really meant what he was saying or if he just used the closest words he could find.

Then I head a line in "A Walk in the Clouds", I think, where the guy says "Just because I talk with an accent doesn't mean that I think with an accent" and reconsidered. That and since I hear an accent on myself when I hear my voice on a recording and I like to think I can get my point accross efficiently.

But I guess I still place some stock in the theory because there are instances where I still can't catch every word on everyday movies/tv shows.

I don't relate it with a lack of intelligence..just a lack of exposure. You grow up with two parallel cultures/languages and you really have to work hard to keep up with both as best as you can, or risk just getting half of both which, sadly, I see happen way too often. I know all kinds of people like this. The reason I say "sadly" is because it's not easy being stuck in the middle. You get the feeling of never beeing able to really stand out. Where I live there are a lot of first generation children of immigrants. And I'm right in the middle of it. This is what at some point the children of european immigrants must have felt like. Right now it's the Latin Americans that are going through it heavily where I live.

But it's all good.

Freddie

[Illusional]

when it comes to a disability, it depends on the person. how much will a person give to get to know another person with a disability. how much time and effort will their give put into another person for a chance at a relationship. having a person with a disability versus a person who is dying are two very different things. weirdly i would put more effort into getting to know a person who is dying. i know that their are many counter points that could be made for this situation, but it's the way that i feel. everyone has a different degree in which they are wiling to put into another person, and i just feel that i would not date a person with such a huge physical disability. raverboy

[Uncertain]

I'd love to have a girlfriend who has a prosthetic leg or arm. I think it's sexy.