My niece is 24yrs old and is having a heck of a time in the dating world. Part of the problem is her disabilities and the other part is how she looks.
She has been diagnosed (by professionals, not online quizzes) with Non Verbal Learning Disability, Dyscalculia (part of the NVLD), Ehlers Danlos Syndrome type 3, and Dysautonomia. She is also identifies as Genderqueer (dresses/acts male, but is attracted to men) and is very tall and has a very large frame. Doctors think the NLVD is related to the brain damage she suffered as a newborn (botched forceps delivery).
She cannot drive due to visual spatial issues, her speech is not always easy to understand (has gone to mulitple speech and other therapists) and she can be super clumsy (trips over the lines in a carpet kind of clumsy).
She is super smart, but all the above has made getting her into college a very long and hard struggle. She tried internet dating, but her profile was mostly ignored. She still lives with her parents and has almost no friends (has trouble following the flow of conversations, she does better one-on-one) outside of two middle aged coworkers.
So, Dopers, any ideas? My sister (her mother) asked me for advice, but I’ve been married for 10+ years and don’t really have any ideas.
Maybe she could join a support group for people with her disabilities. She’d meet people who wouldn’t be judging her and would understand some of her issues.
I know someone with Ehlers Danlos, that’s quite a rare condition.
I guess the learning disabilities and E-D aren’t really impediments. Seems to me how she presents herself and the complications from dysautonomia (I had to look that up!) combined with her preferred choice in dating partners is giving her a very narrow pool of potential dates. That’s got to be tough.
Is she in a large metro area? Perhaps there are clubs, IRL support groups, Meet-Ups, etc. Otherwise the standard recommendations to get involved with hobbies or activities, volunteer work, evening classes, even a church*, where she can expand her social life.
*Like a Unitarian Universalist church, which tend to be extremely liberal (sometimes to the point of woo) and very welcoming of LGBTQA folks.
She needs to make friends and get out and about–dates will come in time, with referrals. There’s someone out there for everyone. Being patient sucks, but that’s how the game is played.
Any reason why her fun gay uncle can’t take her to a few gay bars if she’s shy? Is she on Facebook? Reddit? Hobby groups online where clumsiness and speech aren’t issues? Does she keep up with hygiene? Have a sense of style? How big is her community? Are there drag events where she can meet others like her? (not saying she’s drag, just exploring the spectrum.)
I know transmen who’ve made it work in gender-fluid relationships. They met in college at a LGBT support group.
She lives in a really rural area. I think she is looking at some clubs, not sure since I haven’t spoken to her in a few weeks. She does volunteer work at an animal shelter, she told me she that most of the volunteers are either young teens or middle aged women, so no luck there.
Because I’m over 100 miles away. Plus, she cannot drink (alchohol exacerbates the dysautonomia) and she’s not comfortable in bars. She is on several dog focused forums.
Her hygiene is good (hair is clean/brushed, no BO, showers every day), but fashion is really not her thing. Unless she needs to dress up for something, she just wears clean t-shirts and jeans or cargo pants.
Her community is tiny and VERY conservative. LGBT groups don’t really exist in her area.
Well shit, this is not an ideal situation.
Does she own a dog? Can she get into a dog sport or fostering? Because, speaking from experience this is a very tight and supportive community. Although mostly women so not ideal from a dating perspective for her.
I hate to sound grim but it seems she is pretty well fucked unless she can move on and up. You say she is working, and very smart. Does she have the capability to move and become more autonomous? No matter what one’s status, Living With Parents over the age of 18 denotes buzzkill and some sort of insufficiency. So she might want to work on that.
Really rural + genderqueer = fail. She probably really, really needs to move, if she wants a chance at normal dating.
She owns three, but I doubt she could do sports with them. Two are elderly and one is a nutcase.
She cannot financially support herself right now (works two days a week as a bagger in a grocery store, that is physically all she can do there). She also relies on her parents to drive her places (no public transit and cabs cost $$$) and they also help her with financial things (she functions at a less then 3rd grade level in math, has trouble with balancing a checkbook and stuff like that).
It’s just not going to happen for some people. Some kind of long-distance open relationship situation, with someone she meets online (through topical forums for her hobbies/interests), MIGHT eventually happen, through luck and hard work. That’s probably about it, as long as she continues to live where she does.
Oy. Well, she is a little more disabled than I got from your OP.
Unless she finds her niche, or moves someplace with better opportunities and networking, she really is fucked for life. She needs to get away from her parents, right goddamn now.
I am going out on a limb here and I may well be full of shit - how invested are her parents? How do they benefit from having a disabled/genderqueer daughter? What would they lose if she upped and moved away? What would they gain?
Her homelife is all sorts of fucked up. Her mom is borderline functional mentally ill (schizophrenia and bipolar) and her dad is a workaholic who at times has made me think he is mildly autistic (social skills suck, very blunt, doesn’t see how he hurts people a times). They also live in a small house with 7 cats and the three dogs.
She cannot just “up and move away”. No money and no way to go anywhere. They are attempting to get SSDI for her, but it won’t be enough for her to live on.
Quite frankly, she is the longest of longshots. It would be very tough in a place like L.A. or NYC even without the 3rd grade level math. If she’s stuck in rural America with everything stacked against her, you’re better off trying to get her to accept that dating isn’t going to happen.
Relocate to a place like San Francisco or Amsterdam and she has a shot. Slim, but there’s a chance. Rural USA would take a miracle.
I mainly communicate with her through Facebook, she has in the past wished she could relocate to NYC, Seattle or Berkley. With their financial situation that will likely never happen.
She has had so much bad crap happen to her; when she was in school they moved alot due to her dad’s job (military and then a job which payed for the moves), being told she was “stupid” and “lazy” by teachers, and then top that off with my sisters severe mental health issues and you have recipe for a shitty life.
She has written on FB (at time she treats it like a journal), how she wishes she had someone to cuddle with while watching a movie or just sleeping with his arm around her. I think she has almost given up on finding friends. Her therapist (she is, not too surprisingly, suffering from Depression) is at a loss as to how to help her find friends.
Wait, is this what you meant by “dresses male” in the OP, that she normally wears jeans and t-shirts? While other aspects of her genderqueer identity may present an issue in a rural area, I don’t think there’s anything particularly unusual about a woman who dresses in jeans and t-shirts.
I think whatever the answer would be for her starts with moving to a large urban area away from parents. Rural, very conservative area, and enabled by parents, the cards are stacked against her. Damn. In the long off-chance she lives near me send me a PM.
Finding online communities is her best bet right now, I guess. If she’s on FB, she’s somewhat internet savvy, right?
Best way to describe what she likes is “Bishōnen”. What she’s told me is that she does not like masculine men, but loves feminine ones. A guy who would not be afraid to wear a dress.
If you’ve read the webcomic Girl Genius, the Jagermonster ,Maxim, is the type she likes. He is actually her favorite character. http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100519#.VJt73_8JGEA
Jeans and tees from the mens section. The only “feminine” things she wears are underwear (her words). She also walks, talks, and acts like a guy. When she was in elementary school, even with long hair, people thought she was a boy and she did not dissuade them of that notion. When she was 5 her mom caught her with a toy caterpillar stuffed down her pants to make a “bulge”, niece claimed she wanted a “pee pee”.
If her home life is unstable and unhealthy, then it would seem to me that the primary benefit of living at home is financial, right (and I may be wrong)?
There must some kind of group living situation for disabled GLBT people who need a structured living situation away from family. A quick Google search shows that there are lots of organizations focusing on disability and GLBT people. Would some of them be able to provide some guidance? Or at least point you to better resources? There have got to be group homes serving people in her position.
Plus, she cannot drink (alchohol exacerbates the dysautonomia) and she’s not comfortable in bars. She is on several dog focused forums.
