I agree wholeheartedly. People see wheelchairs in motion when they see someone using a wheelchair. Stephen Hawking/world champion para athlete: they’re still just wheelchairs. I have been told I looked like someone they know. When we finally discover who it is, it’s a fucker who resembles me as much as a newborn infant resembles me. The only thing we share is our method of ambulation. But that method of ambulation is all they see. My admittedly in shape body is invisible to many, apparently. I am just as needy as Grandma who has been crippled by osteoporosis.
I find that everyone is actually subject to this kind of thing. You just aren’t as aware of some of the many prejudices that are afoot, and certainly not as sensitive about them.
Remember, not being in the top one percent “attractiveness” range is actually considered to be a handicap by most people, in one way or another. Whenever anyone dates and marries anyone who isn’t in their identical subgroup, the same kind of chatter takes place. When I dated a girl from a much richer family than mine, I had to put up with “appreciations” and “compliments” to the effect that she must be exceptionally understanding about my being so limited financially. Or that I was obviously a really clever guy, for having fooled her in to going with me.
I’d suggest a lot more thought about the whole issue. I’ve found that anything that really bothers ME enough to drive me into a rage, only does so because I have some linked fears, or doubts, or some other unresolved issue with it within myself. Whenever I am completely on top of things, and truly at one with myself about something, nothing anyone says ever bothers me in the least.
Ugh. Have you read the entire thread? NOWHERE did I express rage from these incidents. If anything, I expressed a sort of humor about it. And I find it ridiculously arrogant or just offensive for you to suggest I do a lot more thinking about this issue. It’s an issue I’ve thought about deeply nearly every day for the past 17 years. And I find your comparison to the issue I’ve talked about here to what most all people experience is extraordinarily ignorant and idiotic.
Remember, I’ve lived the majority of my life completely able-bodied. I’ve lived as a “normal” man with a sex/dating life for years before my accident. And while the incidents you mention have the same issue at hand, it is SO MUCH less pronounced and much less ubiquitous in non-disabled dating lives.
What personal experience have you directly had with living as a person with a disability? Honest question, I don’t know much about you as a poster.
He’s saying “a lot.”
What?
There’s probably a lot of that in people’s perceptions. In 1983, in order to get official sanction to get married (and presumably add a dependent to the Navy’s rolls), I had to have an interview with the base chaplain. kaylasmom being blind came up (I don’t really remember how), and Captain Chaplain smiled broadly and said, “That’s great!”
Did you read my following reply to him? I explained it. His post was irrelevant to my OP.
Or did I just get whooshed? 
Looks like. 
For several months last year I couldn’t get around without a wheel chair. Or in the supermarket, a motorized cart. I learned a lot about human nature during those months… both the good and the not-so-good. And so did my husband. I’m sure there were people who considered him a saint, and since I’m 20 years older, they probably assumed he was the caretaker for his father. What they didn’t realize was that our relationship was exactly the same as it had been before the wheel chair.
Eventually my mobility improved enough so that now I’d rather limp around in pain than rely on the chair. One woman sneered at me contemptuously and said, “Oh, so you CAN walk.” I’m sure she now thinks my husband was a patsy for falling for my disability act.
But yes, my husband will always be considered a saint, whether because I’m somewhat disabled, or older, or not as pretty, etc. He gets all the praise for being with me and I get, at best, ignored.
People can be asses.
But not everyone.
Oh geez. I can’t imagine how that would be for you with that sort of age difference. You have my empathy. Just imagine if those several months turned into the rest of your life, in the middle of your best youthful time of life. It is not so much any one incident or asshole that gets to me. It’s the never-ending stream of assholes, who probably have never interacted with a wheelchair user before, behaving the same way that 500,000 people have behaved before. I don’t think anyone would honestly not agree that the neverending exposure to idiots and assholes, all of whom have never (most likely) interacted with someone like me before, can get to me once in a while. I’m supposed to always react in a friendly way assuming they just didn’t know what to do. And for the most part I do. But every so often, due to a combination of factors, I can lose my cool and react in a negative, unproductive way.
Becoming a person who uses a wheelchair does not make a person a saint or inherently decent human being. It also doesn’t mean that negative behavior that would be brushed off as having a bad day for an able-bodied person, would be a reflection of the misery they feel living as a disabled person.
Alrighty. I’m sort of new here. I’ve made all of maybe two posts. I’m the girlfriend of the said body-building OP sexy wheelchair man. Moving on.
If I am understanding you correctly, you’re stating that how likely a person is to be the girlfriend of a disabled person is dependent upon how disabled he is. Until we personally understand a situation and can respond from a place of empathy can we be said to have an accurate understanding of what the people involved are going through? I think not. I don’t personally think there’s many exceptionally good people in the world - We’re all pretty selfish. So to assume the wife is going through something worthy of being commended for - simply for the fact her significant other is disabled - might be a short-sighted conclusion.
On the flipside of the argument, I think most people generally start out from a place of compassion, especially when dealing with disabled people. Which again brings up the fact that having compassion for a disabled person isn’t remarkable.
I mean, unless we’re all patting each other on the back because we’re special snowflakes, I’m certainly not in this relationship for the altruistic aura of sainthood people deem me to have.
Assuming you’re still ripped when not competing, she should just show 'em a pic of your abs and be like “yeah, I make such sacrifices.”
Fuck, what an ugly thing to say tho. smh
What always annoyed me was the focus on the disability.
It certainly wasn’t our focus. I didn’t date/live with/marry him because he was disabled (although more than once over 30 years I was accused of having a fetish or a martyr syndrome of some sort). The disability was an annoyance, occasionally something we had to work around, but we were together because we were two people who loved each other and had quite a few interests in common. Most of the time we never thought about the disability. What accommodations were required were just part of the background of life.
Meanwhile… there were people who could only focus on OMG What Was Wrong? Just ignore everything positive, There Is A Problem.
Sure, sometimes I pitied them, but a lot of them it was annoying.
So - tell me, have you had the experience yet where someone (almost invariably female in my experience) pulls you aside, glances to make sure your SO isn’t in earshot, and whispers "Dearie… what’s wrong with him?"
Well, “dearie”, if you can’t bring yourself to ask him in a normal voice you don’t deserve to know and I ain’t going to speak for him on that. Go ahead and ask him. He won’t be offended, really. And if you’re too uncomfortable doing that… that’s YOUR problem, not ours.
Somewhere on this forum, from years ago, is a thread with me bitching about that “altruistic aura” bullshit. Among many other things.
Ah, here it is.
There are probably a couple other threads touching on the subject, too, but my google-fu is a bit weak tonight.
When I think “dating a guy in a wheelchair,” I think of Bobbi Harlow making out wih Cutter John while sitting on his lap. Yowza! (Yeah, Bloom County was a big thing when I was at an impressionable age.)
Ambi - do these sentiments tend to come from people that know your girlfriend better than you, or who at least knew her first?
Typically it’s from new acquaintances (for both of us) or people who knew her first.
…