Love or livelihood: Can I have a relationship as a disabled person?

I hope to fall in love one day. But as I get farther and farther away from 40, the prospect of being in a relationship feels more like a dream than reality.

My social life involving the opposite sex has been virtually non-existent over the past two decades. Sure, I've asked girls out. Yes, I have “gone out” with girls, but never on an actual date. For one reason or another, my wheels and feet eventually get firmly planted in the "friend zone."

Now, my lack of "rizz" notwithstanding, an article I recently came across has me thinking my soul-crushing shyness isn't the only problem I will need to overcome.

In this article on 19thnews.org,, Caregiving reporter Sara Luterman talks about how getting married could mean losing life-saving benefits for some people with disabilities. The piece features couples going through this situation and explains how a disabled person with a romantic partner could find themselves choosing between the love of their life or keeping services that essentially keep them alive.

It's a lot more complicated than what I can explain in a blog post, so I recommend you read the article when you have a moment. For now, I wanted to offer my perspective on the situation.

I think this is horrible. The fact that these issues come up is appalling. Our disabilities already take so much from our lives, to have the bureaucratic rules and regulations add more hindrances than help is ridiculous. The services we receive for the daily care that help us live should not be threatened because we choose to fall in love; an emotion that non-disabled people get to experience without penalty.

These rules were made decades ago. A time when people thought differently. A time when most people thought people with disabilities weren’t worthy enough to experience love, or too broken to have someone love them back. A lot has changed since then. Disability is becoming more accepted in mainstream society and we are becoming more open-minded. Maybe that will lead to good news.

This issue was brought to my attention soon after I became a quadriplegic and it has always been in the back of my mind. It's now made its way forward and becoming more prominent as the days go by. Hopefully, we will see changes in the marriage penalty in my lifetime.

For now, I will continue to be a hopeless romantic and believe that one day I will get to experience love. Happy endings and true love will continue to be notions mostly seen on the big screen and in the Hallmark movies I embarrassingly admit to watching. Right now, a girlfriend might not be in my immediate future but who knows, maybe I will find myself as a man, sitting in front of a woman, asking her to love him.

Full disclosure: Online dating with a disability

I bring to you, my latest conundrum. 

Recently, I decided to take the plunge and dive head first into Tinder, the popular mobile dating app. 

Now I know that I'm a little late to the swipe-right soirée, but it seemed like as good a time as any to throw my hat in the online dating pool. 

So with eager anticipation, I created my profile and started swiping away. 

But after a couple weeks of using the app, the results were less than favorable. I only managed to get one total match since downloading the app. 

To make matters worse, I didn't even get a response from the one girl I did match with. If anyone knows Kelly, 28, let her know I'm still waiting for a reply. 

With the unfortunate results, I came to an interesting question; would I have fared any better if I didn't fully disclose my disability?

It's an interesting theory. If I just showed close up photos of me and didn't show my wheelchair, would I have gotten more right swipes?

I'm no expert, but if I saw "Gabe, 33, Journalist and graduate from ASU," it should warrant at least a profile view, right?

But as I gave it more thought, the more I was against it. I feel like it was just delaying the inevitable. I would rather the girl know what to expect instead of being blindsided by my wheelchair on a first date. 

It just doesn't seem right to not at least mention it. My disability doesn't define me, but it's very much a part of me and has shaped me into who I am today. 

While it hasn't garnered much success yet, I am glad I decided to show the whole me. I am comfortable with who I am and my disability. 

If a girl is turned off by my disability, I would not hold it against her. It is a lifestyle that definitely takes getting used to and you can't get the full grasp of what that means in a single swipe. 

So for now, I will continue to swipe and see what happens. 

You never know, maybe Ms. (Swipe) right is just around the corner.

My Dating Game

As I was clicking through my facebook page the other day, one thing in particular caught my eye. I noticed that a few of my friends changed their status from “single” to “in a relationship.” Once I saw this surprising trend, it got me thinking of my own personal life, or severe lack thereof.

From first through eighth grade, I was not unaccustomed to grabbing the attention of the ladies in my class. Whether it was Michelle dropping off a get well card at my house in fourth grade, or Stephanie giving me my first kiss in seventh grade, girls weren’t far from my side. And with all my “success” during my early years, I eagerly anticipated the boundless possibilities that awaited me in high school.

But after I became a quad during my freshman year of high school, everything changed.

While I still had girls at my side, they were my nurse instead of interested coeds. And if a girl did manage to speak to me, it seemed like they were talking to me out of pity and curiosity. Even though I didn’t agree with their reasons to speak to me, I was in no position to turn away a conversation, no matter what the reason.

As I made my way through high school and college, I felt like a spectator in my own life. I so badly wanted to speak to girls, but my courage was in short supply. But with my relative inexperience with girls, I did manage to forge a few friendships with girls.

But friendships were all I could muster (Ryan Reynolds I feel your pain).

I guess the mere sight of a wheelchair would throw me into the “Friend Zone” for any girl. I can’t believe that they didn’t know that nothing says sexy more than Scoliosis and Muscle Atrophy. While I often used my chair and illness as an excuse, I’m not completely without blame either.

The main reason is because whenever I would see a girl that I was interested in, my head flooded with questions.

• What do I say?
• How do I take her on a date?
• Who can take me on the date?
• Will my parents have to drop me off?
• Will she mind feeding me?

I often couldn’t find the answer to these questions and decided that it isn’t worth the embarrassment, so I never did anything but watch her pass by and wonder. I worried too much about my “accommodations” and disabilities and sabotaged my chances before even trying. It was my own self-doubt that seems to be the biggest hurdle.

Every time I watched a romantic comedy (and yes, it is more often than you think), I sat in envy. I so badly wanted to experience what it was like to have a girlfriend. Not just for those romantic, sensual moments, but for those moments that seem to be overlooked at times.

You know, those moments where you cuddle with each other on the couch to watch TV, talk all night in bed about nothing and everything or just walk silently down the sidewalk, enjoying each other’s company. These are the moments I wished to experience, but felt I would never get the chance.

As I look back and think about everything that has happened, I realized that I have to stop being a spectator and get in the game. I may never be able to do the chivalrous things like pull out her chair, stand up when she leaves the table or hold open a door, but I can still be that perfect boyfriend. All it takes is one chance.

Sometimes, it seems like my dating game is unwinnable. But like they say, you can’t win if you don’t play.