Dealing with a disabled guy

To be honest, it was pretty terrible of him to not reveal this fact about himself to you when you were dating long distance. That’s a major, major thing to omit. I understand he probably was afraid of rejection, but still. There are some things you need to be honest and upfront about when dating, and not hide them (having children, having been married, having a severe physical disability are a few examples I can think of).

I’m saying this so that you don’t beat yourself up or feel guilty. It does not make you a bad person to not want to date a man with a disability this severe. If he wants to find someone he’s compatible with, he needs to be honest about his condition with women he meets online.

I think it’s OK to tell him he seems like a nice, sweet person, but you are not feeling romantic chemistry with him in person. That can happen with anyone you meet online long distance, whether they have false legs or not. So it doesn’t have to be about the legs.

If he brings his false legs into the conversation, I think it’s fair to point out to him that he needs to share that information with women before expecting a romantic connection to develop. In the long run he’ll be doing himself a favor because he will weed out the women who are not comfortable with his disability, and the women who remain will be better matches for him.

What’s worse than breaking up with someone because of their disability is staying with them out of pity.

I don’t believe this makes you a bad person because you can’t control who you’re attracted to. This indeed is a big detail to not disclose. I myself have a bad habit of being drawn towards broken souls. But in your situation I might feel cheated and turned off too.

I too considered the possibility that he’s made peace with his disability to such an extent that he forgets that it can be a dealbreaker for others too. But I can’t buy it. It feels passively manipulative or lying by omission. But that’s besides the point now.

For delicate and well-rounded break up talk advice, see Liz’s last two paragraphs.

Thinking he doesnt realize the effect of him being without the prostetics legs is very naïeve. Of course he knows, he deals with that every day and also knows it can be an issue dating wise.
I think he made a mistake not telling you before and that backfired. I dont know what to tell him since he will still know its about the legs. So you might as well be honest in a nice way. In reality its really easy to get used to seeing disabilities. It doesnt take long for not to notice anymore. That doesnt mean i think you should ignore your feelings about this. Youre not attracted to him and its your right to feel that. So dont feel guilty, there are plenty of women who wouldnt mind.

Lala, so true!

Well if you want to feel better about yourself, I dumped a guy because he screamed like a girl and put his hands over his mouth (think Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone) every time he got excited about something! He found out we had a Dunkin Donuts opening in our area and did it and I just couldn’t get that vision out of my head and be intimate with him that evening. Very unattractive and a huge turn off. Once he did it a few more times I was gone.

Don’t really care if someone wants to bash me and say it’s superficial, it was a huge turn off for me and I lost physical attraction to him. I can’t be in a relationship if I’m not attracted to the guy. I could overlook the fact he was only a few inches taller than me and had a receding hairline but not that. I ended up meeting my husband a few months later and he’s a foot taller than me, in incredibly good physical shape and has a full head of hair. There was instant chemistry!

And my brother was physically disabled from birth, so I learned early on to sort of warn people who would be meeting him for the first time of his condition so they wouldn’t be shocked. The worst part of being physically disabled is to have people stare or worse yet totally ignore you like you’re not even a human being!! That’s why I greet and say hello to people in wheelchairs or kids with crutches who can barely walk. And I would say 90% of the time their companion or parent thanks me for acknowledging them and speaking to them. I tell them I understand because of my brother’s disability but it’s second nature to me now. So you can be a good person but still not be the right person for him if you can’t look past this and there is no attraction.

I usually agree with your posts Warasen, but that’s a false equivalency.
She’s not denigrating disabled people. She’s saying she isn’t attracted to him. So you should be saying “I don’t date white women because I’m not attracted to them”. OK, fine. People have to date what they’re attracted to.

I’m a white woman an in an interracial relationship. It’s not my first one, but I’ve dated both within and outside of my race. I would never tell a white woman (or anyone for that matter) who is uncomfortable dating outside her race (for whatever reason), to date outside her race. Why? Because it’s not fair to the guy. Or to her, even. We all deserve to be with someone we’re attracted to (both the man and the woman). There are certain situations that interracial couples have to deal with, and you have to be prepared to do so, as a team. If one of the partners is not up to the task, then the relationship will fail.

Warasen it’s called comparing apples and oranges! You can’t seriously compare being white to being handicapped! How would you feel if you were dating a woman long distance and hadn’t met her and on your first meeting she shows up in a wheelchair with no legs? Would you not feel betrayed, lied to and in shock? This person left out a very big detail about their life, it’s not just the handicap. It’s about deceiving someone else. It doesn’t show good moral character.

It also proves the point of what we say on here about how in the world can you be “dating” a person long distance who you’ve never met?!?!? They could be hiding all kinds of details of who they really are from you.

Why are you arguing with a name calling racist?!

Oh lol Tiffany. I didnt see that coming. You know what i learned a long time ago: we tend to think that people that get sick or in this case impaired are sensitive people but thats simply not true. They still can be racist, feel entitled or just jerks.
Meanwhile im stuck with the vision of OH MY GOD dunkin donut guy. That made me laugh

He should really do commercials for them! It would be so annoying people would remember them for sure!

Hahaha kaye, i used to play a game called the lemmings and when they were about to drop dead they raised both arms and hold their head while exploding. But thats totally off topic

Wow, that’s some nasty words to say warasen. You have a right to be attracted to whoever you are attracted to, right? And it’s only suspending that right – for disabled (or white, for that matter) people – that would be a discrimination.