Last Saturday night I got home from hanging out with some friends and flipped on the TV. As I mindlessly channel surfed I came across a commercial that has stuck with me. It basically said that you are more likely to find that “special somebody” by joining an online dating website than you are in bars or by other traditional means. Probably true, I said to myself. Maybe it is time to give online dating another shot.
As a person who is blind, navigating the world of internet dating can be challenging. First, you don’t know how accessible a website is until you start filling out their questionnaire. I recently attempted to join one website and it was impossible for me to complete the personal profile without sighted assistance. Fortunately, I have the perfect sighted friend who helped me complete the personality inventory, and we had a lot of laughs in the process!
The next major consideration is: when do you let an interested person know that you are blind? While everyone has their own opinion on this matter, my rule of thumb is as follows: I will not tell a person that I am blind until we mutually agree that we should talk over the phone. By that point they have gotten a chance to know you and if they do not want to talk with you because of your vision loss, you are obviously not compatible anyway. Regardless of how you go about it, being honest with people while conveying the fact that you are blind over the internet can be a tricky business! Fortunately for me, my approach seems to work pretty well, and I often get comments like, “You don’t sound blind.” While I know what they mean, that comment always cracks me up!
Finally, there is the most exciting challenge of all, actually going out on a date. It is this third and final stage where things tend to get real interesting.
A while back, I had spent several months talking with a woman over the phone who was from a nearby state. We finally decided to meet on a Thursday afternoon in early fall. I happily took off work early, and we went to walk around Broad Ripple. As we strolled through the village, she kept commenting that my being blind was surprisingly not a big deal. Until ….
We had been walking on the Monon Trail and stopped at an overlook where a creek gurgled quietly beneath us. Suddenly I noticed something missing. My cane was gone! Somehow it had slipped through the slats that we were standing on.
Oh man, what do I do now? I asked myself. I could feel myself turning a bright red as I formulated how I was going to ask my date for help in finding my missing cane. Embarrassed, I shared with her what had happen and we picked our way through the woods and down a hill where we found my cane caught on a log floating in the water. Needless to say, that incident made for some humorous conversation as we continued our date at a local coffee shop. Ultimately, the date did not go well, but I enjoyed spending the afternoon with this woman, and I appreciated her helping me rescue my cane.
Soon after that date, when my dad became sick, I put online dating on hold for a while. A year later, my schedule is more flexible again, and I am excited about putting “datingRus.com’s” commercial to the test. While I cannot be sure that I will meet the woman of my dreams, I am certain that I will at least make some new acquaintances and have several humorous stories to share along the way!
