A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Dear Cupid,Do people/women with disability ever find love? I have literally grown old while a making a wish each passing year to find love without success. I have been to universities, church and everywhere even online dating but the rejection (body language) is glaring. People will talk nicely to me until they realise I have a physical disability.I move with crutches, but I drive my own car (this makes me soo happy :)), my career sets me a class apart and I work in a top world's organisation but not even among the most elite have I found love...instead they look surprised to see me among them. I have an outgoing personality but I have come to realise people only laugh with me for the moment. No one really cares as much for me let alone think of dating me.I am finding this tough..... Reply to this Question
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reader, anonymous, writes (22 July 2022): It's all very well saying you only need someone who is honest and kind, but you also need someone who has similar attitudes, goals and abilities to you... if you are hard working and smart you need a partner who is. Not one who is sitting around watching tv all day or only does a few hours of work each week or earns a lot less than you and is on social security payments and relying on you to help them all of the time. If you are not careful some people would take advantage of you because of your disability.And it does not follow that someone who helps at a charity as a volunteer is kind. I know some who do it simply because they have no money to go anywhere else and are bored at home on their own. They would much rather be having real fun but have no money to pay for it so settle for a change of scene and someone to chat to. But you would have nothing at all in common with them, not even for friendship let alone a serious love relationship.
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reader, anonymous, writes (17 July 2022): Like you I have an invisible disability - it means that when others are hot I feel as if I am in a burning oven, when it is cold I am freezing and often have to use an electric blanket and have the central heating on, and am in a lot of pain.
I don't tell people about it because I do not expect them to be sympathethic or care - it is my problem not theirs.
Yet I often get people - strangers - or people I
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reader, anonymous, writes (17 July 2022): Anonymous 3rd July. You are right. I also have an invisible disability, most people have no idea about it at all, but it is very difficult at times, life an be quite a struggle because of it. Yet I often meet people whose only interest in me is to phone me or visit me to go on and on for hours about their "problem" "woes" and disappointments. These people never have any REAL problems, but could go on and on for hours about one simple little thing like the boyfriend promising to ring at 9 pm and ringing at 9.10 pm instead! They have no idea of what a real problem is. T
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reader, anonymous, writes (16 July 2022): Invest your time wisely! When I was in a similar situation to you I was forever being advised (by people I had not asked for advice or opinions) that I should rush around here and there being busy with this and that. I was already quite busy, and doing some of these things would have meant I was too busy. Many of these things would have taken time away from the things I really needed and wanted to do. But what made it more ridiculous is that none of them would have achieved anything of benefit to me. Just soaking up all of my precious time. Either the person did not look at the whole picture and think it through properly or they did not know what they were talking about. So if you are taking on anything new to do think it through carefully, otherwise it might just be another thing which wastes your precious time.
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reader, anonymous, writes (13 July 2022): People who have very good jobs usually prefer a partner who is the same. Most who work for charities are part timers and unpaid volunteers, so you are unlikely to find anyone who is really smart, well educated etc amongst them - I know, I ran a charity for five years. The really smart ones aim for paid jobs and get them, or end up working for the charity full time, not doing the easy, boring, part time stuff. I think you would find it quite boring, no challenge in it, and not your type of person there anyway. You are over qualified for most of those part time voluntary jobs and if you work monday to friday normal hours and are only available weekends most of those jobs are not available to you then anyway. In England someone in your position would be asked to stand outside a shop rattling a tin for hours, asking people to put a few pennies in there towards your costs. Or in the back of a charity shop sorting out the moth eaten cardigans and jumpers to put out the front. In a charity shop the ones who have a bit of education and more time and are smarter end up being the manageress of the shop and being paid to do it, running maybe six shops in the area with all of the unpaid part timers under them.
When it would actually make more sense for you to do a paid job during those hours and donate some of your pay to them as your time is worth a lot more per hour.
The last thing you want if you are seeking a guy to fall in love with and maybe live with or marry is someone who is a lot less smart than you, or a lot lazier than you, who cannot be bothered to get a full time job that pays well or is not capable of it. Or you could end up with a guy who is much too old for you, because he worked full time and is now working in a menial part time job for a charity after retiring.
And it is not true that the "elite" who are business people are too cut throat and not empathic enough. I run a big business with a lot of staff, I am also a therapist
who is very popular because of my empathy.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (3 July 2022): I would just like to say how much I rate the answer given to this question. The response by female anonymous is really excellent advice and I wholeheartedly agree with everything she says. I would only add that I work in a university and am myself invisibly disabled and I can 100% understand what she says about the lack of empathy; I myself am too empathetic to the point where it has made me ill from being burdened with other people's problems and extra work. Please do NOT make the mistake that I made and feel that you have to over-compensate for other people's lack of empathy by being overly empathetic yourself in any environment, just to be included. Keep a check on this and check in with yourself if you are venturing out into new situations to make friends and potential lovers (!) Empathy is an incredibly attractive quality but I have found that entitled and non-empathetic people simply. treat you as if you are a free counsellor or therapist that they 'love' only because they are not paying for the support you give them. That may sound cynical but I speak after decades of experience and being very naïve about why I kept getting used and dumped after giving endless support to people. Disabled people can be 'easy prey' for some people because disabled people can, like I did, make the mistake of feeling I had to give much more than others just to be allowed in to the kind of environments you describe. I'm not saying don't join in, I'm saying absolutely go for it and the advice you've been given by female anonymous is wonderful, but just be careful to measure how much love and support you give in relation to what you receive back.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (2 July 2022): YES!!!
YES they DO find love.
I understand that you are in a very specific situation. But you would be surprised how many people ask this very same question after having spent years and years looking for a partner.
I know this seems improbable to you, what I am about to say, but just do the math... you've been looking in the wrong place.
You have been very successful professionally for some time and you still find it surprising that the elite is rejecting you. There is absolutely nothing surprising about that. They see you as an anomaly in their otherwise perfect world.
Elites are everywhere the same, and one of the points they have in common is lack of empathy. They are “crème de la crème”, its’ their birthright (even if it isn’t, even if they are newcomers, they like to think that it is). Left-oriented elites are a bit better, but only a tiny bit.
Church? You have no idea how many hypocrites I have seen in churches. Clergy included. It’s easy to preach “love thy neighbor” as long as you don’t have to actually do it. It’s easy to show up and be seen as a god-fearing person, than actually live that kind of life every second of every day.
I grew up with a person who had disability. The most wonderful woman I have ever met! She raised me. I couldn’t have loved her more if she had given birth to me. As you may guess I have no problem working with, being friends with and going out with people who have a disability.
You need to find someone kind and empathetic. You won’t find those people in elite gatherings or cut-throat work environments (anything from money-making businesses to prestige appointments at universities, hospitals…). People I am talking about invest their time in others – helping other people, other BEINGS! They work or volunteer in shelters, with disabled children, with dying patients, abandoned animals, addicts… you see what I am getting at? They are not in front of the cameras preaching to the world about recycling. They are organizing composting in their neighborhoods. Literally getting their hands dirty.
You need to invest your time wisely. I would start volunteering someplace and see how it goes. Think about what kind of a person you would like to meet and there are only two human qualities that matter: kindness and honesty. Everything else is just “frosting”. Two of my best friends have barely their high school diploma and looking from the outside we have very little in common (they work construction, I teach), but we are inseparable! I remember one of my (former) friends asking me how I can keep friendships like that… no wonder I couldn’t stay friends with her! But you know what’s funny, she herself, at that moment, didn’t have more than her high-school diploma, but she considered herself a part of the elite.
In the end, we are all content only if we hang out with people we really understand. People you mentioned do not have the will or the means to understand you.
Hang in there!
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