The unique challenges of dating with a disability in a swipe culture
We don't talk enough about the emotional exhaustion involved
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I’m at a point in my life where I’m highly convinced I’m going to die single and a virgin.
That may sound dramatic to some people, but for many disabled adults, it’s a thought that quietly lingers in the background more often than anyone realizes.
We live in a world built around swipe culture where attraction is measured in seconds, bios are skimmed like advertisements, and people are often judged before they’re truly seen. Dating apps promise connection, but sometimes they feel more like a reminder of how invisible you are.
Dating has never felt simple for me as someone living with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). It requires vulnerability before I even get the chance to know someone. Before they learn about my humor, passions, leadership, or heart, they usually notice the wheelchair first. My disability enters the room before I do.
And honestly? Rejection hits differently when you already spend so much of your life fighting to prove your worth in other areas.
There’s a unique kind of heartbreak that comes from wondering if people are rejecting you or rejecting the idea of disability itself. Sometimes conversations fade the moment accessibility, caregiving, or physical limitations come up. Other times, people become curious in ways that feel more clinical than romantic. You stop feeling like a potential partner and start feeling like a case study.
I want to be a partner, not an unpaid therapist
To be clear, it’s not like I’ve never dated before. I have. But none of those relationships lasted, and some of the experiences damaged me so deeply that they became part of the reason I ended up in therapy.
That’s the part people don’t talk about enough: the emotional exhaustion that can come from constantly attracting people who need saving instead of partnership.
Far too often, I find myself in dynamics where I’m expected to play therapist, life coach, emotional support system, and teacher all at once. I somehow keep attracting people who want me to teach them how to communicate, how to be emotionally mature, how to take accountability, or how to be decent human beings in relationships.
At first, I mistook that for being needed. I thought maybe love was supposed to look like endless patience, understanding, and emotional labor.
But it’s neither cute nor romantic to constantly have to emotionally rehabilitate people while your own needs go ignored. It’s exhausting and pathetic.
Not because struggling people are unworthy of love, but because too many enter relationships expecting someone else to boost them emotionally while offering very little in return. Eventually, you stop feeling like a partner and start feeling like someone’s unpaid counselor.
Living with a disability has made me especially vulnerable to accepting less than I deserve because part of me feared I had to overcompensate just to be loved in the first place. So I tolerated emotional immaturity longer than I should have. I kept trying to understand people who were slowly breaking me.
Therapy has forced me to confront that.
It’s taught me that being empathetic does not mean abandoning myself. Love should not feel like emotional survival; I deserve reciprocity, effort, emotional safety, and care, too.
Organizations like the National Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health America often discuss the importance of emotional boundaries, healthy relationships, and prioritizing mental well-being — things I’m still actively learning in my own life.
What people don’t always understand is that disabled people still crave intimacy, affection, romance, and emotional safety. We still want someone to text us good morning. Someone to flirt with us because they genuinely want us. Someone who sees us as a whole person — not inspirational, not tragic, not complicated, just human.
Projects like the Disability Visibility Project (RIP Alice Wong) and Rooted in Rights have helped amplify conversations around disability, identity, relationships, and the importance of being seen beyond stereotypes.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life teaching grown people how to love me correctly. I want a relationship where love already comes with accountability, honesty, maturity, and mutual effort.
And yet, despite all the disappointment, awkward conversations, ghosting, and moments of insecurity, I haven’t fully given up on love. Because somewhere beneath the frustration is hope. Hope that one day someone will look beyond the mechanics of my disability and truly see me. Hope that vulnerability won’t always feel like a risk. Hope that there are people capable of loving disabled bodies without pitying them.
Maybe dating while disabled means learning how to hold both grief and hope at the same time: grief for the experiences that often feel delayed, inaccessible, or uncertain, and hope that love can still exist for us anyway.
Note: SMA News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of SMA News Today or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to spinal muscular atrophy.
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