It's not that I'm complaining about the male attention; that would be an unwise thing for a single girl to do. But this type of man - the sort who sends you running to the Oxford English Dictionary for the precise definition of 'stalker' - wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Despite my obvious reluctance, these men seemed sure that I was their ideal woman, as long as my personality didn't come into it. I was a blank canvas onto which they could project whatever odd, antiquated ideas they had about men and women. I was to be a romantic heroine from a Victorian novel, coughing blood into the occasional handkerchief while he, the melancholic hero, carried his burden bravely.

I suppose for a certain type of man, the idea of a disabled girlfriend carries a number of advantages. "Well," they think, ""he'll always need me, she'll be grateful, and it'll be hard for her to run off with anyone else." Through friends, I also heard that a couple of men (30 years older than me, and of no fixed abode) thought that, while I'd be out of their league normally, they'd be in with a chance because of my disability. It seems your market value slips when you're disabled, and going for a disabled woman means you'll be able to get one who's a bit prettier, cleverer and younger than you would otherwise. A win-win situation, really.

After a few years of going out and meeting men in bars and pubs, I became quite cynical. It started to seem as though men's reactions to me could be fitted into three categories. The stalkers - those of the porn-and-emigration tendencies, for whom my disability was an advantage; the bottlers, who could hardly look at me once confronted with my disability; and those who were simply in denial and secretly believed that, given the chance, they could 'heal' me.

# posted by Gerry Canavan @ 5:08 PM  |