2005-03-27 - 8:14 a.m.
As I became more disabled in late summer/early fall of last year, I thought of myself more as completely romantically unacceptable (well, I guess the break up of a long-term relationship didn�t help with this either). Really, I thought, who could possibly want to date a crip? Beyond the practicalities � like architectural barriers and lack of readily accessible transportation � there�s just the societal message (that I�d internalized myself) to �stay away from damaged goods�. I struggled with even acknowledging a want for others, with not just putting that aspect of life behind me and resolving not to look back.
But I eventually came to understand: I ain�t dead. Furthermore, looking around I noticed that I was surrounded by 18-22 year old college hotties. When I started back at school with a girlfriend, I was actually a bit worried about the whole temptation issue. But I quickly realized that, hotties they may be, but what the hell do I have to talk about with an 18-year old? (Oh sure, I could blather at her, pontificating about my vast experience. Indeed, I�ve met graduate students older than myself who go out with undergrads and do just that. It strikes me as incredibly lame.)
Now, I�d never actually tested this nothing-in-common theory. Being spoken for my first two years at school, it had been a pretty moot point anyway. In late fall, I tried asking a few girls out. Mostly I think this was just to prove to myself that I could do it. The smokin�, more mature-seeming girl in one class. She had a boyfriend, but got all flattered and blushy and made my day. A cute girl who sat next to me one day in an incredibly boring lecture. After class, I asked if she wanted to go get coffee and listen to me bitch about the course. She was amused and smiled, but she was meeting other people right then (I wasn�t on the ball or maybe serious enough to ask for her number to follow up).
On the last day of one class (�Pathology to Power: Disability, Health & Community� � unbelievably helpful and the best course I�ve ever taken), a girl I was friends with passed me a note. In it, she acknowledged that note-passing was pretty junior high school, but she�d really enjoyed my humor over the course of the semester and she�d developed a little crush on me. I melted and unsuccessfully tried to retain a cool demeanor. I talked to her after class and said she should email me if she wanted to get together in New York over winter break. I didn�t really think anything would come of it, but she did and we went to lunch at some uber-hip Soho caf�.
Telling a friend about this, I described it as a �crypto-date� cause I wasn�t really sure it was an actual date. But she pointed out that no, it was an actual date (one that I�d essentially been asked out on), I�d just fucked it up. See, I was so confused by the very idea of being on a date (which I hadn�t done in so long, after all) that halfway through lunch I just flat out asked: �Hey uh, I have a dumb question. Are we on a date?�
Folks. Don�t put your partner on the spot like that. I mean, you probably knew this. But yes, I was that uncool. She raised her eyebrow at me. �I don�t know. Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not.� Well, serves me right. Anyway, it was good to be social with her; she�s pretty awesome.
After that I had my brief infatuation with an ex (I wrote an ill-advised follow-up haiku to the one from a decade before) and only last week asked a girl out seriously. There�s a slightly older senior in my gender studies class who seems pretty intriguing and reminds me a bit of Bjork, although she doesn�t really look like her. I sat out on the steps to our building before class until she arrived. �I had a girlfriend for many years, so I haven�t really done this in a while. Certainly not the way I am now. I don�t really know you; I don�t even know if you�re in a position to accept. But I think you�re pretty cool and I�d like to get to know you more.�
She was smiling by halfway through and said I was the smoothest she�d ever been asked out. Alas, she said she couldn�t really accept. Things were too complicated. She had a boyfriend in New York, except he�d graduated last year and she wasn�t sure she understood the person he was becoming. I said I didn�t want to further complicate things, but she should email me if she changes her mind. (Of course, as a coda, I fell and did a somersault down a flight of stairs leaving class, but I was pretty graceful and didn�t hurt myself, except for a bruised ego.)
Last night I got a call from my� well, I don�t know what to call her. The girl who saved my life? My eternal once and future? My not-a-top-5-ex-cause-we-never-formally-dated? Always egregiously on my back burner cause I�m too chickenshit to commit? I�ll have to explain it more in another entry. But she asked if I had a date for my graduation. I said it was May 29th. She said that wasn�t what she meant. She wants to come out here from Chicago and stay with me and cheer me on at commencement cause she�s so proud.
It�s funny, I think when I started here all I wanted was for other people to be proud of me. It�s taken me quite a while to understand that the most important person to make proud is me. But still, her being proud means so so much. I very much hope she�ll come out. I guess we�ll see.
� 2005 Geoff Gladstone
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