Is it because I have ONE LEG ?!

Let's be honest here, when you first see me you wouldn't notice that I have one leg, but somehow that always ends up being the topic of conversation.

I have been an amputee for over 18 years now and I have come across my fair share of people and their reactions to my "disability." There are the people who look at me and just feel like I am a helpless young woman that could not get through life without the help of others. Then there are those people that are simply fascinated with the idea that I have made it this far in life without having someone hold my hand the entire time. Last but not least there are the people who are intrigued by me and want to know more about who I am as a person, disability aside.

Now I don't really care which type of person you are, as long as when you do encounter myself or others like myself, you are able to put your own feelings aside and just treat me like anyone else. I don't need extra attention or extra care, I just want you to make your judgment about me, disability aside.

So this is where it gets interesting, because lets translate this into the dating world. I am 29 years old now and I am recently new to the single world after being in a 7 years relationship, and I must say, I been out the game far too long. Like I said before, I have grown a tolerance for people and how they react to me, but dating is a whole different beast. I am an athlete and a personal trainer, so my physical upkeep is very important to me. It really grinds my gears knowing that a man can look at me and think anything less about me because of my "disability." So here is story time...

When I was 14 years old there was a boy that I liked and at the time he liked me too. Until one day we were hanging out after school and I had a terrible blister on my little leg. So when I get these blisters, I have to relieve the pressure from my little leg by taking off my prosthetic leg, but that was going to be an issue. The minute I began to feel discomfort I proceeded to take my leg off and this boy looked at me with such disgust and at the moment I knew this was a deal breaker. Before I took my leg off entirely this young boy told me if I took my leg off in front of him he would be turned off and feel uncomfortable. In that moment I had to make a decision because I was furious and sad at the same time. I didn't understand how he liked me but didn't want to see my true self, but then I also thought that maybe my little leg was just so ugly that he didn't want to see it. Either way I knew I had to get out of there because at that point I lost all my confidence and I needed a minute to really process what had just happened.

Now here we are 15 years later and I'm back in the dating world, but I know a lot it has changed since I was last single. However, I'm not sure if these changes are better or worse. From my experience the dating world has become less valuable and way more polluted by the physical appearance being the most important aspect to a relationship. With that being said, being an amputee doesn't seem like it would be much help to me.

Let's go back to the beginning, when I told you that when you first look at me you wouldn't be able to tell that I was missing a leg, this can be both good and bad. So when I go out if I'm wearing jeans or leggings and a guy comes up to me and starts talking, he doesn't typically notice my leg. From my experience, I don't like hiding my leg, especially when I go out and I am being approached by someone. It has always been an interesting encounter to have to tell someone who you just meet that you are missing a leg, but if they see it right off the bat then they can make a decision if they even want to approach me or not.

Now back to the complexities of this dating world today because most people aren't meeting in person. I have downloaded some dating apps and, for no real reason, you don't always see my prosthesis in my pictures. However, sometimes I don't like to show my prosthesis on these dating apps because there are so many misconceptions about amputees so I don't like that to be the focal point of my profiles. So, as you can see, dating is definitely going to have a learning curve for me because I don't think there is a right or wrong approach to this, I think it comes down to comfortability, both for me and the men that I date.

Overall, I just want to say, I am going to go into this dating world with a positive mind but any men out there that don't feel comfortable with my "disability" they don't deserve me anyway !