What It's Really Like to Tinder Date When You're Disabled

Kristen, 30, is paralyzed from the waist down and gets around in a wheelchair. She's single, and has lived in and dated on Tinder in three different cities — Los Angeles, Boston, and New York — and spoke with Cosmopolitan.com about what it's really like to Tinder date when you're paraplegic. 

I was in a car accident when I was 5, when my family and I were coming home from ice skating a couple of days after Christmas, and it resulted in a spinal cord injury, so I've been in a wheelchair for a long time now. I've usually ended up dating guys who I met in real life and my being in a wheelchair was usually never a problem in my dating life until I started meeting guys on Tinder. 

I was originally living in L.A., then moved to Boston for work, and now I live in New York City. I thought my experiences with Tinder dating in different cities would be different, but weirdly, I found it was totally the same in all three cities. 

When I first set up my Tinder profile, I wasn't sure if I should make my disability super obvious in my photos. I originally thought I should, but then my friends told me I didn't have to do that if I didn't want to because my disability doesn't impact the type of activities I'm into, or who I am, or even my day to day. But then I worried if I didn't include it in the profile, I would feel like I was lying. 

I tried putting it in my profile and taking it out in an attempt to feel out what was the best thing to do and what felt right to me as a person. And ultimately, for the most part, I ended up choosing not to use photos where my disability was obvious. The photos I used weren't cropped weirdly or anything — if you looked closely you could see it, but you wouldn't maybe notice it. I never did that in an attempt to deceptive, I just wanted people to get to know me as a person and not me as a person in a wheelchair. 

In my everyday life, I so often feel like people treat me differently when they find out I'm disabled. I work in PR and most of my clients are far away and most of them don't know about my disability and I'm happy about that because I want them to expect the same things from me that they would expect from any other publicist. So I felt the same way about my online dating profile. 

The first Tinder date I went on, I didn't tell the guy that I was disabled before we got together. We'd been talking for about two weeks leading up to the date, mostly about our careers and where we were from, and I was intrigued by him because we're both from the same part of the country and it's a small town and that seemed interesting. I was really excited to meet him. 

Once he saw I was in a wheelchair, he immediately wouldn't look me in the eye for the rest of the night and we basically spent the whole date ignoring the elephant in the room. It was the most uncomfortable date I've ever been on and felt really forced, so toward the end of the night, I finally just brought it up and said, "Are you OK? You seem like there's something wrong." He just said, "I just don't know how to talk to someone in a wheelchair. I just don't know what to do." And I said, "Well, I don't know what to tell you, because we've already been talking for two weeks, so the conversation shouldn't be any more difficult at this point," and then just asked for the check. It was the most bizarre thing in the world. 

At the end of the night, he told me, "Well, you're a very nice person," and I said, "Yeah, OK, good luck with everything," and started to leave. Then he said, "I would maybe consider going out with you again," but I told him he didn't have to pretend to be into me just to be polite. I'm a very no-nonsense person and didn't want us to waste each other's time. 

After that date, I was very upset by how ignorant he was but also upset with myself, because I felt like I should have been more forthcoming and told him earlier in the conversation that I was in a wheelchair. 

I didn't go on another date for six months or so because I'd started telling Tinder guys a few days into the conversation that I was in a wheelchair and they would disappear immediately. I'd even vary how soon I would tell them, whether it was two days or a week into a great intellectual conversation or just a great sexy conversation, and every time had the same ending. Sometimes they would literally say something like, "Well, can you still have sex?" And I wanted to say, "Of course I can, asshole."​ I seriously can't tell you how many Tinder guys asked me that as soon as I mentioned the wheelchair. 

After that, a guy I was sexting with on Tinder for a few weeks replied to me casually telling him that I was in a wheelchair with, "Oh. Well, that's interesting. Is that like a permanent thing?" I seriously had to tell him, "I don't think it's going to be changing anytime soon." He just vanished and I was really bummed about it. All of that rejection based on being in a wheelchair really messes with your self-confidence. When I first went on Tinder, I just thought, OK, I'm a nice person, I'm not bad-looking, I've got a good career, but then I felt like I had to view myself as a disabled person instead. 

I finally just called my friends and said, "What the hell am I doing wrong? How can I change myself or what I'm doing?" But I can't change the fact that I'm disabled. I got rid of Tinder after that because even though it wasn't all bad, it just wasn't making me feel good overall. 

I don't think Tinder is bad in any sense and I don't regret being on it. I really think the way these guys treated me just has a lot to do with the stigma that's attached to being in a wheelchair because so many people look at you and they automatically assume certain things. I thought that by trying to let people get to know me before they got to knew I was in a wheelchair was a good plan, because then they'd see that I'm normal, and I travel by myself and live by myself, but other people won't let you be defined by anything other than being in a wheelchair. And I don't think it's their fault, but I did see that there were more people than I realized who felt that way.  

About a week after I got off Tinder, I reconnected with a guy I met a year ago at a restaurant who I was immediately drawn to at the time, and we later ended up going on a fantastic date and now we're kind of seeing where it goes. In the end, I think my experience on Tinder was kind of amazing because it made me realize that I am who I am as a person, and not how I get around. That's all the wheelchair is. It's just a mode of getting me from A to B. I'm OK with that.

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