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Dating with Disabilities
by Melissa Blake

Is it Possible to Find The One at Age 15?

On a sweltering day in early August 1996, I lay curled up in my bed, my leg in a big metal frame with pins shooting every which way and trying to recover from the surgery I’d had a month earlier.

Now, I’m not sure if I was still woozy and out of it from the anesthesia or just plain bored, but that afternoon, I proclaimed, in all seriousness mind you, to my trusty diary that (and I’m quoting word-for-hopeless-word here)

“I can see myself spending the rest of my life with him.”

Maybe it’ll save you 12 years of torture so you wouldn’t have to go through the agony I did. But for old time’s sake, let’s analyze it according to my experiences with Crush Boy.

The true test has come….

1. He understands:
Isn’t this one obvious? He totally gets me. Like the time we were watching a baseball game and he tried to explain the intricacies of the sport to me. He totally understood me. We were this close in that moment.

2. He tells you:
OK, so he never technically said anything even remotely close to those three words, “I love you,” but his actions spoke volumes. Like the time he walked up to my house and brought over cookies he and his family had forgotten to give me right after I came home from the hospital that summer. Or the time he spent hours trying to teach me the complicated rules of a stock trading game.

3. He shows you:
Ooooh, this applies to Crush Boy too! He once stayed at my house for two hours uploading some of his favorite songs (and mine) onto my computer. I needed to mellow things out because they were getting too intense, so I did what any normal girl would do. I offered us both a root beer. Diet, of course!

4. He listens to you:
OMG, this is SO true. When he’d talk to me, he had this way of looking at me straight in the eyes. I dare say it unhinged me a bit, which is probably why I turned into a blubbering idiot during every single conversation we’ve ever had.

5. He’s happy around you:
YES! He’s always laughing and smiling around me. And no, I don’t think he’s laughing at me….I hope not. Could he be? Possibly? Whatever. At least I get a huge grin on my face whenever he walks in the room.

6. He compliments you:
Oh, when I was inducted into the National Honor Society my junior year of high school, the tradition was to have members of the society read a little bio about us as we walked across the stage. Who read mine – with passion, I might add? Yup. Crush Boy. You could see the grin on my face from those nose-bleed seats!

7. He takes care of you:
Need I re-hash the cookie story again? That was soooooo obviously a sign he wanted to kiss me!

8. He appreciates you:
We recently had a little email exchange in which I, as tenderly as I could, call him to task on his methods for interacting with women. For the sake of not getting myself all worked up, I’ll spare you the nitty-gritty details, but suffice it to say, I basically called him a robot. Had I been him, I probably would have flown off the handle and slung some sort of insult back in his direction. But what did he do? He admitted that he could see my point. Now isn’t that the sign of a true man? One who can admit his mistakes – and even appreciate you for it.

9. He makes you feel special:
Isn’t this one obvious? This boy’s been making me feel all sorts of special for some 12 years now. It’s sort of a nice feeling to have someone from your past who knew you through your awkward adolescence – and, in my case, my awkward twenties – and still hasn’t fled the city, state or country. And it makes you feel even more special when they’ve never considered getting a restraining order against you because of all your awkward gawking. Although if Crush Boy sees this column, all bets might be off.

10. His friends and family like you:
I’ve got this one in the bag. Our parents have been friends for a loooong time and we went to the same high school. We’re practically soul mates already! But then again, I already knew that at the mere age of 15.

Dating with Disabilities is published every Tuesday by Online Dating Magazine columnist Melissa Blake. Melissa is a freelance writer and columnist. Her work has been featured in Redbook, Pregnancy magazine and the Chicago Tribune. She can be reached at [email protected]..

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