Dating is tough when you have a disability. It’s time to break down the barriers we face to finding love

Almost two-thirds of disabled people are chronically lonely, according to research from charity Sense. That rises to as many as seven in 10 young disabled people. As a young disabled person, I feel a contributing factor may be the litany of barriers disabled people face when dating and pursuing relationships.

Disabled and interabled relationships are seldom represented in mainstream media, apart from through misleading and potentially harmful narratives of films like Me Before You, in which the quadriplegic protagonist mourns his former able-bodied life and believes himself a burden on his charitable lover. 

The only other representation most people in the UK know of is the flawed reality TV show The Undateables. At best, it did nothing to change attitudes to dating disabled people. At worst, it was a cynical exercise in their exploitation for ratings and advertising revenue, not to mention the benefit of the dating agencies involved.

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Love on the Spectrum offers an authentic look at relationships with neurodivergent people, but the programme doesn’t reflect the disability community’s diverse experiences of, and barriers to, dating since other impairments aren’t explored. 

Some disabled influencers are making a real difference by talking about their experiences with dating and relationships, like the US-based influencer Shane Burcaw, who has spoken openly about how people have assumed his girlfriend, Hannah, is his nurse. But it’s not the sole responsibility of disabled individuals and their loved ones to educate the public. The mainstream media needs to do more.

If sex and relationship education in schools also isn’t disability-inclusive, depicting only conventional able bodies, young people grow up internalising small-minded conceptions of beauty, intimacy and connection, as well as the idea that disabled people are undesirable and asexual, whether they have a disability or not.

There have been positive initiatives, like Enhance the UK’s ‘Undressing Disability’ campaign, which raises awareness about the barriers disabled people face when it comes to sex and intimacy, and seeks to normalise it as a topic and educate people through talks, workshops, support services, podcasts and more. 

But these efforts are still too few and far between. As a result, disabled people may not pursue a relationship until the age of 27, as I did, having taken a decade to deconstruct my internalised ableism, or never pursue one at all, believing themselves unattractive and a burden.

Internalised ableism isn’t the only barrier disabled people face in looking for love. Inaccessible built environments place an artificial limit on who disabled people share space with and in what context. 

It not only lowers their chances of a spontaneous romantic encounter and potential venues for dates, but also reinforces the false narrative that they’re sad, passive, burdensome partners because non-disabled people have fewer real-life opportunities to challenge their misconceptions around disability. 

Over two-thirds of non-disabled adults in the UK admit feeling uncomfortable interacting with disabled people, with nearly half saying they don’t personally know any, according to Scope. Even if they do succeed in getting dates, with Inclusion London finding a mere 3% of homes in London have step-free entrances, let alone adapted bathrooms, wheelchair-users may not be able to explore intimate connections in private spaces either.

Dating apps are no panacea to the societal barriers that shrink disabled people’s dating pools – interacting with people they wouldn’t otherwise meet due to inaccessibility or distance does little to increase the likelihood of them getting dates. 

Hooking users on dopamine one like and message at a time, the apps are designed to keep them swiping so big tech can profit from their data and subscriptions, not so hopeful singles can meet a compatible person and delete their accounts.

But the conflict of interest between dating app users and the tech companies that own them isn’t the only reason many disabled people won’t meet their future partner on one. The anonymity and disposability of matches create a low-trust, low-empathy environment where they’re exposed to intrusive questioning, constant ghosting and ableist abuse.

For disabled women, this is in addition to the flood of unwanted attention and misogynistic behaviour women already receive online, in part because they are significantly outnumbered by men.

With disabled women twice as likely to experience sexual violence than their non-disabled counterparts, a study by the Office for National Statistics found, the prospect of meeting men they’ve only spoken to online can be a frightening, perhaps dangerous one.

As a society, we need to start a conversation around disabled and interabled relationships, no longer treating it as a taboo subject, but as a fact of human reality. In the public sphere, news outlets have to run articles and reports on dating with a disability, featuring long-form interviews with disabled people on their relationship experiences and a big picture analysis of the barriers they face in pursuit of romance. 

Publishers and producers should back books, films and serials that represent disabled people of diverse impairments, genders, sexualities and backgrounds in diverse love stories, employing authentic narratives shaped in consultation with disability communities. 

Within the UK education system, PSHE teachers and their equivalents must ensure their sex and relationship teaching materials are disability-inclusive to prevent students internalising the ableist idea that consenting disabled people don’t have sex and are burdens on their partners. For parents of disabled teenagers, affirm to them that one day they could have a boyfriend or girlfriend, but also that their value isn’t defined by their relationship status.

Calum Grevers is a disability consultant, speaker and campaigner.

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