[NABS-L] Using online dating apps and putting oneself out there

Karl Martin Adam kmaent1 at gmail.com
Wed Aug 21 17:13:02 UTC 2019 

Hi Sami, it sounds like you don't really understand what online 
dating apps are.  As most people use them, the point is to match 
with someone who lives near to you, talk for a bit, and then go 
on a date in person and see how things go.  The vast majority of 
people aren't interested in matching with someone far away, for 
precisely the reasons you mention, and any main stream dating app 
lets you set how close you want someone to be in order to see 
their profile.  The idea isn't, at least for the vast majority of 
people, to enter a relationship with someone you've never met, 
it's just another way of arranging to meet someone other than 
having your friend set you up or trying to meet someone in a bar 
(which at least for me is a lot less accessible).

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Sami Osborne via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
To: Michael Capelle via NABS-L <nabs-l at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Wed, 21 Aug 2019 07:52:01 -0400
Subject: Re: [NABS-L] Using online dating apps and putting 
oneself out there

Hi Rahul and all,

While I have never utilized dating sites myself, I would 
personally discourage this. This is not to say that no one should 
do it, of course—everyone makes their own personal choices, but 
in my opinion online dating is not really "dating" someone, even 
though you and your partner might consider it so. When you date 
someone, you are really in their presence (in person), a lot of 
the time, and you're constantly going out and showing affection 
with each other. For me personally, it's far easier to meet a 
potential partner when they live near where you live. There are 
lots of ways of meeting people in person (IE. maybe they work the 
same job as you, or maybe a friend could hook you up with your 
future partner, or maybe you'd meet them at a bar or other public 
venue, etc. Of course I presume (since I've never done this 
myself) that you could ask to have a partner close to home when 
setting up an online dating account, but you'd probably also have 
no guarantee of that; you could end up with someone 1000 miles 
away, and you might never end up seeing each other in person 
because you might not have the money, or some other reason.

Another thing that's an important factor in dating is attraction, 
so that you know who you really have feelings for. Again, I could 
be wrong about this, but I feel that this is probably a whole lot 
easier in person than virtually; when you're face-to-face with 
the person you want to be your partner, at least you know all the 
features that really draw you to them. With online dating you 
could very well end up with someone with something you don't like 
in reality, even though it might not appear that way (they could 
have bad breath (no offense)), or, if your partner is sighted, 
they could offer you compliments about, say, your hair or eyes 
that draws them to you. I seriously doubt they'd be able to do 
this while just spending time virtually.

Again, this is not to say that people shouldn't do online dating 
if they don't want to, but this is just my personal opinion on 
this. My understanding of "dating" is that you're constantly out 
doing things with your partner (as long as you both have deep 
attractions to), going out, showing affection, offering 
compliments, offer gifts to on their special day, and just 
hanging out with each other a lot. Furthermore, if you date a 
sighted partner, I'm pretty sure you'd want someone who would 
break up just because of your blindness, and who just will accept 
you for who you are as a person. Your partner would most 
certainly want to be someone who's willing to guide you around 
when necessary, describe the scenery when you're out if 
unfamiliar, and who just doesn't view  you as inferior and just 
accepts your blindness for what it is: just a part of your 
person, not the characteristic that defines you.
In fact, now that I think about it, this brings me to possibly 
another problem with online dating, especially if you're visually 
impaired: you could choose not to disclose to your partner that 
you have a vision loss, but then if you guys see one another, 
he/she would automatically see your cane or dog and then break up 
with you right on the spot, leaving you feeling terribly 
depressed. In person your partner will just see it and 
immediately be able to make the decision whether to go forward or 
not.

I hope I made some sense here. Again, I'm just expressing my 
rather strong opinion, not trying to discourage anyone or 
anything.

Thanks for reading,

Sami  

On Aug 21, 2019 3:51 AM, Michael Capelle via NABS-L 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:

 Same here

 -----Original Message-----
 From: NABS-L <nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Amanda via 
NABS-L
 Sent: Wednesday, August 21, 2019 2:42 AM
 To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org
 Cc: cape.amanda at gmail.com
 Subject: Re: [NABS-L] Using online dating apps and putting 
oneself out there

 I am curious about this as well. Thanks for asking! :)

 Amanda

 On Aug 21, 2019, at 3:25 AM, Rahul Bajaj via NABS-L 
<nabs-l at nfbnet.org> wrote:

 Hi All,

 Please do forgive me if this has been discussed before. I was 
wondering if you have any pointers about using online dating 
apps, from a blind person’s standpoint. So far, I have found 
Hinge to be most useful, as it is largely based on personality 
traits rather than looks, but have not received a single 
expression of interest.

 Apart from dating apps, are there any other ways that you have 
foubnd of putting yourself out there?


 Best,
 Rahul

 Sent from my iPhone
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