Knowing when to disclose your vision condition can be quite the minefield when dating.
Speaking to Vision Australia’s Nothing’s Off Limits radio show, Adelina Holloway says she opted to disclose outside of their initial meeting on the app.
“I wanted to give myself the best chance of finding someone that accepted me for me before they stereotyped me as the blind girl,” she said.
Caption: Swiping right on a potential dating app profile.
But of course, that came with its challenges.
“It felt at times that I was being a bit of a fraud because I wasn’t telling them the whole truth about myself,” she said.
“If I knew there was potential for it to go further then I would disclose it, but just pieces at a time – I didn’t give my whole life story.”
But, on the receiving end, it was a bit of a different story. Her partner says he got mixed signals. The lack of eye contact meant he just assumed she wasn’t into him, and actually tried to break it off prematurely because of it.
When the penny dropped, things immediately improved. Now they’re eight months into a flourishing relationship.
On episode seven of Nothing’s Off Limits, hosts Polly Goodwin and Tess Herbert delve into the murky seas of online dating with vision loss.
Speaking with Nemoy Malcom and Sarah Taylor, who helm the Telelink dating social group, Table for One at Vision Australia, the troubles of dating can multiply when a disability is involved. From inaccessible apps and websites, to worries about whether someone will reject them based on their eye condition. Dating can be hard.
Adelina says you sometimes have to be ready to react to quite uncomfortable situations.
“I have disclosed to partners in the past and you can almost see a shift from them seeing you as an attractive independent woman to someone who needs help.”
Nemoy and Sarah advise to be confident in yourself first and know what you want.
“Find out what you bring to a relationship – what you have to offer,” Nemoy says.
Try picking date locations where you know the area well and can easily orientate yourself, and pick times where your vision is as its best for instance, during the daytime, Sarah says.
For more advice and to hear about entering the dating world as someone with a vision condition, listen to the full episode in the player below.
Nothing’s Off Limits is a 10-episode series and aims to tackle life’s more awkward, embarrassing and uncomfortable topics from a blindness and low vision perspective.
Episodes are available as podcasts from the Vision Australia website, Podbean, and Spotify.