Dating clubs for the disabled

by Charles Downey

People with physical disabilities have sexual needs and desires that can often go unfulfilled because their medical conditions can be barriers to meeting people. Specialized dating clubs offer a multitude of services to help people find romantic companions.

When psychiatrist Lucy Waletzky treated several disabled patients for depression in her Chevy Chase, Maryland, office, Dr. Waletzky found her good work was being quickly? and thoughtlessly? undone.

"I had one blind patient and another who suffered from multiple sclerosis and used a wheelchair," says Dr. Waletzky who now practices in Westchester County, New York. "Both were single, lonely and sick to death of sitting home alone."

Acting on Dr. Waletzky's advice, both decided to join a dating service, which eventually made both their blues even bluer. The dating services rejected both applications, saying, "Who in the world would want to date a handicapped person?"

Yet another patient reported seeing one dating service application that specified "no criminals or handicapped."

Dr. Waletzky, a former clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Georgetown University, then decided to start a dating service geared to the needs of single people with disabilities.

"I wanted a place where values of the heart and a person's abilities mattered the most," says Dr. Waletzky.

The result? The 13-year-old DateAble, a Chevy Chase, Maryland, 275-member dating service responsible for 25 marriages and countless romances. Most members have medical conditions that affect mobility, vision, hearing, speech or cognitive functions. The service charges $100 to join with a $25 annual renewal fee. About 60% are men; most members are in their 30s and 40s, although ages range from 17 to 70.

"Love revs up the body's entire system and makes anybody feel better, [and] ? rejection makes a person feel less well," says Dr. Waletzky. "Because of the mind-body connection, love can be like medicine."

Many disabled people tend to have rusty dating skills because they have neither the time nor the opportunity to fully develop their social graces while young. Thus, DateAble is also a safe place to hone chatting and flirting skills and all-purpose savoir-faire.

An online service, Romance & Resources for the Disabled, offers pictures and profiles of people who want to date, lists special sporting and recreational events and offers a teen chat. Handicapped Dating, with offices in Atlanta, New York, and Los Angeles provides two to five introductions per month and a complimentary wedding gift, should two members marry. In England, Handidate is yet another introduction agency for the disabled.

DateAble has a staff matchmaker, several dozen social events, like beach weekends, dinner parties, skiing, theater trips, picnics, barn dances, hay rides and snowmobiling, and an annual black tie soiree in which Image Awards are given to people and firms who have put the disabled in the best possible light. Past winners include Katie Couric of NBC's Today Show, Tipper Gore, comic Geri Jewell, and actress Annette Funicello.

DateAble's support groups meet every other weekend for discussions on topics like loneliness, sexuality, relationships and medical issues. Some of their married members continue to attend meetings for the social activities and offer advice to still single, but hopeful, members.

Many of today's dating services are decidedly high-tech. But Bonnie Goerner, DateAble's matchmaker, links couples the old-fashioned way. She gets to know each of the potential mates and then puts her intuition to work.

Take Robert Robie of Arlington, Virginia, for example. When Robert was young, he lived all over the world because his parents were in the oil business. So he knows several languages, plays the guitar and loves to cook and sing. Currently a secretary in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, he uses a wheelchair because of a severe case of polio when he was three.

"I once hired a young immigrant woman to help me out around the house," Robie recalls. "Eventually I got involved with her?but I realized I was really grasping at straws. The woman had four or five children in another country, had no real education, and understood nothing about disabilities. [This was a pattern]?.my life was either empty or lonely or I was with a person who was completely wrong for me."

So at age 46, Robie decided to give DateAble a whirl, even though he was skeptical that romance would ever flourish. He gave Bonnie Goerner a thumbnail sketch of himself and then related what he would like to find in a mate.

"I said I would like somebody who understands something about my medical problems. I told her that my Spanish was fluent, my Farsi good and my Italian, fair. Plus, I would like to do the cooking. I thought I was wishing for the sun, moon and stars."

Robie says you could have knocked him over with a feather when he was introduced to Maria, a woman ten years his junior, who hails from Argentina. Moreover, Maria also had polio as a child.

"Maria is such a mirror image of me, my mouth just kept dropping open when I met her," says Robie who just turned 50. "She uses a wheelchair just like I do and she loves it when I play my guitar and sing to her. She also has a great singing voice. I didn't think it was possible for a person to be as happy as I am now."

Dale Grinder of Arlington, Virginia, has had cerebral palsy for the last 25 years. He started taking 5 milligrams of Valium, a powerful tranquilizer, a quarter of a century ago to help control the palsy. But the dose crept up to a whopping 70 milligrams a day and he became addicted, although he could still do his job as a US government historian.

"I was like a zombie and certainly had no interest in dating," says Grinder. "Plus, I didn't drive or walk very well so I thought dating would be just too much trouble. I figured two sets of disabilities in one household would be too much. I figured I would always live alone."

That pattern lasted 22 years. Then Grinder joined DateAble at 47 after he broke the Valium addiction and gave up alcohol and smoking. He then met Natalie, a woman who uses a cane because of her own cerebral palsy.

"On the first date, I found that we enjoy the same things, we both have full-time jobs, we both love to cook and we like to see all the latest films," he says. "It also seems we never run out of things to talk about."

"The service brings people together and gives them a chance to see others like themselves in a relaxed setting," Watson says. "And then human nature takes over. All men and women can fall in love if you just bring them together."