I met Amy on OkCupid a little while after losing my vision. My previous relationship had ended quite badly and had been on the rocks for several months while I was dealing with my vision issues, and when it finally disappeared, so did my ex. She was not into dealing with my blindness, so all the better for her to leave me. Amy had set up a fun and attractive profile with a nerdy profile name that worked on many levels, so I sent her a message that touched on a few of our common interests. As our message count grew, so did their length, and I figured it was about time to meet up in person to suss out our chemistry together. We were both looking for the same things, primarily something more casual to begin with depending on chemistry, plus it turned out we were both interested in non-monogamy.
I chose a sushi restaurant just down the street from my house. I figured it was close to public transportation plus it was easy for me to get to using my beginner orientation and mobility skills using my white cane. The ultimate plan was for her to meet up at my place and we would walk down there together in sighted guide. In hindsight, it’s usually not a good idea to meet someone for the first time at their house, but Amy went with it. Also in hindsight, that sushi restaurant sucked and serves “white people” sushi, and of course being white I never noticed. Again, Amy knew about this but also went with it since she felt that it was an easy place for me to get to, so hooray for mutual accommodation.
We coordinated via text and OkCupid messages, and funnily enough the last message we ever sent to each other there was her apologizing for potentially being late for the date. She pulled up in a rideshare and rang the bell. I answered the door and heard her voice for the first time floating up the stairwell to my apartment. For some reason, rather than going down to meet her and head out from there, I buzzed her in past the gate and she came upstairs. Again, in hindsight, not a good idea for the first date, but it all just sort of happened.
I immediately knew that I liked her voice from that first Hello. When she came to the door, the next thing I noticed was her height. As mentioned in a previous post, I still retain a lot of tracking and sighted mannerisms, trying to look directly at a person when they are talking to me. Now, this usually involves looking towards the sound of someone’s voice, then imagining a mouth there and proceeding to look up a few inches to meet their eyes. Amy stands a full foot and an inch shorter than me, so it was quite fun discovering this in person. I knew her height from her profile and our messaging, but as always, the in-person meeting just gives you so much more information.
I led her inside my hallway and greeted her and wasn’t quite thinking of the implications of bringing someone up to the apartment. I then came back to my senses and remembered that my ex was still living with me and was watching a show on the couch. Awkward nervousness ensued as I began to give Amy a tour of the house. Amy thought she saw a weirdly large body pillow laying in the crook of my sectional, then was completely surprised when it moved and revealed itself to be my ex. Amy and I moved into the kitchen to look around, then to the dining room where I could show off my board game cabinet. The nervous awkwardness increased as Amy whispered to me, asking if that was my ex on the couch. I affirmed this, mouth dry and sweat starting to run as I came to terms with how odd it must be bringing a date over while an ex still lived with you.
Why didn’t I just go outside to meet Amy? Why didn’t I just meet her at the restaurant? Was crossing the street really that hard? Well, actually, yes, the latter was difficult for me at the time as I was still having trouble veering wildly while crossing streets, and bumbling into a busy intersection is not a great way to start a date. As for the former questions, I really have no idea. Blind dating was all new to me as was living with a live-in ex.
We made our way out of the kitchen, and my ex had gotten up from the couch to meet Amy. They shook hands after a slightly terse greeting, then my ex went back to her show and Amy and I moved down the hallway for the rest of the tour. I was stumbling over my words and making crummy small talk through this ordeal. After finishing the tour, we went back and I gathered my things for going out.
I put on my jacket and grabbed a hat to protect my face, turned in the hallway to grab my cane, then as I was turning to grab my keys, my elbow bumped into something warm, supple, and soft. I wasn’t quite sure what it was at first apart from being Amy, and I honestly figured that it was her arm or shoulder, stayed there for a second, then moved away after apologizing and proceeded to grab my keys and open the door.
I had elbowed Amy right in her right breast and didn’t notice.
Looking back on this little amusing incident, Amy recalls that she was embarrassed at dealing with the close quarters of my hallway, in a little pain since I’m a big guy, and ultimately amused about our height difference, my 6’2″ to her 5’1″. She never lets me live the boob elbowing incident down, and I just chalk it up to the given inherent awkwardness of being blind. Groping does happen, and it is usually always purely accidental. We need to feel our way around the world, and sometimes breasts just happen to be where we need to touch/look!
I still love the fact that Amy stuck with everything and endured the awkwardness rather than noping right out the door after I bumped into her. We made our way down the steps and out of my house, I gave her a quick rundown on how sighted guide worked, and off we went to devour white people sushi.
It was a wonderful first date, a perfect polar opposite to the horrible awkwardness of being accidentally paraded around in front of an ex. We connected and clicked extremely well, devoured our food slowly amidst a fun and lively discussion, then meandered back up the hill to my house. My ex had thankfully left by that point, and Amy made herself intentionally 30 minutes late to work just to spend more time with me, continuing our conversation while sitting on my couch.
We have now been together for over 3 years in a great ethical non-monogamous/poly relationship, primaries to one another, and co-habit in the very apartment where everything was born out of total awkwardness. She had the strength to see things through the first date and made it quite apparent that my blindness wasn’t an issue, helping me grow my confidence and loving her for it every day. I was worried that the blindness would get in the way; having to fight from projecting my unhappiness and discomfort about the blindness onto the situation. This all defused when Amy and I stepped out the door and quelled completely as we began to actually talk, and just goes to show that it is best to not let the awkwardness control you, own it and see things through when you have a good feeling about them, as you just never know what might come out on the other side.
**2020 Update: This story was originally written up in 2017, and Amy and I got married in November of 2019!