What's worse is that I now expect this reception from every single person I come across. When I can't meet anyone new without spending the entirety of the conversation wondering when the small talk will veer to the painful memory, I start planning exit routes that ensure I run over as many feet as I can on the way out. I anticipate people's judgement before they've even spotted me rolling along at crotch-level. I visualize them asking me to relive the moment when I was lying in bed, not even sure if I would live to see my life go to shit, and I shut them out before they get the chance to prove me wrong. Humanity's prejudice has induced my own prejudice against them. It's a sick kind of poetic justice, but not the deep, introspective kind. It's more like annoying slam poetry.

All this is probably why I'm marrying the first person who could actually see past my wheelchair. That's not a joke. I'm literally about to marry that person. You have to lock down the good ones before someone else takes them.

No one ever sees a relationship when they look at us. It's an idea so deeply burned into the brains of society that no one thinks twice about it before deciding that my capacity for a relationship extends no further than requiring someone to help me do normal-people stuff, because clearly I am incapable of normal-people emotions, thoughts, or even speech. When it's pointed out to someone that I'm wearing an engagement ring for a reason, they look like someone just gave them a surprise prostate exam. Once they've dealt with the fact that wheelchair users are, in fact, human beings like everyone else on the planet, they start to become suspicious that something sinister is taking place. "But ... but how can you love WHEN YOU HAVE W-W-WHEELS?!"

Sadly that's not the worst thing people think about the people I've dated ...

The rumors led to his exclusion from events, and even the people he planned to move in with the following academic year forced him out based on rumor alone. Having spoken to other disabled people, I know that when they hang out with someone able-bodied of the opposite gender, the general assumption of those around them is that the disabled person is a weak and pitiful creature falling foul of evil intent. It's difficult enough to lead a normal life as it is. It's even worse when idiots assume the non-disabled friends and lovers around me are only there to get some kind of sick thrill out of it, like I'm a character in a David Cronenberg movie. When they're not doing that ...

Short of shutting ourselves behind closed doors all day, it's inescapable. My fiance has mentioned to me more than once just how uncomfortable this makes him feel, and I can hardly blame him. He's here because he likes me, and he knows that I'm more than the wheels everyone else uses to define me. I read books. I write. I listen to music. I wear too much eyeliner. I attend wrestling shows. I like superhero movies. I'm terrible at Crash Bandicoot. I swear like a motherfucker. These are the reasons he's with me. Pity isn't one of them.

Besides, the closest he gets to heroism is when he remembers to put his underpants on before his jeans when he's drunk.

On another occasion, my male best friend, who I have never dated and never will, was spotted leaving my room at 1 a.m. after a movie marathon. The first thing one of my female flatmates said to me the next morning was, "So you can have sex, then?" Had I been less hung over, I would probably have had some witty response, but instead tried to create the kind of silence that lets people know you're quietly calling them stupid.

Sadly, this happens on a pretty consistent basis. I don't know what it is about the wheelchair, but the second someone gets comfortable enough with me to start asking personal questions (and it doesn't take long), the topic of sex comes up, and they get pretty goddamn blunt about it. I'm still confused as to why the wheelchair generates these kinds of behaviors in people, and why they take offense when I take offense to these queries. What are they expecting? For me to crack and give up all the juicy details like it's a police interrogation? No. I owe them nothing and they should expect nothing, other than a punch to the face as they're doubled over in pain after I've run over their foot in yet another perfectly executed exit.

Emma Steer, a.k.a. "Mini" (long story), has her own blog, "Diary of a Disabled Person," with new posts discussing her life released every Sunday. She also has a Facebook page accompanying the blog, sending out notifications with every new post, as well as the obligatory silly photos.

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