Dating in the Time of Cholera... er, CF
I first came across this article, " Love in the Time of Chronic Illness," in The Atlantic way back last year, Tweeted it as a bookmark to myself, and vowed to come back and comment on it. Obviously, it's taken a while, and I don't know if I would have done so were it not for the fact that I am finding myself in just such a situation. I haven't had luck with guys in the past, and I was tired of feeling lonely, so I joined an online dating site. I have connected with a very nice young man, D, and we are about to go on our third date, and I've decided to disclose to him about my CF at this time. And it is freaking me right the hell out.
I've long known I tend to overthink everything and make big deals out of things that aren't really issues, but this article and just common sense tells me that CF is A Big Deal. It is an important factor to consider when choosing to date me, and so I want him to know. Third date seems pretty arbitrary, and I guess it is. But I am trying to find that balance that the article mentions, between "Sharing too soon [which] may scare the person off and sharing too late [which] may lead to a lack of trust." The subhead of the piece is, "When should you disclose medical conditions to a date?" but it never answers that question. I guess it has no answers, because everyone experiences their disease differently and you just have to go with what feels right. But I am a creature of habit, and one who relies on past experience to guide me. And I have no experience to draw from.
OK, that's not 100% true. I have technically dated before, in the sense of "gone on dates." I was "going out with" a boy, W, at my summer camp during middle school. This lasted all of a day, because my "friends" convinced me it wasn't worth it. It actually transpired that they didn't like W and didn't want to hang with him; he had a crush on me because I was nice to him and legitimately thought of him as my friend. But I succumbed to peer pressure and "broke it off," if that's a term I can use for a not-even-a-real-fling relationship. I've always regretted that move, though, wondering what could have happened if I had been stronger. But, to return to the main point here, I didn't tell W about my CF. No one really knew about it at that stage; I waved off my trips to get pills and that was that. Of course, I also had practically no symptoms at that time.
Next was S, who I'll admit was my first love. He was my best guy friend for most of middle school and all of high school, and he knew all about my CF and how it made me feel, how it affected me. He was even there during a few of my hospital stays; not visiting (I didn't ask him to, and with transportation issues it would have been difficult) but supporting me, helping me carry my books once I got out, talking me for long answers, listening as I complained about my med schedule and test results and practically everything else. The CF doesn't scare him, and he saw me at my worst, I thought, so he's a keeper. And so that supportiveness, that caring, really deepened my infatuation with him - after he'd moved on.
See, at first, I really did see him as just my friend, and a great one at that. In tenth grade, he told me that he liked me in a romantic way. I was stunned, and floundered for a while before deciding that we could give it a try even though I was currently crushing on someone else. So we tried. We went on I believe two dates, and then a double date with my best girlfriend. And we were all set to go to the homecoming dance together my sophomore year. I had fallen for him by that point, and just when things were looking up, a bombshell: he had begun dating another girl. I should say that I don't think we were officially going out when we had our dates, although I didn't know that at the time. And in retrospect I could have been more forthright about my feelings evolving. But I assumed he still liked me, since he was supporting me through all of the CF-y stuff on top of normal teenage bullshit.
I could tell something was wrong at the dance, with the way he was acting. He was holding my hand, escorting me around, but very aloof. It was unlike him. Eventually he told me the situation. I was crushed. Absolutely devastated. To this day I wish he had just told me before the dance, and taken his girlfriend instead - it would have saved me lots of heartache. But it brings up a good point, that just because someone can handle your disease doesn't mean that they will be suitable for you in other ways. P could handle the CF just fine; what he couldn't handle was the pace I set. And, as I would learn later through a friendship with one of his girlfriends, he tended to look at relationships as ways for him to save someone - her from her cutting and suicidal thoughts, me from my crushingly low self-esteem and I guess some of the pessimism that can come from having a terminal illness.
But, newsflash: I am going to be pessimistic some days, regardless of other factors in my life. It's not like the chipper, serene patients they show in the movies. And having a disease like CF, it can be hard to get people to understand that, let alone what you go through physically. It's one of those invisible disabilities, and all the reading in the world can't describe precisely what it feels like to have cups of phlegm in your lungs, to be too short of breath to climb a flight of stairs. But there was C. He was three years older than me, but I knew him from the daycare center I attended in elementary school and sixth grade. C was also dealing with serious medical issues; I feel badly because I can't remember the name of his condition, but I know he had a feeding tube and had to do C-PAP when he slept, and he needed to take a nap in the middle of the day. He had a private nurse who would come and help him with things. And I will admit that the fact that he had nutritional difficulties and breathing difficulties made him attractive to me. Here was someone who understood, I thought. He knows what I am going through and has been there himself. He gets it. I had never met another "sick person" before; all my other friends were, and always had been, healthy. So it was novel, it was exciting, he was an older guy who was nice to me, but most of all it was the first person I felt a kinship with in regards to this area of my life. He had a girlfriend for much of the time I knew him, however, so nothing would have come out of it even if I had been more forthright. Looking back, though, I realize it was almost fetishizing his illness, making it into one of the primary factors drawing me to him and allowing (encouraging?) me to overlook some of his negative traits.
So we've got a few complications to this notion of reactions to the "chronic illness as measure of character" paradigm here. One, me and C, where I almost liked him more for his illness than for his personality. And then the situation with P, where he viewed CF - or at least the psychological issues partially stemming from it - as something he could save me from, as a way to "fix" me and, ultimately, make himself feel important. This isn't a part of the article at all.
But, approaching dating now, I do find myself using the fact of my CF as a character test - but for myself. I have used it as a weapon, whipping it out much too early (first date, out in a very public ice cream parlor) to get rid of a guy who I didn't really dig. I was a cat puffing out its fur and hissing, making myself seem dangerous in an effort to scare away an unwelcome visitor. But the fatal blow wasn't fatal; he seemed pretty nonplussed about it, said it didn't bother him at all. And so I was forced to buck up and speak the uncomfortable words myself- "I'm sorry, but I don't think this can work."
I have used it as an excuse. "Oh that guy's cute… but I am sick right now so it's not a good time to talk to him." "I could go sit with him at lunch, but how to explain my pills? Best not." That is the biggest trap I've fallen into, using it as a reason not to put myself out there. Because the person who accepts me in spite of my CF is rare, but he sure as hell won't come into my life without me being open. Everyone has insecurities when it comes to dating; mine just happens to be bigger than most, something I think everyone would agree is legitimately a reason to be cautious. But I can't let the CF win. I think often about how I wish I could be a normal girl and not a CFer, how I want my life to be as normal as possible. CF has taken so much from me already - countless hours, deep-rooted confidence, half my lung function, scarless skin and unwalled veins. So why on earth have I been letting it have more than that? Because the only person who rejected a love connection because of my CF was me.
So: it's scary to put yourself out there in the dating pool, to make yourself vulnerable to rejection. And if I am wrong, and if my assessment of D is off and CF does become a deal-breaker (because, let's face it, if I thought from the outset someone wasn't the kind of person who could deal with it, why would I waste both of our time with dates?), it will hurt, and my confidence will take a hit again because I made a mistake. And I will be sad for a while. But then I will dive back in again. Because I don't have as long as some people to find their soulmate, thanks to CF, and so I need to make every moment we will have count. It limits my future, but not in this arena. Not anymore.
I've long known I tend to overthink everything and make big deals out of things that aren't really issues, but this article and just common sense tells me that CF is A Big Deal. It is an important factor to consider when choosing to date me, and so I want him to know. Third date seems pretty arbitrary, and I guess it is. But I am trying to find that balance that the article mentions, between "Sharing too soon [which] may scare the person off and sharing too late [which] may lead to a lack of trust." The subhead of the piece is, "When should you disclose medical conditions to a date?" but it never answers that question. I guess it has no answers, because everyone experiences their disease differently and you just have to go with what feels right. But I am a creature of habit, and one who relies on past experience to guide me. And I have no experience to draw from.
OK, that's not 100% true. I have technically dated before, in the sense of "gone on dates." I was "going out with" a boy, W, at my summer camp during middle school. This lasted all of a day, because my "friends" convinced me it wasn't worth it. It actually transpired that they didn't like W and didn't want to hang with him; he had a crush on me because I was nice to him and legitimately thought of him as my friend. But I succumbed to peer pressure and "broke it off," if that's a term I can use for a not-even-a-real-fling relationship. I've always regretted that move, though, wondering what could have happened if I had been stronger. But, to return to the main point here, I didn't tell W about my CF. No one really knew about it at that stage; I waved off my trips to get pills and that was that. Of course, I also had practically no symptoms at that time.
Next was S, who I'll admit was my first love. He was my best guy friend for most of middle school and all of high school, and he knew all about my CF and how it made me feel, how it affected me. He was even there during a few of my hospital stays; not visiting (I didn't ask him to, and with transportation issues it would have been difficult) but supporting me, helping me carry my books once I got out, talking me for long answers, listening as I complained about my med schedule and test results and practically everything else. The CF doesn't scare him, and he saw me at my worst, I thought, so he's a keeper. And so that supportiveness, that caring, really deepened my infatuation with him - after he'd moved on.
See, at first, I really did see him as just my friend, and a great one at that. In tenth grade, he told me that he liked me in a romantic way. I was stunned, and floundered for a while before deciding that we could give it a try even though I was currently crushing on someone else. So we tried. We went on I believe two dates, and then a double date with my best girlfriend. And we were all set to go to the homecoming dance together my sophomore year. I had fallen for him by that point, and just when things were looking up, a bombshell: he had begun dating another girl. I should say that I don't think we were officially going out when we had our dates, although I didn't know that at the time. And in retrospect I could have been more forthright about my feelings evolving. But I assumed he still liked me, since he was supporting me through all of the CF-y stuff on top of normal teenage bullshit.
I could tell something was wrong at the dance, with the way he was acting. He was holding my hand, escorting me around, but very aloof. It was unlike him. Eventually he told me the situation. I was crushed. Absolutely devastated. To this day I wish he had just told me before the dance, and taken his girlfriend instead - it would have saved me lots of heartache. But it brings up a good point, that just because someone can handle your disease doesn't mean that they will be suitable for you in other ways. P could handle the CF just fine; what he couldn't handle was the pace I set. And, as I would learn later through a friendship with one of his girlfriends, he tended to look at relationships as ways for him to save someone - her from her cutting and suicidal thoughts, me from my crushingly low self-esteem and I guess some of the pessimism that can come from having a terminal illness.
But, newsflash: I am going to be pessimistic some days, regardless of other factors in my life. It's not like the chipper, serene patients they show in the movies. And having a disease like CF, it can be hard to get people to understand that, let alone what you go through physically. It's one of those invisible disabilities, and all the reading in the world can't describe precisely what it feels like to have cups of phlegm in your lungs, to be too short of breath to climb a flight of stairs. But there was C. He was three years older than me, but I knew him from the daycare center I attended in elementary school and sixth grade. C was also dealing with serious medical issues; I feel badly because I can't remember the name of his condition, but I know he had a feeding tube and had to do C-PAP when he slept, and he needed to take a nap in the middle of the day. He had a private nurse who would come and help him with things. And I will admit that the fact that he had nutritional difficulties and breathing difficulties made him attractive to me. Here was someone who understood, I thought. He knows what I am going through and has been there himself. He gets it. I had never met another "sick person" before; all my other friends were, and always had been, healthy. So it was novel, it was exciting, he was an older guy who was nice to me, but most of all it was the first person I felt a kinship with in regards to this area of my life. He had a girlfriend for much of the time I knew him, however, so nothing would have come out of it even if I had been more forthright. Looking back, though, I realize it was almost fetishizing his illness, making it into one of the primary factors drawing me to him and allowing (encouraging?) me to overlook some of his negative traits.
So we've got a few complications to this notion of reactions to the "chronic illness as measure of character" paradigm here. One, me and C, where I almost liked him more for his illness than for his personality. And then the situation with P, where he viewed CF - or at least the psychological issues partially stemming from it - as something he could save me from, as a way to "fix" me and, ultimately, make himself feel important. This isn't a part of the article at all.
But, approaching dating now, I do find myself using the fact of my CF as a character test - but for myself. I have used it as a weapon, whipping it out much too early (first date, out in a very public ice cream parlor) to get rid of a guy who I didn't really dig. I was a cat puffing out its fur and hissing, making myself seem dangerous in an effort to scare away an unwelcome visitor. But the fatal blow wasn't fatal; he seemed pretty nonplussed about it, said it didn't bother him at all. And so I was forced to buck up and speak the uncomfortable words myself- "I'm sorry, but I don't think this can work."
I have used it as an excuse. "Oh that guy's cute… but I am sick right now so it's not a good time to talk to him." "I could go sit with him at lunch, but how to explain my pills? Best not." That is the biggest trap I've fallen into, using it as a reason not to put myself out there. Because the person who accepts me in spite of my CF is rare, but he sure as hell won't come into my life without me being open. Everyone has insecurities when it comes to dating; mine just happens to be bigger than most, something I think everyone would agree is legitimately a reason to be cautious. But I can't let the CF win. I think often about how I wish I could be a normal girl and not a CFer, how I want my life to be as normal as possible. CF has taken so much from me already - countless hours, deep-rooted confidence, half my lung function, scarless skin and unwalled veins. So why on earth have I been letting it have more than that? Because the only person who rejected a love connection because of my CF was me.
So: it's scary to put yourself out there in the dating pool, to make yourself vulnerable to rejection. And if I am wrong, and if my assessment of D is off and CF does become a deal-breaker (because, let's face it, if I thought from the outset someone wasn't the kind of person who could deal with it, why would I waste both of our time with dates?), it will hurt, and my confidence will take a hit again because I made a mistake. And I will be sad for a while. But then I will dive back in again. Because I don't have as long as some people to find their soulmate, thanks to CF, and so I need to make every moment we will have count. It limits my future, but not in this arena. Not anymore.