A Dilemma
I met a man the other day in the PT waiting room, who made me want to write someone like him. He was in his early twenties, maybe, but he spoke like he was comfortable with himself in a way you don’t often see in the young. His humor was self-deprecating, but he seemed to be genuinely good natured and he came across as really alive. I only saw him for maybe five minutes, most of which I was reading, but his impression stuck with me. I would really like to write him that Object of Affection that he will probably never have.
Why, you ask. To start, he is in a wheelchair. Some people in wheelchairs can have fulfilling romantic lives. But many able bodied people would never consider falling for someone who wasn’t. A lover would have to see past the disability-in this case a genetic disorder-and get to know the man he is inside. Despite the wheelchair this guy was almost as mobile as the average person. He had a light weight wheelchair that got easily in and out of tight corners. Sure he’d need someone to get things off the top shelf for him, but then so do I. Plus he had all those nice chest and arm muscles a person gets with manual wheelchairs.
And he was short. I’ve know several short men (5’2”/157cm and under) and they have all married early (before they turned 22), so being short isn’t really bad for one’s love life, especially in the world of slash. I saw a man yesterday who if I hadn’t had any visual references, he would have looked average height, so I really wasn’t prepared to be taller than him. Now he would make a perfectly slashable character. But back to the guy in the waiting room. He probably would have been the same height sitting or standing. The soles of his feet were even with the edge of his chair seat. He didn’t move his feet during the time I saw him, but I’ve heard of a form of dwarfism where they can walk as kids, but in order to keep being able to walk any distance as adults they have to have operations and then years of braces on pretty much ever bone in their bodies. Some parents must decide that being able to walk isn’t worth all that pain. That’s what my character would have.
My biggest problem is finding someone to love him. I’m having the hardest time coming up with a person who could be attracted to a child size man and still keep my respect. Someone who had known him all his life came first, but seemed to be defeating my purpose. I don’t want someone who had years to get used to the idea. So I thought they could meet in a bar when OoA was watching over his brother’s twenty-first birthday and the wheelchair guy was out with friends. The friends would be extremely overprotective, of course, and worried that anyone who flirted with their friend must be a creeper.
And that’s the problem. Why would OoA start flirting with my guy, smart, friendly, and good-looking as he is? The story would have to be from OoA’s POV (at least that section) because otherwise every other thought would be about whether he was a pervert. Maybe his POV is that he’s flirting for fun with someone he’s only mildly interested in (like Main has most beautiful blue eyes OoA has ever seen, or gorgeous hands or some silly, superficial thing like that) and he doesn’t expect it to go anywhere. (And maybe make him short as well, so their heights aren’t too different.) But how do I make the leap from “let’s flirt while the others dance and drink” (with maybe a little dance floor wheelchair action) to “let’s date”?
And I wonder this even though I once managed sympathetic molester, a kind of person I hate more than a murder, polluter, or even someone who rapes strangers as horrible and disgusting as such a person is because a molester betrays trust as well. (I’m too embarrassed to post this story anywhere, but it makes me cry every time I read it.)
If I can do that, why can’t I come up with a nice, gentle, happy man, who willing deals with accusations to perversion so he can be with the man he loves?
Of course I could have my head screwed on wrong here. Go ahead and call me on the carpet about prejudice or stereotypes or, well, anything. I need something-anything to get me writing again, something I haven’t done in a month (which isn't entirely mee_eep’s fault because I didn’t start crocheting again until after the first of the year.)
Hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with another chapter of A Balance of Harmonies, but then, I planned on posting a short story as a present to everyone on my birthday and that didn’t happen either.
Why, you ask. To start, he is in a wheelchair. Some people in wheelchairs can have fulfilling romantic lives. But many able bodied people would never consider falling for someone who wasn’t. A lover would have to see past the disability-in this case a genetic disorder-and get to know the man he is inside. Despite the wheelchair this guy was almost as mobile as the average person. He had a light weight wheelchair that got easily in and out of tight corners. Sure he’d need someone to get things off the top shelf for him, but then so do I. Plus he had all those nice chest and arm muscles a person gets with manual wheelchairs.
And he was short. I’ve know several short men (5’2”/157cm and under) and they have all married early (before they turned 22), so being short isn’t really bad for one’s love life, especially in the world of slash. I saw a man yesterday who if I hadn’t had any visual references, he would have looked average height, so I really wasn’t prepared to be taller than him. Now he would make a perfectly slashable character. But back to the guy in the waiting room. He probably would have been the same height sitting or standing. The soles of his feet were even with the edge of his chair seat. He didn’t move his feet during the time I saw him, but I’ve heard of a form of dwarfism where they can walk as kids, but in order to keep being able to walk any distance as adults they have to have operations and then years of braces on pretty much ever bone in their bodies. Some parents must decide that being able to walk isn’t worth all that pain. That’s what my character would have.
My biggest problem is finding someone to love him. I’m having the hardest time coming up with a person who could be attracted to a child size man and still keep my respect. Someone who had known him all his life came first, but seemed to be defeating my purpose. I don’t want someone who had years to get used to the idea. So I thought they could meet in a bar when OoA was watching over his brother’s twenty-first birthday and the wheelchair guy was out with friends. The friends would be extremely overprotective, of course, and worried that anyone who flirted with their friend must be a creeper.
And that’s the problem. Why would OoA start flirting with my guy, smart, friendly, and good-looking as he is? The story would have to be from OoA’s POV (at least that section) because otherwise every other thought would be about whether he was a pervert. Maybe his POV is that he’s flirting for fun with someone he’s only mildly interested in (like Main has most beautiful blue eyes OoA has ever seen, or gorgeous hands or some silly, superficial thing like that) and he doesn’t expect it to go anywhere. (And maybe make him short as well, so their heights aren’t too different.) But how do I make the leap from “let’s flirt while the others dance and drink” (with maybe a little dance floor wheelchair action) to “let’s date”?
And I wonder this even though I once managed sympathetic molester, a kind of person I hate more than a murder, polluter, or even someone who rapes strangers as horrible and disgusting as such a person is because a molester betrays trust as well. (I’m too embarrassed to post this story anywhere, but it makes me cry every time I read it.)
If I can do that, why can’t I come up with a nice, gentle, happy man, who willing deals with accusations to perversion so he can be with the man he loves?
Of course I could have my head screwed on wrong here. Go ahead and call me on the carpet about prejudice or stereotypes or, well, anything. I need something-anything to get me writing again, something I haven’t done in a month (which isn't entirely mee_eep’s fault because I didn’t start crocheting again until after the first of the year.)
Hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with another chapter of A Balance of Harmonies, but then, I planned on posting a short story as a present to everyone on my birthday and that didn’t happen either.