Last chance

Sometimes I just get naked from any activist intentions and I try to act like any other human being. What happens is that activists need to be radical to make their point. This can actually be inconvenient because navigating life often demands lots of incoherent action. And this is exactly the kind of shit an activist can't afford.

In any case, I really do my best to be aware of my two hats. And I try to act more softly when dealing with private matters that don't necessarily make to the cover of a magazine. On the other hand, there's always a limit. And when this is reached, I feel rather obligated to make it public for the sake of my cause.

One of those nights, I've matched with a girl in Happn. She was really fun, very young, and unfortunately very compliant to some sort of primal beauty standard that must be embedded in my jewish DNA. Yes, she's like 10 years younger than me. But although I'm mentioning that to make sure it's taken into account, I don't really think it can be deemed as a valid excuse for everything that happened later on.

She was very eager to meet me after the late night chats we've had. Although tired, she never for a second hesitated about wanting to meet me on that Saturday night. But then, as I always do, I felt I needed to tell her I've had cerebral palsy. I did that only for the sake of being entirely transparent, since I don't really believe it should be that relevant, especially for making the decision to blow me off in the last minute.

But then, that was exactly what happened. When she came across this info about me, she has just decided it was OK to cancel the date in the last minute. She has used her mental state as a excuse to do so. I was angry. I was frustrated. I felt as an activist it was my duty to hold her in contempt for being such a low person.

However, I've also put myself in her shoes, and decided to swallow my pride and my hatred as a means to promote a real positive change. I knew I'd be absolutely excused to just treat her as the lowest possible creature in the world without any trace of guilt. After all, being nasty to someone that has been ridiculously obscene to you is hardly something that will give you bad dreams at night.

Fact is I didn't really want to believe she was nasty. Because minutes before I was totally into her, lost in a great chat about nothing in particular, Seinfeld style. And all of a sudden, she felt ok to be treating me as subhuman because I've told her I have a disability. In this light I've managed to control my anger and give her the benefit of the doubt.

Now I realize this wasn't really about her. I was challenging myself to turn something despicable into another walk in the park. I was obsessed. I really felt that if I could make this person treat me as another person, I would have been able to erase some of the evil thrown on disabled people all over the world, since humanity's inception.

I've failed miserably. After so much time trying to convince her to meet me and end that horror situation she was causing both of us, I just had to give up. She really thought she could treat me like crap, and still have a clean conscience, still being able to consider herself a decent person. Well, unfortunately I have to disagree. But I'll give her yet the last chance to make it right. You see, this essay is going out without her name. So it is public, as much as all my records about being abused at work.

Her name is not here, so no one will be able to tell she did it. Now my pledge is the following: if she really thinks what she did was OK, I think she won't mind me mentioning who she is. Otherwise, she's exactly like my ex-ex manager. Just a lousy person without any special talent abusing people to appear less incompetent and unskilled than she really was. In that case, I don't see any reason why her identity should be protected. Especially by me.

Modern love

Time goes by and things change. Yet of course basic human feelings are still the same as they were 500 BC. But the social structure in which these feelings unfold as well as the technological means by which they are exchanged have definitely changed drastically.

In a world where the vast majority of the rich people already have a smartphone in their pockets, several novel forms of social interaction emerge. Mobile broad band internet connection that enables people to instantly access thousands of high definition photos, and built-in precise geolocation systems are allowing the exponential growth of virtual dating.

Advantages are pretty large. To start with, you're not tied up to your inner social circle in order to find someone you wanna date or something else. This is very convenient, because at a certain age, most of the people around become committed, meaning that choices within a particular social group are very limited. Expanding the target socially can be great for those that either didn't follow society's common life tracks in terms of romantic relationships, but also the ones that have, and for some of several reasons, have left that position later in life. This virtual social field has the potential to give people many additional opportunities to avoid loneliness.  

Furthermore, meeting this is way is also more convenient in terms of time commitment. For those who are shy, there's also the advantage to be able to talk for a while with a person before meeting her, which can help avoiding social anxiety. Since there's no full visibility of the person you're interacting with, it's possible to do it simultaneously with multiple people, thus increasing the chance to find someone that's worth it, whatever this may mean to you.

But not everything is so great in the online dating world. Same information asymmetry about what each person is doing, causes engagement and commitment levels to be really low. What this means is that even if conversation is fun, and one thinks the other person is an interesting candidate, it's common to see them treating each other with much less respect and consideration, compared to someone that's right in front of them.

Probably there's a physiological component to that behavior. Looking someone in the eye when you talk to her definitely gives you a whole different level of understanding of what the person is talking about, but maybe more important, what she's not.

In any case, this is an aspect that really undermines how successful these relationships can ever be. If people will always consider each other so disposable, this makes them more convenient to interact with, since regular social etiquette doesn't seem to apply, and they are suitable for last minute date cancellations or just not returning messages whenever the smallest distraction comes up. But it also means these relationships will always worth very little, and the communication means be considered as a lemon market.

I'm positive about the fact one can define his own conduct to a certain extent,, regardless of his environment. I'mMeaning it's possible to be a decent polite person in the virtual world where there currently no incentives to do so. Thing is, if incentives aren't there, it means most people won't do it. The result is that the likelihood you can find someone that will respect you enough for a relationship to be started in these apps is indeed very low.

So their reputation as being platforms for enabling casual sex encounters is actually a natural outcome of how little incentives people have to behave well and engage in meaningful conversations and relationships based in mutual respect. So for the satisfaction of sexual needs of physically suited people, the apps do work quite well. But if the idea is to turn these virtual meeting points into opportunities to find compatible life companions, or even people you'd like to be around for longer than a week, developers will need to put more thought into interaction quality, rather than the current focus in quantity.

Unintended uncovering good old prejudice

I put people in a tough position. Especially women. In dating apps no one can actually tell I'm disabled just by looking at my pictures. So with a lot of these pictures and a clever profile, I probably get the female attention and interest I would if the disability didn't exist. That actually feels good. I know the kind of attention I normally have from girls in real life, and it's obviously much less. I'm good at talking, I'm smart, so many of them want to date me at some point.

Issue is, I know disability is not something they expect to come across (despite prevalence in population would grant different expectations). So from this newly acquired rapport that has been build with my inner self, I always explain to them I have a disability before the date. It's pointless for me to hide something they will eventually see when we meet. But the timing for that talk is another tricky aspect of the whole experience.

Often times, because I was procrastinating, or simply forgot about the fact I always must explain my disability to others, I'd end up telling them about it very close to the agreed date. I wasn't trying to manipulate the results or their motivation. It was naive forgetfulness or even the inability to know how to introduce the topic in the conversation.

Then I've had a lousy date (that in terms of traditional success criteria was actually pretty good) and this girl has told me I was being deliberately manipulative. Of course I don't care that much about her particular opinion, since she's someone I don't really want to see again ever. But I'm a slave to the statement "what if".

So, because of this unfair feedback I knew wasn't true, I've decided to deliberately test the hypothesis. After that, what I did was to tell the girl really early in the app after-match conversation that I have a disability. And in terms of the conversation itself, this hasn't changed anything that much.

With this strategy in mind, what has surprised me quite a bit was the number of times the girls would schedule a date with me and then decide to blow me off for no particular reason. It's relatively super high, comparing to the previous unconscious one.

This really makes me mad. Maybe I'm wrong, (I'll be glad to be this time) but what seems to happen is that even when these girls say my disability doesn't matter (which is quite different from the regular reality), this variable has a huge influence in their ability to keep their appointment or even the way they decide to break it, disappear and maybe come up with an excuse later on. Or not.

Long story short, they are lying. Not only to me, but probably to their own selves. Because if they refuse to go out on a date with me exactly when they find out I have a disability, the relationship between the two events would be just too obvious. Just as their prejudice they claim not to have. They wouldn't be able to hide it, either from me or themselves.

That puts me in a dilemma here. Because I think in a reasonable world I wouldn't even have to explain my disability all the time. After all, all my pictures are true, I never refuse to talk about the issue when it comes up, and it's not something that should make me be perceived as a worse person.

But I don't really like the shock these girls have when they meet me. It makes me uncomfortable and angry. On the other hand, knowing that if the girls know from the start I'm disabled really makes me have to rearrange my calendar around all these last minute cancellations all the time, I wonder what a hell I'm supposed to do. Any tips?

Good news, bad news

Do you want to make the world a better place in your lifetime? Well friends, I've got good and bad news for you. Which do you want to get first? Well, I'll go with the good one first: you're probably going to live a long life. I'm no psychic or anything to make this statement with great level of certainty. This is what's happening to most human beings that are not inhabitants of war zones or other extremely unfortunate life conditions. Even in my country, Brazil, which used to be seen as a very poor one (at least populated with millions of very poor people), average lifespan has gone beyond 70 years old. In rich countries this is even more pronounced, and general life expectancy is increasing more and more. In some cases, average is reaching 80 years of age. People usually say they wanna live long lives. So this is the good news I've had for you.

Time for the bad news (it usually comes eventually). And it is very much related to the good one. When people live that long, disability rates of all sorts go through the roof. World population is getting older. Thus it's also getting increasingly disabled (group number is currently more than a billion people). That happens because medicine has done a terrific job in preventing death from all types of disease, and trauma. But it has been far less efficient in restoring bodily functions that make people live well. A great example is paralysis caused by spinal cord trauma. Prognosis for someone that experiences that in 2015 is not that different from whom would faced the exact same issue a thousand years ago. Of course today very few people can benefit from electronic exoskeletons and other high-tech/high-price solutions. But it's not really restoring body function. It's replacing it at best, with very mixed results. So let me make it a crystal clear for you: if you're really lucky, you will be disabled at some point of your life.

This blog is almost entirely dedicated to show everyone that's interested how leading life with a disability is. So I'm not going to focus much on this here (you can refer to all the other 70+ essays I've published before). Now I'll switch to good news again: because you are not disabled yet, you can still probably change your future with far greater ease than someone that already is disabled. In so doing, you'll improve lives of these folks who are disabled already, but also make your own life much better and easier in the future.

Sure, you can wait for some brilliant scientist to work her ass of for inventing the cure for all the underlying physical disorders that contribute to disable people along with the environment we live in. It's probably the easiest thing to do now. But if you were your current age 50 years ago and had done that, you'd still be waiting for the cure to come.

Don't get me wrong. I really love Kurzweil's landscape of human future. It's based on hard science (which is refreshing per se) and it's rationally very optimistic. Everywhere we look at, it's possible to detect exponential increase in technology advancement. That means projecting the future with a linear mindset (which is usually what people do) will generate a very imprecise picture, to say the least. The world itself can be very complex and hard to anticipate, but, for some reason, our ability to create more powerful technology is not. Therefore, any reasonably accurate prediction about the future should take that into consideration. Problem is that generates leaps we can't fully understand. Because this is not only a quantitative technology revolution. It's also a qualitative social one, in the sense that as price of these tech resources drops, it enables them to be used in very different ways compared to what we currently do.

Unfortunately, young people get disabled too. It happens all the time because of traffic accidents (which are also a leading cause of death in this age group). Again, getting hurt but disabled is actually the second best case scenario. Not to mention your kids that can be born with cerebral palsy, that affects eight babies in 1000 born alive and it's only the most common disability among children. There are several others. In all these cases, you'll have to deal with disability now. And believe me, it sucks.

So my proposal for you is that you selfishly take action now. Help destroying the barriers, physical, cultural, and social that prevent a disabled person to live to her full potential. You can do it out of altruism, or just treat it as a pension plan. In any case, as with saving money when you're young, this is the best time to make most impact because you're not disabled yet. This means the current environment settings don't disproportionately offset your every effort. So do that now! And I promise, with 100% certainty, this will make the world better for every human being on Earth.

How much truth can we get to?

Human beings are flawed. They make mistakes all the time. But I feel the most dangerous mistake we often make regards our judgement, not our actual knowledge about objective facts. In other words, I wouldn't have any problem with the world if decisions were mostly made by using the best methods available to mankind at a given point in time. What really bothers me is human capacity of condemning perfectly good methods of reaching objective knowledge just because conclusions they lead to go against human intuition itself. 

The universe is huge. We won't probably be able to get to know a significant share of it. Ever. But this doesn't have anything to do with how valid our methods to build knowledge are for explaining what they've aimed to explain. For example: it's illogical to think medicine effectiveness on fighting Polio has any direct correlation with its current ability to cure cancer. These two measures are completely independent, even if the method for getting to both has been exactly the same. It's possible and it happens all the time. You can establish two completely different effectiveness levels for currently curing two different diseases and at the same time be completely unable to deny the validity of the scientific method that has produced the two different treatment protocols.

Science is not perfect. It has its limitations and it is always evolving. But making intuitive claims about its method and call it critic view is just counterproductive. The main reason why science has allowed us to amplify our collective knowledge about the world so ridiculously in a very short period was the possibility to detach its conclusions from individual sensory experience. Which means that if a study was properly conducted (this is where critic view may actually  apply) and it got to a result that goes against your own experience and intuition, probably your experience and intuition are wrong. 

This is wonderful. Because it means that this piece of knowledge generated there doesn't depend on anyone's ability, personal opinions or perceptions to be valid. It's also the main reason why science is so powerful and so great. My take here is simple: discussing can be a healthy and productive exercise. As long as we focus on the right questions. Otherwise it's just like going back to dark ages again (even if you don't leave your cutting edge smartphone alone the entire time).

Disability and romance: tough combination

Dating sites offer a near magic experience for me. One of the things I've always hated about disability, even more so as a teenager and then as a young adult, was the apparent impossibility of getting some rest of it. Especially as a social interaction mediator. I really wanted to be seen, beyond any underrated external appearance or label. But this one would never go away.

Last time I've checked, over 60% of women claimed they will never be romantically involved with some guy with a disability. Even before having data, I've already come in too close contact with these statistics. This situation has always been very perceptible with several different degrees of clarity. Actually, this was the very first aspect of my life for which disability has shown to be a rather powerful excuse for exclusion, and frustration source. Best part is nobody needs to say a word about it. But it's there. It always is.

I could go (and went) for the psychological simplistic reading that I was pushing all these girls away, because I myself wouldn't accept who I really was. Again, accepting that would give me some sort of potential feeling of control over my own life and destiny, which I guess any developing person needs to grow up with a bit of self-security. Plus, despite the fact this pseudo therapy process would transfer a lot of my parents money to psychotherapists' pockets, there hasn't been much noticeable effect over my emotional well-being.

Apart from that, the more these romantic relationships would grow in importance and time spending among my friends as I'd grow up, the more alone I've gotten. Not only I wouldn't be able to interact with the girls at this level like they were, and make a sense of my own sexual identity, but I'd also become so different from my able-bodied friends, that I would soon become some sort of cast away right in the middle of regular school, the place I'd be occupying if it wasn't for being disabled (in fact, a place I had occupied not very long before since at that point it was up to me).

Most of my timid experiences in the romantic arena have started happening when I was around 19. And of course there was an additional price to be paid for initiating my life as male at that point. When I say these experiences have started then, I don't absolutely mean they've become a steady flow. Quite the opposite. Too many obstacles in life would provide extra difficulties for getting and maintaining these relationships. They'd feel much more like a fortunate accident, than something I could say I've had any control over. I've had too heavy luggage to carry. So either I'd be discriminated (no words of course) or would be deemed as exaggerated and neurotic.

This has been an ever present giant hole in my life. Scale would tilt to both sides and I'd never be positive about the ground I was stepping on.  Difference was later on, unlike in my teenage years, it wouldn't be the only one. Fact I was really clever all my life has brought me safe and sound only until University prep course at the age of 18. Everything I needed to study was well organized and accessible, which gave me the chance to become a top student, despite the never ending depression, exclusion, and loneliness.

But when I went to the University, things were all so different. Nothing was organized or accessible there. Classes would happen all over the giant campus. Books wouldn't be available, and even if they were, I'd have to spend very long looking for them at the huge libraries. I'd just get exhausted and learn very little. Fun was always related to activities I couldn't take part on. I was ashamed of all that. I thought it was somehow my fault and couldn't bond with my colleagues. Plus, it seemed I had become dumb all of a sudden. There was absolutely nowhere to anchor my self-esteem to. It took me more than 10 years to understand why university was a lousy experience for me, even as a student.

Today, besides the limitations currently imposed on me in leading my quasi-normal life experiment, I still face all these other demons from the past. Exclusion is something similar to heavy-metal poisoning. You get it a little at a time, and it accumulates all over your body and your life, generating some nasty effects as time goes by. It's always easier to blame that on someone's personality. It's better for the conception of world dominant people like to live with. Only issue is that's freaking unfair.

Very often, I feel like escaping all that. And a guy  like me, whose disability is only perceived by others as I move and speak, online relationship sites are extremely refreshing. As I've mentioned in previous essays, not because I'll trick girls to believe I'm something I'm really not. Before meeting them, I always go through the very unpleasant process of telling them about my disability, explaining it in the most detailed manner I possibly can. Some of them will just stop talking to me, as if I've done something wrong in having that in the first place. Others will say it's ok. Of course ok in theory is a whole lot different from ok in practice, and I get it, really, I do. Few will like me as a man, and treat me like they would do to any other guy. I realize these are very few, and meeting them takes lots of time, effort, and emotional energy. This is very frustrating at times, since I also have extra work to do at the other aspects of my life.

However, as nice as being in the game for finding a life partner maybe, I've realized the most value I actually extract from the whole online dating experience is not very correlated with the 3 or 4 dates I can have in a very long time and in which we both get attracted to each other (and that won't necessarily become anything else, because life's too complicated). The thrill I get from swiping and talking is actually bitter-sweet. I get to experiment a taste of the life I'd have if it wasn't for my disability. It's sweet because it gives me the certainty I'm a nice, even good looking, very lovable man. It reassures me about qualities I do have, but which are often offset by stigma or any other form of prejudice others usually have embedded in their eyes. But it's also very bitter when the real date shock makes me aware of how my life is poorer in pleasant and tender social experiences than it would be in a disability-free environment like the virtual one I've had the chance to flow in. No matter what happens, I've got to come back to this concrete reality eventually. And especially in comparison, it truly sucks.

Disability and fundamentalism

Today I finally felt like a suicide bomber. Of course I didn't explode myself or anyone else. Not literally anyways. But I've had the experience of protecting a principle with my life, because as for suicide bombers, what was being innocently minimized by others is exactly what has finally given me a direction and provided a compelling meaning for my life as is.

However, contrary to what usually happens to terrorists, enemy identity wasn't really obvious. As a matter of fact, the enemy was disguised in such a way that externally we'd have been considered as equals.

This was probably the most painful part for me. Because what has likely brought us together were terribly similar life circumstances. I'm sure although she had never mentioned that explicitly, the fact she has been temporarily disabled when she was a kid, must have opened her eyes to several issues I've faced myself.  Question is to what extent.

I've told her about my disability since the beginning. I thought that was the most honest thing to do. Also, I've realized this is always a much better approach than assuming the difference doesn't matter, and meet the other person unprepared.

What I wasn't expecting at all was that she herself had something that could be disguised in pictures, and that potentially could change radically her attractiveness judgement by these. At first, I just didn't feel attracted when I've faced her true self. This wasn't new at all. It was indeed the most frequent experience I've had in these semi-blind dates short career of mine. Something I didn't expect at all, by the way.

The other unexpected came later. All these unattractive layers of her just melt away right in front of me. And all of a sudden, I was able to see a person that was actually much more attractive than the idealized and carefully edited virtual version of her. Things could then flow well, at least for me. But on the day after, she has felt the after-shock of our collision. She was hurt by the fury with which I've argued for protecting my reason to live. And she never wanted to see me again.