Could you be, “Undateable?“
I was spending the afternoon in my home and started to watch a program called E:60. For those unfamiliar with this program, it is a sports reporter show where they tell nothing but inspirational stories about humans and animals. Today’s show had stories about a person with Parkinson’s disease, a horse that was saved from an abusive farm and a girl that was losing her sight.
Each story had people and animals that were given something in life that they could not control. Their families did not leave them and spouses did not divorce. Truly inspiring stories that I have no shame in saying that made my eyes swell up more than once. The human condition can be something that is beyond words.
Then after a little while I saw a posting from a friend about a show called “Undateable”. Now the show itself follows the dating lives of fine folks with disabilities that are beyond their control also. A person with dwarfism and another with Tourette’s syndrome for example. Now my first reaction was anger at the exploiting this and their disabilities. After reason took over, the realization came over me that these fine folks are not being compensated for this show and being there was their choice.
Here is what I did not like, the title of the show. Maybe it is the thought that there is someone for everyone in this world that made me feel disappointed with the whole situation. I am not sure. Maybe it was because I had just watched a program that was beyond inspiring. Then it hit me. It was the folks that would be actually watching this show and laughing at the circumstances.
It reminded me of a horrible speech I heard a few years ago about how being married to someone with a newly discovered disease had truly affected her life. The speech was about her and not the changes that the husband would be going through. That is a completely different story but could you just imagine how a person feels when all of the sudden the person cannot do the same things they did just the day before.
In the end it just kind of made me sad instead of angry which I was feeling before. I get a picture in my head of a couple sitting there and watching this program and laughing at the entertainment. Then, afterwards, one of them finds out something that is out of their control. How would the partner react? That is what I started to think about.
With all of the changes that would happen in their lives and getting to know and live with a new element, let us hope that their partners would not find them “Undateable” at possibility the worse time of their lives when the change is discovered and support is needed.
