Deaf Becomes Her

Before Channel 4 broadcast The Undateables, I’d honestly never considered myself as such. For the blissfully ignorant, The Undateables is a point-at-the-freaks dating documentary series, which has been running since 2012. It’s an often all too literal take on Blind Date, without our dearly departed Cilla to soften the cringeworthiness. If I went on it, I could call it deafsploitation. No, I’m never going on it.

When they launched The Undateables, all the PR bumf quoted a 2008 Observer Sex Poll, the results of which were so galling that they’ve stayed with me to this day:

“Seventy per cent of Britons would not consider having sex with someone who had a physical disability. Just over one in four would not rule out the possibility, while only four per cent have actually had sex with someone with a physical disability.”

Imagine, if you will, how devastating that opening sentence was to me the first time I read it. In my consummate naïveté, I had never factored my hearing aids into my personal pros and cons list. I thought my biggest barriers to bagging a beau were my wonky nose and dodgy sense of humour. And yet, there it was. 70% of people wouldn’t even consider a deaf dalliance.

I joked at the time that the judgmental majority were doing me a favour, skimming themselves off the top of my dating pool like dead bugs. And I do try to stay positive about such things, really. I’m so positive that if I stand still for too long, electrons flock to me.

No, wait, that’s asshats. I always get the two confused.

I guess the problem is that if you skim 70% off the top of your pool, then it’s not really a pool any more. It’s a puddle. And if you live somewhere as incestuous as Brighton, then it’s a really murky puddle. With hippies in it.

Despite my jokes, I mooned over my murky puddle for a good month after reading that poll. Then I dragged myself out of the sludge, determined to skew the final 4% statistic. I don’t hide my deafness from potential partners, but I won’t make an issue out of it either. I treat it as one of the many tiny considerations you have to take into account when dating someone. I’m deaf, but I also love Italian horror films and tattoos and disturbing dystopian fiction. I’m vegetarian, but I hate hiking. Actually, I’m suspicious of nature in general. I will kick your ass at Time Crisis and Scrabble, but I’m terrified of heights and Morris dancers. I own 930 DVDs, but I’ve never managed to sit all the way through The Shawshank Redemption.

I am disabled, but I am still a whole person. And if only 30% of people can accept that? Well I’ll take that 30% and go drinking and dancing with THEM. And our party will be the loudest on the street, because that’s what happens when you let the deaf girl near the sound system.

The full Observer Sex Poll 2008 can be found HERE. Next week: why lip-reading spells nothing but trouble.