It isn’t actually a compliment to them. It’s an insult to me.
The connotation is that I am a burden and unworthy. It suggests that my friendship, my love, and my companionship are so difficult to handle that anyone who “deigns” to be connected to me deserves a gold medal for their patience.
I thought I had grown immune to such comments, but last year I had an encounter that reminded me of how annoying they are.
A woman walked up to the table where I was selling books at an event, looked at my friend sitting next to me, and asked if she was my mother. It’s already a bit awkward to assume a woman who is my peer is my parent, but it was the reaction after we corrected her that really stuck with me. We replied with blank faces, “No, we’re just friends.” She didn’t just move on. Her head tilted while her patronizing smile glowed, and she cooed:
“Oh… isn’t that nice?”
It’s a small comment, but it carries a lot of weight. Between the condescending tone mixed with the crook of her neck, my blood boiled. It was as if my friend was performing a random act of kindness by sitting at a table with me, or as if she’d signed up for a volunteer shift instead of just spending time with a friend, who she actually likes.
Worse still, my boyfriend, who doesn’t use a wheelchair, is constantly admired for being with me, as if he’s doing something heroic or noble by simply being in a relationship with me. People seem to think there is no way he could get his needs met. Too many times I’ve been told I am lucky to have him—as if he’s only with me out of the goodness of his heart.
Any relationship has interdependence woven in. All support isn’t physical or financial. Sometimes it’s based on listening, laughing, and shared experiences. The other obvious need that people often feel like we, disabled people, cannot meet is sex. I feel like we have said enthusiastically that we can and want to do the deed a thousand times, but it hasn’t penetrated (pun intended) into common knowledge.
But I digress.
My boyfriend loves all of me, sees me as a person; he’s with me because we support each other, make one another laugh, and enjoy our life together. My friends aren’t valiant for hanging out with me; they’re there because we joke, share our lives, have similar interests, and support each other.
In short: my boyfriend isn’t a martyr, my friends are not volunteers, and I am not a community service project.
We need to retire the narrative that disabled people are unworthy and incapable of love and friendship and that the people who choose to be with them are automatically sainted.
Stop the immediate exaltation of my friends or partners. They aren’t fulfilling some obligation; they just have good taste. I’m not a cross to bear. Treating companionship like a favor implies I am less than. I’m just me, and that’s enough.
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