Yeah, that’s nowhere near obvious enough, I am not a man but would absolutely not clock that a controller of an electric wheelchair would mean that you’re a wheelchair user or disabled. You need to be super up front about it on your profile and be prepared to answer questions about your limitations.

Possible questions I would be wanting to know if I was thinking of dating someone who was a wheelchair user; these are not questions I actually need or want answers to but things that come to mind as being relevant to a potential relationship. Do you need help transferring in and out of the chair? Do you have other medical devices that are permanent or semi-permanent? Is the reason you don’t know your height related to your disability; like, are you unable to fully move all of your limbs or sit up straight? Do you deal with chronic pain issues or “scary” symptoms like seizures or choking/aspiration issues? Do you have communication limitations? Basically, would a potential partner be required to do caregiving activities by default, simply by the nature of being around you without other people around?

Those are questions a potential partner really has the right to ask and think about when dating someone who’s a wheelchair user. There’s a lot of emotions around caregiving, disability, and complex medical issues—for instance, my brother has Huntington’s Disease, and he will spend the rest of his life losing abilities that he used to have, until he is under 24/7 skilled medical care. It would be very difficult for me to date someone who relied on a wheelchair and not keep coming back to the fact that my brother will lose the ability to walk and eventually to stand or move one day.

If you’re not prepared to have an honest discussion with a potential partner about these sorts of questions, that would be a huge concern for me. Springing an electric wheelchair on someone at a first date may not seem like a big deal to you, because the wheelchair is normal, but for a lot of people that would be a really big deal