How I found out about this website - my story
Apr 24, 2018 11:22:53 GMT -5
Gaby, Inkdevil, and 2 more like this
Post by zealandia on Apr 24, 2018 11:22:53 GMT -5
Hi everyone!
A Dev who I have been communicating regularly with via private messaging asked me how I found out about the Paradevo website. So I explained in great detail, the description it shaped itself into a story. I asked Dev if other people would like to read it, she said yes. So here's the story. Am happy to share it with the community and I hope you enjoy it!
I’m a profoundly deaf guy who wears hearing aids. I was born with the condition. And learnt how to speak as a child. Attended “mainstream” schools along with my hearing peers, with some peripatetic Teacher of the Deaf support. I didn’t learn sign language until I was an adult.
I live in the UK, in the county of Berkshire which is near London. However, I grew up in New Zealand, so my earlier experiences with women occurred there.
I was so shy around women when I was younger and scared of rejection. Even when women actually asked for it, I would refuse, due to a sense of repressed sexuality I suppose. Once, a woman took off most of her clothes in a hotel room, and yet I stopped myself from responding. She was an ex-girlfriend too, so it wasn’t like she didn’t know me. I remember another woman leaning down and giving me a flash of her braless breasts under her t-shirt and asking if I would turn up the next day for dinner at her house. But I was so scared that I didn’t turn up. So I regret not seizing those moments and making the most of them.
Anyway, I decided that it was time for me to start going out with women again.
So how do I achieve that objective was the first step I had to consider. I approached the problem with a sense of trepidation, because I knew that putting myself out in the meat market was damn difficult. Trying to access that whole experience seemed to be daunting, because of the barriers that the deafness puts up. So much explaining to do about my communication needs, about deafness, the limited social comfort zones that I operate in. So many chances for rejection.
I contemplated Tinder. Nope. Not going to work. Do you explain the deafie part in the introduction or afterwards to hearing women who almost certainly have no experience of meeting men with a hearing disability? What a complicated thicket of issues to work though. Mainstream dating websites? Nope, again set up for the hearies. Deaf dating sites? Meh. Virtually all my previous partners were signing or oral D/deaf. So a case of been there, got the T-shirt. I wanted to expand my possibilities.
So then that leaves disabled dating websites. Jeez. There’s that sharp stabbing knot and sinking feeling in my stomach. Is that all that’s available? Are my horizons restricted yet again?
Took the big step and joined up with an online service called Enable Dating. It's apparently one of the biggest disabled dating sites in Britain. Did the bare minimum to get online and started trawling through to see what was available.
Looking further, one of the accounts was a good looking man, if I must say so myself. He was clearly banking on his suave good looks, trendy facial hair and smouldering pout to pull in the prospective ladies. However, his “About me” section simply said something about being a devotee, but being a “Good One” whatever that meant. This puzzled me. What the hell is a devotee? So I went online and researched more.
Once I worked out the meaning of the word, I was kind of fascinated and dismayed at the same time. This was a very strange condition. After a bit more searching around, I ended up on the Paradevo.net landing page.
There is one more twist to this story. Whilst trawling the Enable dating site, I came across a profile of a very attractive woman. After looking at her description, I realised with a shock that she was hard core Devo. Her “About Me” simply stated something along the lines of being able bodied yet attracted to men who are physically different. I looked at the list of conditions that she was considering, virtually all physical. I realised then that there were some very attractive women who could possibly be interested in me. Viewing in a positive light an elemental part that is despised or not of interest by much of female society, my deafness. This realisation filled me with astonishment.
So spurred on with that I decided to explore this world of Dev females and posted on the message board. My heart was in my throat when I did that, it was so scary to do it, but I was spurred on by that image of that mind blowingly beautiful lady on the dating site. What if there was a similarly attractive lady that I could meet? So that’s how my journey with the Dev community has begun.
A Dev who I have been communicating regularly with via private messaging asked me how I found out about the Paradevo website. So I explained in great detail, the description it shaped itself into a story. I asked Dev if other people would like to read it, she said yes. So here's the story. Am happy to share it with the community and I hope you enjoy it!
I’m a profoundly deaf guy who wears hearing aids. I was born with the condition. And learnt how to speak as a child. Attended “mainstream” schools along with my hearing peers, with some peripatetic Teacher of the Deaf support. I didn’t learn sign language until I was an adult.
I live in the UK, in the county of Berkshire which is near London. However, I grew up in New Zealand, so my earlier experiences with women occurred there.
I was so shy around women when I was younger and scared of rejection. Even when women actually asked for it, I would refuse, due to a sense of repressed sexuality I suppose. Once, a woman took off most of her clothes in a hotel room, and yet I stopped myself from responding. She was an ex-girlfriend too, so it wasn’t like she didn’t know me. I remember another woman leaning down and giving me a flash of her braless breasts under her t-shirt and asking if I would turn up the next day for dinner at her house. But I was so scared that I didn’t turn up. So I regret not seizing those moments and making the most of them.
Anyway, I decided that it was time for me to start going out with women again.
So how do I achieve that objective was the first step I had to consider. I approached the problem with a sense of trepidation, because I knew that putting myself out in the meat market was damn difficult. Trying to access that whole experience seemed to be daunting, because of the barriers that the deafness puts up. So much explaining to do about my communication needs, about deafness, the limited social comfort zones that I operate in. So many chances for rejection.
I contemplated Tinder. Nope. Not going to work. Do you explain the deafie part in the introduction or afterwards to hearing women who almost certainly have no experience of meeting men with a hearing disability? What a complicated thicket of issues to work though. Mainstream dating websites? Nope, again set up for the hearies. Deaf dating sites? Meh. Virtually all my previous partners were signing or oral D/deaf. So a case of been there, got the T-shirt. I wanted to expand my possibilities.
So then that leaves disabled dating websites. Jeez. There’s that sharp stabbing knot and sinking feeling in my stomach. Is that all that’s available? Are my horizons restricted yet again?
Took the big step and joined up with an online service called Enable Dating. It's apparently one of the biggest disabled dating sites in Britain. Did the bare minimum to get online and started trawling through to see what was available.
Looking further, one of the accounts was a good looking man, if I must say so myself. He was clearly banking on his suave good looks, trendy facial hair and smouldering pout to pull in the prospective ladies. However, his “About me” section simply said something about being a devotee, but being a “Good One” whatever that meant. This puzzled me. What the hell is a devotee? So I went online and researched more.
Once I worked out the meaning of the word, I was kind of fascinated and dismayed at the same time. This was a very strange condition. After a bit more searching around, I ended up on the Paradevo.net landing page.
There is one more twist to this story. Whilst trawling the Enable dating site, I came across a profile of a very attractive woman. After looking at her description, I realised with a shock that she was hard core Devo. Her “About Me” simply stated something along the lines of being able bodied yet attracted to men who are physically different. I looked at the list of conditions that she was considering, virtually all physical. I realised then that there were some very attractive women who could possibly be interested in me. Viewing in a positive light an elemental part that is despised or not of interest by much of female society, my deafness. This realisation filled me with astonishment.
So spurred on with that I decided to explore this world of Dev females and posted on the message board. My heart was in my throat when I did that, it was so scary to do it, but I was spurred on by that image of that mind blowingly beautiful lady on the dating site. What if there was a similarly attractive lady that I could meet? So that’s how my journey with the Dev community has begun.
