The blind dating the blind

Ali and Joe.

Mike and I are double-dating this afternoon with a 23-year-old friend of mine named ali and her boyfriend Joe. Ali and Joe and I are blind — Mike will be the odd man out!

I met Ali years ago when she and her mom attended a presentation I gave at a “blind and low-vision fair.” Ali was an 11-year-old squirt back then, and we’ve kept up with each other ever since. She’s grown up now and will be joinging Joe at Northern Illinois University when she transfers there from College of DuPage in the fall. Here she is with a guest post about some of the challenges and joys of being  — and dating — someone who’s blind.

by Alicia Krage

In March of last year, as Joe and I lingered somewhere between friends and a couple, I’d often reflect on my friends’ questions about whether I’d prefer dating someone who can see, or someone who is blind.

I thought about what the challenges were with both, and in the end I realized that being blind and dating someone who is blind is honestly not as hard as it sounds. Transportation becomes a problem sometimes — you can’t exactly stay out until 2:00 a.m. and drive home  — but working on things together like figuring out schedules for trains and buses has helped me gain a different sort of independence.

I visit Joe at his college every other weekend, and I take the train back and forth to Northern Illinois University by myself. I’m much more confident on my own now than I was before I met Joe.

We go on dates a lot, and restaurants are very good about walking us to our seat, offering us Braille menus (if they have some), or reading off some of the selections. If we know where we’re going ahead of time, we use our speech software to look up the menu online before we go.

We’ve talked about experiencing other things on dates, like going to concerts, and I think we’ll be doing more of that together soon. He’s the kind of person that motivates you to be better, the kind that urges you (politely) to step out of your comfort zone a little bit.

Some things take more assistance than others, but it isn’t impossible, and there’s no one else I’d rather share crazy adventures with than my boyfriend Joe.

I look back at my previous relationships and question my motives, but in the end, I know those relationships taught me a lot. I learned what I want in someone and what I don’t, what works and what doesn’t, and I took that into consideration.

Joe and I will celebrate our one-year anniversary next week, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Back to me. Ali, Joe, Mike and I will be hearing Trombonist Wycliffe Gordon play with The Columbia College Jazz Ensemble at the 4:00 p.m. show at Jazz Showcase in Chicago this afternoon, a weekly all ages show that owner Joe Siegel refers to as his effort to “save the children” from the pop music they usually listen to. Live nearby? Visiting Chicago? Come join us!