Emotional Handicap

So I went out with one of my best friends today. It's restaurant week in the city of brotherly love, so we decided to try out a restaurant that we probably wouldn't be able to afford on any other night. The food was meh, nothing to write home about really, but the company was divine. We both got a chance to let loose and unload everything on our minds from our jobs, to our relationships, thoughts on religion, how much we masturbate (don't ask :-), everything. We talk about absolutely everything together (and agree on pretty much everything too).

So anywho, she was telling me that her boyfriend is extra sensitive, takes everything the wrong way and that they argue about everything, all the time. I was very disappointed to hear this and thought about a relationship that I had where I argued with a guy all the time. In that (VERY short lived) relationship, the guy was explaining to me that he was a jerk because both his parents were deceased. In other words he "didn't know how to love." And I remember trying to explain this to my mother, to which she responded with, "So? Let someone else take on that job." At the time, I thought she was being a little insensitive, but sitting there listening to my friend I wanted to say something along those same lines.

While talking to my friend, I started to notice that she was explaining away his behaviors with the "he had a rough childhood" excuse. I was telling her to be careful with that because she might be biting off more than she can chew and sometimes people don't need an "understanding girlfriend" they need a therapist. She agreed and understood, but while thinking about it later on, I had the strangest revelation. Ready?

Okay, choosing to be with someone with emotional problems is like dating someone with a physical handicap. Just like nobody goes into a relationship expecting to change the love of their life's diapers, and take care of them for the rest of their life, nobody wants to do that kind of stuff emotionally. But we do it without even realizing it because when it's an emotional handicap, it's not as "tangible." You're not touching, smelling, tasting someone's problems so they don't exist or they're not that bad.

"Oh, they had a rough childhood, they were an orphan, they grew up in a dumpster, etc." There's usually some horrible thing that happened in the past that has caused some unfortunate problem, but at the end of the day, that person is still handicapped and this is going to leave their partner in a tough situation. Do they sit there and become the person's caregiver/devoted partner, or do they find someone that's in good mental health in the first place? I know personally (and this is going to make me sound like an asshole) I never imagined that I'd settle down with someone who is morbidly obese, blind, wheelchair bound, siamese twin, etc. Now this is not to say that I won't in the future (you never know what direction life might take you-and you can't help who you fall in love with) but I know the mental picture in my head never looked that way. And I'm sure that if someone were to see a physical manifestation of the problems their loved one might be facing, they would turn the other way and run.

So at the end of the day, I see the same deal with us women folk. Someone who is the mental/emotional equivalent of a skinny, pale and blotchy skinned, wheelchair bound, paraplegic rolling toward us pulling an oxygen tank in one hand and holding an IV pole with the other is A-okay. And we'll explain it off to our friends like, "oh, well he got the leprosy when he was 3." Um, maybe you should leave the treatment to a professional? "No, he just needs someone who understands him."

I can even argue to say that being with someone with an emotional handicap is harder than dealing with someone with a physical handicap because at least a physical handicap is not as personal. It's just a barrier that stops the person from doing things in a conventional way. They have to overcome real barriers, not invisible ones. Whereas when someone has emotional issues, they have to overcome psychological barriers that you can't even see. And chances are, they're going to be taking shots at you while trying to overcome those imaginary barriers. Now that's work! I mean, a regular relationship is hard enough.

But more power to the people who decide to take that on. I wouldn't. Just my thoughts on things.