Blogging Against Disablism Day

The Goldfish has come up with a brilliant idea and has declared a Blogging Against Disablism Day for 1st May. It will be fantastic if you could all join in and make it as successfully as the recent Blogging Against Sexism Day.

It is so important to tackle this subject. As disabled people, we are still subjected to negative attitudes and keep being treated to various versions of the Medical Model of Disability. Together we can use the internet, be it by blogging, or various messageboards, to express ourselves. Disablism is very much alive in this country. It may not be purposeful and may just be because of a lack of awareness, but this doesn't alter the fact that it is there. If we want to tackle it then we should take the responsiblity, via campaigns such as this, to educate and raise awarness.

Please take this oportunity to sign up via The Diary Of A Goldfish blog page at the above link.

Thank you very much.

I'll never get any replies you know!!!!!

Just before Christmas Lady Bracknell bullied me into putting a 'personal ad' on the Disability Now website. I had toyed with placing personal ads for soemtime as I was not meeting women of the opposite sex in the more 'conventional' way of down the pub or at clubs and whatnot (mainly because I have long ceased to frequent either).

Anyway the ad was placed and I didn't think I'd get any replies at all. I had placed an advert previously on one of the more famous 'dating' sites and received a very creditable nil replies. This perked up the confidence no end at the time.

Back to the plot. I receieved a couple of replies form very strange people including one from a couple who 'had a disabled friend who is wheelchair bound'. Not wanting to add to there list of poor little crippled mates I didn't reply. I had a couple of e-mails from women that turned into brief e-mail correspondence which was pleasent enough but they had little in common with me and they fizzled out.

Then on 10th February I received a short e-mail from a lady, lets call her Lily, seeing as that is her name, who just said that she lived nearby, was single, told me her age and that she liked music and had a child and if I fancied answering to drop her a line.

Over the next couple of weeks we started to mail each other. It went from 1 e-mail a day to 6 e-mails a day and then moved up to about 20! Not long after we were e-mailing one evening when Lily berated the fact that we didn't have the facility to instant message each other and talk like normal people. Now in the past I wouldn't have had the self confidence to say this, but for I have been feeling a lot more chipper recently so I suggested we spoke on the phone. Lily was as nervous as me about this, but we made arrangements to speak the next evening. That phone call lasted 2½ hours. We got on like a house on fire. We spoke again on the following Monday (3 hours) and the Thursday (nearly 3 hours again). By this time we had decided we should meet, which we did the following Sunday.

This was quite nerve wracking to be honest. I did have the bonus of cooking a meal so I had something to focus, on but Lily said she was having kittens. Anyway we got on just as well in the flesh as on the phone and we have been together ever since and are all 'loved up' and very happy. Lily is an amazing women and I love her loads. Her daughter Sybil, who is five, is a star and we get on very well too. We are all going away together for Easter which is fantastic.

So if you''re wondering if personal ads work when you see them in papers or on the internet I am evidence that they do. They work very well indeed.