Today is a good friend of mine’s 5 year ampuversary! She is a phenomenal human, amazing Kindergarten teacher, and my partner in crime trying to herd around 100+ amputee kids every year at AmpCamp. She shared a story with me for Crazy Legs, and it is my great pleasure to send it out into the world. It sucks to lose a limb, but it’s awesome to make friends like this one.

Dating with one leg is always an adventure! Considering I lost my leg as an adult and normally I use a leg with a cosmetic cover (so it’s easy to hide) I’ve toyed around with different approaches and I still don’t have a go-to line. For the most part, it’s always in the back of my mind, “how am I going to tell him one leg is missing?”

My typical idea on a first date is “if there is a possibility of sleeping together at some point, I’ll tell them within the first two dates…. if I don’t think that’ll happen, there’s no point in bringing it up,” and that has served me pretty well over the years.

I was on a Tinder date with this one guy… and was shocked at how well we got along and how charming he was from the get go. We started making out. Things got super frisky so I excitedly invited him back to my house. Almost immediately I thought “SHIT!!! I haven’t dropped the bomb!” In between breaths from our  hot make out sesh, I casually said, “I was in an accident and lost my leg,” we kept kissing and he said, “that’s OK” without a bump in the road. We went home and had a hot sexcapade and my leg wasn’t even an issue.

Fast forward a couple weeks, we were pretty much boning as often as we could get into each other’s neighborhoods (more importantly each other’s pants…)

-Let me interject real quick that this girl has hilarious commentary, obvi, but also comes up with phenomenal answers to a lot of curiosity type questions. When people ask if/when she ever takes off her prosthetic, she answers with “S words”

“S” words: Shower, sleep, sex

This particular day, things were getting HOT. I was on top of him in bed (sans prosthetic of course), about to get to the main attraction. I went to stand up, extended my (half) leg (with no foot), shifted all my weight, and IMMEDIATELY ATE SHIT on the ground! Somehow, for the first time ever, I just forgot I had one leg! I was so in the moment, my lack of a leg was an absolute afterthought. I landed right on the end of my limb.

OUCH! So here I was, about to get on the sexy train, and suddenly FLAILING off the bed (luckily his glass door that I hit didn’t completely shatter) I’m NAKED and CRYING on the ground begging for ice for my leg. (Typical bachelor pad didn’t have ice, not even have an ice tray.)

I was so embarrassed. I was sobbing, and screaming “THIS NEVER HAPPENS!!!” trying to convince him that actually, this never happens. In my emotional-painful-naked-legless state (otherwise known as the most vulnerable for an amputee) I could not believe what had just happened. I was so thankful that he came to my rescue, held me and tried to calm me down after that very painful and very embarrassing fall.

But I think it was a good sign that he turned me on so much that I completely forgot about something that I’m usually so focused on. We still laugh about it to this day.

-After it’s all been said and done, have you and boo thang ever revisited this and he tell you his impression? I mean, being nakey AND legless and then falling is probably most amputee’s worst nightmares… especially if you like the guy more than a “this is a weird Tinder date but I’m horny so whatever” type situation.

Yes! After a few months of us dating, he told me that every time we were naked and I was legless, he purposefully didn’t ever look at my limb. He never touched it or looked at it until I let down my guard a little bit. He said he didn’t know what to say or do, so he just ignored it. You’d think ignoring the elephant in the room would be awkward, but it really just felt like it “wasn’t a thing” to him and it didn’t seem weird at all. I always remember feeling really comfortable around him in the beginning and I never connected the dots until he told me and that made a lot of sense.

Minus the cringe worth pain that my brain can barely imagine because falling on a severed bone would be the opposite of a good feeling, I love love this story. Dating with a physical disability is weird, although there is a spectrum on how openly visible it may be… it’s still visible. Especially in when things elevate in a romantic sense. It’s a part of you, sometimes a fundamentally big part, but it’s not something you want on the forefront of every interaction. It’s a hard balance, no matter how comfortable you are as a human, or as human with a disability, to let someone see you in an extremely vulnerable state. For most amputees, being naked in front of a stranger isn’t nearly as scary as taking your leg off in front of them. When you decide to start a relationship with someone (especially if they are AB) it’s something you want to be comfortable with, want to share, but also want to let them know it’s just yours to own. It’s not something they need to take or focus on or even care (that much) about. (**Usually if I’m feeling lazy with my leg off and want a glass of water, then you should care. lolol)  

He let me tell him everything on my own terms. There are still things that I just recently told him because we talk about it a little bit at a time. He never bombarded me with questions, which was nice. It’s kinda of cool that he has never known me with two legs, and has loved me and accepted me for my true self.

(that gif is us at 6:30am after a week of no sleep and all AmpCamp)

Happy Ampuversary my dear friend!