Tom's Views

Darwinism and its modern incantation, Evolutionary Psychology, are difficult reading for the blind and otherwise handicapped people. As with the Old Testament in the Bible, so far I find all bad news for the mating-minded disabled fellow in several Evolutionary Psychology texts I’ve read so far.

Further, reading the book,   Survival of the Prettiest   by Nancy Etcoff was largely to blame for the relentless sadness I’ve experienced at times, because it offers little hope for anyone who is neither really pretty, nor really rich, nor extraordinarily enabled. Admittedly,   Survival of the Prettiest   is a well-written work with hundreds of references to supporting studies. That is in fact, probably why I found this book so disheartening. The handicapped are indeed at a severe reproductive disadvantage.  As such, selection pressures steer the attractive ladies away from us. Reading that book while getting many rejections from women on the Internet, I feel now as though my dream is more futile than ever. My own experience seems to bear out precisely what Darwinism predicts. It’s no wonder I was down.  I’m daunted by Darwinism, because I’m vision-impaired.  So I wonder what my chances are if, as Darwinism suggests, women typically only mate with the highest functioning (non disabled) males.

How would Dr. Albert Ellis with all his Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) knowledge, instruct on how to advance against this seemingly impossible situation, where the blind man must face the realities of Darwinism to find a true love.  Ellis believed that humans could think their way out of more problems than they believe they can.  So the love news for the blind may be not all bad with the right thought processes in place if one has enough knowledge to properly utilize REBT techniques.

One argument that the REBT student might use to persuade the handicapped to keep pressing on in spite of the grave realities of Darwinism, is that that Darwin was quite the accomplished scientist.  That’s true, and his words shall remain preeminent in psychology now and for many generations to come.  But Darwin, in spite of his apparent completeness, still omits some of the story.

For instance, the deeply thinking REBT seeker would realize that Darwinism does not figure compassion into the mating game, because perhaps, sympathy has no healthy role as a criterion in mate selection. Nevertheless, I wonder if it would be possible for a disabled person to appeal to a woman’s kindly side as opposed to her erotic side at first, to get her to lower her barriers of   prejudice   long enough to give him a real chance. Most people resent another’s pity, and quite actively seek to avoid it. This attitude is frequently expressed by the handicapped. But pity can be a potent antidote to prejudice, long enough to open up her eyes so that she sees beyond the handicap in the fellow.

The blind ought to consider asking for ladies’ pity, openly admitting their handicap up front, and briefly relating the mating hardships they’ve encountered previously. They might consider fully acknowledging the woman’s aversion to dating someone understandably poor and lacking in social status like themselves. But they would ask her in spite of all that, to give them a break, and emphasize that they did the best they could, given their difficult-to-manage circumstances.

This would a long shot, yes. But when time is marching on, desperation indeed calls for desperate measures.   To overcome the prejudices of natural selection that social Darwinism explained so well, the handicapped truly need the compassion of attractive women to help them make their dreams of true come true. If the blind could convince the ladies that only through their compassion could they ever truly touch their dreams, maybe the women would not be so brutally rejecting. If the blind could impress on an attractive woman the power she has to brighten their lives for a time, perhaps they’d not so quickly reject when they first observe that the blind man is blind.

As painful as Darwinism-based Evolutionary Psychology is to read, reading it is probably necessary study for the blind man to develop a realistic view of his place in the dating world, and to get him thinking about ways to overcome the implied drawbacks of being blind, and move forward in the business of finding a true love.

Tom Hesley

Related Posts

• Blind Hardships
• Consider Dating A Disabled Person
• More Help for the Blind, Please
• Power Imbalance: Blind Man Dating Sighted Woman
• To A Blind And Sad Job Seeker

References

• Survival of the Prettiest   book information