Add Category
Watching your dinner date stare at their mobile phone may not feel like a sign the romantic evening is going well.
Key points:
- Nathan Jason and Jenna Jones, who share an impairment that affects one in 40,000 people, have found love with each other
- Hannah Dodd and Steve Elliot are both wheelchair basketball athletes who live with similar spinal injuries
- Both couples say their relationships come with a deep understanding of one another
But for Nathan Jason, 20, and Jenna Jones, 21, it’s an essential tool for an evening out.
The Sunshine Coast couple share a rare eye condition that renders them both legally blind and they use their phones to read restaurant menus.
It is just one of the challenges they share that has helped them navigate the dating scene.
Hannah Dodd, 30, and Steve Elliot, 27, are both Australian Wheelchair basketball athletes who each live with impairments to their spinal cords.
Hannah said the care her boyfriend provided was something an able-bodied partner may not be able to offer, or even understand.
For some love matches, it's a case of opposites attract but for these couples it is shared experiences of living with disability that helps bind them together.
A meeting against the odds
Nathan and Jenna both have Cone-Rod Dystrophy, which affects about one-in-40,000 people in Australia.
Despite growing up in different states, the pair has known each other for many years through para-swimming.
As they grew older and moved in similar sporting worlds, they shared their victories, and the moments when they felt left on the sidelines.
"We both went through a similar thing with friends through school, due to our training and our vision – especially when our friends started getting their [driver] licences," Jenna said.
"We kind of bonded over that."
Nathan, now a para track athlete, said those experiences became the foundation that would build into a romance.
"We know what we struggle with, what we're good with and sometimes what we can't do," he said.
"It's made our relationship transfer from our friendship a lot easier."
When either faced a new barrier or doubted themselves, they could look to the other for support and as a person to learn from.
A chance to learn from each other
For Nathan, it was from watching Jenna cook — her family owns a restaurant – that he realised he could do the same, after years of feeling like it was something out of reach.
"I've never really had the chance to do that — and I struggle a little bit with that."
Nathan readily admits that he comes from a family of stubborn characters, and Jenna said that was something that has been good for her to learn.
"It's actually helped me become more confident in myself in terms of studying — I never thought that I could be as good as someone with vision because I can't quickly read through writing.
"I almost gave up on myself.
"But watching Nathan do that and be so stubborn, and be like 'No, I'm just going to get it done' has really inspired me."
Overcoming cobblestones and tiny toilets
Hannah and Steve have their own battles, particularly while they are on the Italian Wheelchair Basketball circuit and sharing an apartment outside of Venice.
The cobblestone streets and tree roots across footpaths are not the only challenges for the pair.
"Our bathroom here in Italy is very tiny — just trying to fit one wheelchair in sometimes is hard," Steve said.
"But trying to fit two wheelchairs in when you're getting ready in the morning is nearly impossible.
"We find the funny side of it, you know, and then work out the best situation around it."
For Hannah, it is a shared understanding that helps.
"You don't have to have some of the awkward conversations that you do have to have with an able-bodied partner about your medical devices, about your care routines," she said.
"It's just kind of a base-level understanding, particularly between two people that have spinal cord injuries."
Steve said while no disability or impairment was the same, he understood that Hannah can be in pain, even if she can't feel exactly where it's coming from.
"[It's] just those little things that probably an able-body [person] wouldn't understand. They would be like 'but you can't feel it', but you can bet there's nerve pain somewhere.
"Just those little things — we both know what's going on."
For Jenna and Nathan, their vision impairment means reading a menu is no easy task but they have a solution — a photo on their phone can be blown-up so they can order.
"I always wondered to myself when we're on a date and we're both looking at the menu on our phone, everybody must think we are so antisocial," she laughed.
Braedan Jason is an Australian Paralympic swimmer with cone-rod dystrophy.
He is a content maker with ABC and has been commissioned to produce stories to celebrate International Day of People with Disability, which is on December 3.
The partnership provides a unique national platform to increase public awareness, understanding and recognition of the contributions of people with disability within the Australian community.