Learning to Enjoy Dating with a Brain Injury
Marking the three year anniversary of my brain injury with an essay.
When you’re in your early 30s and want to date but have a traumatic brain injury—as I’ve had since 2022—dating with a brain injury and its challenges is the only option.
Afraid of letting my TBI define me, I was loath to talk about it. That’s no longer the case.
Doing things with a brain injury and reflecting on how they’re different now doesn’t mean it defines me. It’s educational.
A brain injury sometimes feels like involuntary enrollment in a class on how to be. I want to share the lessons so people can learn without suffering a TBI. Mine is part of me—a chronic condition. Everything is different after brain injury, but can be learned from or trained. I get to employ my plastic brain to perform its essential task: learning.
Choosing not to do things because of TBI would mean it defines me. I’m too stubborn. I’ve worked hard, but I’d be remiss not giving some credit to luck.
TBI made me realize I had a predilection for extremes. All/nothing; win/lose; black/white. There’s a middle ground—shades of gray.
One end of the TBI reaction spectrum is granting it definitional power.
I would, but can’t the same way so won’t.
The other is denial.
Fuck it. If I don’t acknowledge my injury it doesn’t exist.
Being of extremes, initially those were my two options. No gray. Definition wasn’t what I wanted so I denied, less viable as time wore on. It took years but I’ve found a gray middle, mixing good parts of denial—fuck it—with acceptance. Fuck it can be a fruitful place to operate from.
Summer 2023, a few months into my third decade, I downloaded Bumble and Hinge to try dating with a TBI. I’d used Bumble years before, never Hinge, and was too old for Tinder. There are other ways to meet people but apps are king these days.
Please consider a one-time contribution through Buy Me A Coffee.
At the start, I went on dates to go on dates. Exposure therapy: gradually exposing myself to “things, situations and activities [I feared].”
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Rock & Hawk to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.