Refreshing advice.

Yes, he's doing everything right. In the abstract, I absolutely condone his behavior.

But I still wouldn't want this information sprung on me on a first date. Does that make me a monster? Yeah, probably. But it's the truth...

I'm not sure why his only two options are bars and dating websites. Join some clubs, take some classes, get out in the world and flirt with some girls, missing limb and all.

Aren't most of us who date men much more interested in what he's got in his pants, rather than in his shoes?

Things happen, everyone's body has some sort of issue. Once we're as old as the LW (40's,) this is a simple fact of life. If he has to disclose his amputation, don't I have to disclose my physical issues? Viva la mysterie!

If he was missing both his left arm and left leg then he'd be doing everything right. For whatever that's worth.

@5: It's worth a laugh, and that's somthing, so thanks!

He has no more obligation to disclose his missing leg online than someone would to disclose their diabetes. He is doing everything right!

I'm a fatty, and back before I got hitched I did a little online dating, and I just always made sure to post at least one photo that showed my whole body. No need to mention it, just put it out there the same way it would be if the dude were to see me in person. Can the LW just toss up a picture of himself in shorts?

I'm sure he has at least one limb that's Way more interesting than the missing one!

Colour me confused. Wasn't Mr Savage 110% in accord with Mr Angel, who really made a heavy push to try to impose C on a letter writer who was strongly A when the sometimes-chased adjective was transgender instead of amputated?

Or am I just too tired to see this as a push?

Alex Minsky clearly doesn't have to hide his http://www.facebook.com/AlexMinskyFanPag…

I agree with #3 - get out there and join some clubs, volunteer, etc.

I'm saddened to hear you describe yourself as "damaged goods", and feel you have an "ick factor".

I had not one but two great uncles who lost a limb during WW II. So maybe I'm weird, but I've never considered a missing limb to be a deficit in any way. Not damaged goods. No ick factor at all. I'm not a fetishist seeking out amputees, but I wouldn't hesitate for a second to date an amputee.

If you were a smoker, that would be a deal killer. Missing limb? No problem. You got three more. There might be all sorts of reasons I wouldn't date you, but a missing limb isn't one of them.

To me, it looks like you are holding yourself back. You've got some self image problems to work through. Most of us have self image issues; yours is just more so.

I'm a woman in the dating world and if I saw a profile of an amputee, I'd read the rest of it to see what common ground we had. If I thought it was a good match otherwise, and I could deal with giving up whatever physical activities his amputation seemed to preclude, then I'd contact him. But if I showed up to a first date with a guy to find out he had a serious amputation and **he hadn't told me**, I might dump him right there and I certainly wouldn't go out with him again. For one thing, I would wonder what other important aspects of his self that he wasn't intending to disclose to me until I stumbled over it - maybe he's an addict, or a convicted child molester, or HIV positive, or married, or whatever - all things he thinks is fine not to tell me until I'm emotionally invested, compromised, and unable to make an impartial, informed decision to protect my best interests.

It's a dick move and utterly selfish. Dump the mother-fucker immediately.

I agree with Dan and the LW. I've tried online dating and have a tendency to just "nope, nope, nope" through the different profiles. I don't THINK I'd do that just because someone was an amputee, but since I haven't run across it, I don't know. What I would not do is walk out on a guy I found otherwise interesting/attractive because of it.

I think he's doing it right.

@15...Gamebird, do you really think a **first** date is too late to disclose something important to a potential partner? And do you really think it is realistic to expect someone to disclose medical information like their HIV status over an email to someone they have never even met and very well might never have sex with? And how exactly do you "dump" someone after a first date? By definition, don't you have to be dating (which implies plural dates) in order to dump someone? Or does exchanging emails with someone you met online count as dating these days?

I do not think there is just one "right answer" here; I think either approach is OK, but it depends.

I've done my share of online dating and it has really driven home for me the importance and value of disclosing early and often. I do think it depends on what it is you're disclosing, but particularly, things like being fat, bald or suddenly gray - things which are immediately apparent at the very first instant of the very first meeting - are things which there is just zero point in attempting to conceal. Things which are likely to be major deal-breakers - say HIV status - are also things which ought to be disclosed quickly.

However, things which don't define your entire self - and yes, we are the cumulative sum of our histories to some extent - don't have to be disclosed up front. In reality, the right approach is to do your very best to as openly and completely, proudly and confidently to disclose who you are and what does define you as you see it; I think that's what decides it.

If you feel like the amputation or prosthesis doesn't define who you are, then don't display it; if you feel like it really is a fundamental part of who you are and you're comfortable with it, then do what @8 suggests: just put up a photo of yourself (running a 5k or whatever it is you do with your prosthesis). Because, whether or not it's something "major" like an amputation or HIV or just an old picture that makes you look ten years younger than you are (and the online dating world is RIFE with otherwise "normal" people who mislead this way), you might be driving off people like @15, when the truth is, any woman who won't give you a second look upfront isn't a woman you want anyway, right?

After a couple of rounds of online dating, I got to be like @15 and started to insist on in-person face-to-face meetings very quickly. Low pressure affairs - 15 minutes for coffee or tea - so that nobody had to invest much, just to see, in person, if there was any chemistry (and this included physical attraction). The level of misleading in online advertising is remarkable, and there is nothing worse than someone misleading you until you've gotten invested (after 30 emails) in what is an over-curated version of the reality.

Dan is right: you're not doing anything wrong - you are doing what everyone does: picking your best photo, cropped to give the best impression of yourself. Still you may discover you wind up with much better quality (if less numerous) dates by disclosing. Good Luck!

First of all, the letter writer is 30, not 40.

Second, the advice is right, for this guy. He's missing a leg. He can obviously still walk, still function, still pass as a non-amputee. If someone neglected to mention they used a wheelchair I might feel like I'd been lied to. But this? It's not that big a deal.

@17 - the "dump on the first date" routine is why I stopped wasting time interacting a bunch. Either meet me for a quick coffee or don't. It also weeds out spooky/picky/commitment-phobes; there is a whiff of looking for reasons to reject there - one of those people I was thinking of when I said one is better off w/o.

Count me as one of the people that wouldn't be offended by this omission.

Anyone that wouldn't understand the omission or would judge it as a deal breaker on the first date reveal isn't somebody you'd want to be with anyway.

#11 - Great link. Thanks for sharing. This guy doesn't let anything get in his way!

@10 that's exactly what I thought when I read this. Dan specifies LW should disclose before jumping into bed with anyone, which is exactly what the trans-man in the letter you're referencing did. And somehow he was doing it wrong but this guy is doing it right?

So I am not an amputee, but my left arm is paralyzed... pretty sure I've asked Dan my version of this question before. I know I settled on disclosing right on my OKC profile, reason being: I think the population of people who wouldn't bail once they'd met me, but would if they knew about it BEFORE we met, is vanishingly small. So I figure I'm doing myself a favor weeding out the people who aren't interested - who things would never work out with anyway, so why bother - ahead of time.

Two added bonuses: not having to judge when to say something about it (people don't notice right away, believe it or not), and, you get to find out who really read your profile...

It's been almost 3 years since I lost the use of the arm (motorcycle accident) and honestly I have dated more, better looking, more interesting and compatible women in those three years than any other time in my life - although mostly I think that's just being older (I was 28 when I got hurt).

I'm a woman, and I wouldn't care at all about his disability - and I don't think it's a bad thing to not mention it on his profile.

@15 Good on you for comparing an amputee with a child molester. But most importantly, good on him that people like you are not on his dating pool.

I find all this 'you must disclose everything up front immediately' stuff frankly weird as hell. If we all had to tell potential first dates everything that could be a potential deal breaker before we even went on a date, few of us would probably get many of them.

@26 HIV+ should always disclose before intercourse, which is exactly what Dan said.

@10/23 It's two very different situations imho.

@26....do you think that every first date leads to sex? Isn't the point of a first date to see whether you want to continue dating the person? And Gamebird was actually suggesting disclosure before a first date.

I am all for timely disclosure of HIV (and other STI) status, and certainly HIV should be disclosed on the first date if the first date is likely to end with sex (even if condoms will be used), but my assumption is that many if not most first dates don't lead anywhere, so there is no need for the HIV+ person to disclose. I doubt that every person with HSV-2 discloses their status on every first date. Why would someone need to share such intimate information with someone they may never see again?

Mr Pick - The situations are different in inherent nature and play out differently within a relationship, but were both presented as basic Chaser conundra. I'm inclined to put Mr Savage's current balance down to the lack of a partisan authority providing a heavy weight in one direction.

If missing a leg doesn't prevent you from being fairly normal, I wouldn't. As in not having mobility issues and such. I've known people missing a leg who you wouldn't be able to tell unless you saw them in shorts. I also know a guy missing two legs who lives a more active lifestyle than most people with both legs- he pretty much wheres shorts all the time so everybody knows off the bat. I think it is more about what you feel comfortable disclosing.

Now, if you have shot your girlfriend dead through a bathroom door while not wearing a prosthetic? That should be disclosed.

@25: excellent comment.

I'm deaf and there's no fucking way in the word I can get by with "not disclosing". It's instantly obvious to people when I meet them and, yes, there are some PAINFULLY fucked up assholes who cannot handle a disability.

I know exactly where the LR is coming from. You bad experience with a jerk can fuck up your decade. On my profile I do exactly what my gay instincts tell me to do - GET IT OUT THERE. Why? Because I really don't want to bitch-slap some asshole who makes a scene when he meets me for coffee.

On to problem #2: I have big scare across my chest from a botched surgery when I was in the Air Force. It's BIG! In the world of disabilities, there's a term called "visible differences" that humane people smartly understood was better that "disfigured" or "freak". A difference on the outside can make you feel ugly on the inside. One shrink told me something Dan talks about - that for every person with a physical difference, there's a group of people who LIKE that particular difference. I've meet a couple of people who got boners over my big scar and wanted me to show it more. Sorry. I do have the ability to relax about it, but I don't like some guy wanting to parade me around like his sub on a chain because he gets off on it. I'm too modest for that kind of thing.

So I've got a double "ick" factor to live with. The gay part sort of resolved itself with so many people came out of the closet (me, too). Being deaf is harder. It's invisible but it gets the same reaction as a visable difference, thankfully mostly good. But the bad reactions can really fuck with your head. Example: On several occasions I've met guys in chance meeting situation in which I spoke to them to chat them up (I wasn't born deaf so I have a clear speaking voice). As soon as they responded to me and I was clear that I couldn't understand them, I had to disclose. The worst reactions are when the guy behaves like I'm some kind of con artist, preying on his compassion. That happened in a Dallas bar once. I had been in the bar all of 15 minutes, was standing near a door by myself drinking a beer, and some guy walked by and spoke to me and I told him I was deaf and didn't understand what he said. He started yelling at me and then he went over and told the bartender something about me and the next thing I know the fucking bartender was in my face.

I NEVER knew what the fuck they were saying. I keep telling them over and over I was deaf and if what they were saying to me was important, they should write it down. They wouldn't do it.

God damn! It was humiliating. And it's humiliating every time it happens. It really killed my desire to just stroll into a bar and try to smooze with someone. So I make friends via the internet and, as I said, I get my deafness right out in front. I can't handle that shit anymore. I don't wait till I meet people because it's a setup for failure when you've had this kind of experience and can never predict when the person you meet will be a fucking jerk.

I'm adding this super late, but: as someone who once did a lot of online dating, profiles can blend into each other pretty easily. I'm no devotee, but being an amputee would've made you stand out (in a good way) to me. It suggests that you're someone who's had to deal with a certain amount of adversity and, hopefully, are more considerate and self-aware because of it. It wouldn't guarantee you a date with me, but it would definitely cause me to give your profile another look.