Let's call him K

The question comes with dating: When do you tell a potential suitor that you have fibromyalgia?

About three months ago I met a man. He was perfect. Cute, hard-working, sweet... Even before our first date he knew I didn't have a car. And what did he say? "If you ever need a ride anywhere, even to the grocery store, I will drive you." I wasn't fishing for this offer and I wouldn't have taken him up on it anyway, as he lived across the water in another town. But man, I said to myself, if he is so understanding about me not having a car, he will be super understanding about fibromyalgia.

Jump ahead a couple weeks. We've now had three dates. On date three we check out a neighborhood both of us have heard of but have never been to. As I'm planning to move to his side of the water, he suggests I go into a rental office of an apartment building I like and ask how much the studios are. We get a flier for me, and he takes one for himself as well. "I may move sometime," he says.

We spend our date doing the infamous "While You Were Sleeping" lean. We say, "We should do this. We should do that." We go to a chocolate factory where he invites me to pick out a bar -- any bar I want. We walk through a Sunday market and we get pizza, drizzle hitting the tops of our heads as we listen to live music. We take pictures with a famous statue and search for another famous statue which we don't find. On the way back to the car, I decide to come clean about my fibromyalgia. "I don't let it keep me down," I say. I paint it in a positive light, even showing gratitude for the way it helps me stop and smell the roses. He admires my strength and perseverance. He has the exact response I'd been hoping for.

He drives me home, and then silence. I send him an email: "Thanks for being so understanding about my fibromyalgia," I say. I hone in the fact that I do not have the widespread pain or the depression, thinking that if he googles my illness I may come across in an unfavorable light. He sends me a statement of purpose for graduate school that he wants me to proof. I proof it and send it back. A week goes by and I hear nothing. I send another email, the infamous, "I like you / do you like me" confession. This is not completely out of left field. Before our first date he wouldn't go three days without calling. After date one he set up date three. (Date two was a game party at my house.) "I'm really busy," he writes back. "I want to be friends."

Now, I have no proof that the fibromyalgia doomed this possible relationship, but I have my suspicions. (If he isn't a closet homosexual, as most of my love interests are.) The question I'm left with is: When do you tell someone about your illness? Do you write it on your online dating profile, to weed out the ones who will reject you once they find out? Do you wait until you're in the phone stage, or after the first date, or after the third? Do you trick someone into liking you so much that once they find out about your illness they feel like they can't back down?

Contrary to the way I usually work, I didn't spend a lot of time moping over this potential lost love. Instead I jumped back on the bandwagon and asked someone else out. "Yes," he says, "Once I get back from traveling for work." So now we are "facebook friends" and I don't dare write anything about fibromyalgia. To him I am just some woman he met at a bar through a mutual friend... One of those gay men I love so much. "I teach online," I say across the table. I bat my eyelashes. I take off my coat. I leave him hanging because at this point I am still seeing K. One week later I am not seeing K, and two weeks after that I ask for and have his yes and wait for him to return from his travels. His journey continues, and so does mine.

Let's start from the beginning

Fibromyalgia really has no beginning. It comes on you gradually and threatens to take over your life just like a boiling pot of water does to a frog. It first appears solely in terms of its side effects -- IBS, TMJ, PMDD. You start to feel like you are crying out for help. Mostly because you are in fact crying. But then one day you find yourself in bed hit with the un-flu, unable to sit upright or walk more than a few steps for two weeks. Three years later you get a diagnosis and are put on medication. Finally your cry for help is validated and treated as a real illness. Now the fun part comes: finding love.

My symptoms came on when I was still married. They exacerbated an already loveless marriage that fell apart as unromantically as it was put together. Much of it was my fault. No one expects their new wife to suddenly suffer from then-inexplicable wrist pain (later diagnosed as a repetitive strain injury), the inability to digest much of anything (later diagnosed with gluten sensitivity and the need for digestive enzymes), and, worst of all, the inability to have sex. That latter one, diagnosed ten years later as vulvar vestibulitis, kept me from having sex with anyone, ever. Now as a 33-year-old with two surgeries to correct the problem, I actually have a chance at keeping whatever love I find.

This blog will document my search for a suitable companion who will find me an ideal match despite my inability to drive due to motor issues, my need for twelve hours of sleep a night, and with the knowledge that my flareups can come on any time without warning and last just as long as they feel like it. I've almost graduated with my master's degree, my next online teaching assignment is a successful interview away, and I have a wonderful life filled with wonderful friends and family. I'm finally at a place in my life where I can accept someone into it as an almost completely independent adult at the ripe young age of 33. Welcome to my journey.