Visually impaired Michael Debattista is writing his Masters dissertation on internet relationships for people with a disability. Photo: Paul Spiteri Lucas

Blind dating is always tricky. But it is even trickier when you are actually blind, says Michael Debattista, whose sight is impaired.

He is writing his Masters dissertation on internet relationships for people with a disability and in his research it is starkly evident that dating people with special needs is still a taboo.

“The perception is that if you are non-disabled and date someone with a disability, then you’re doing an act of charity,” says Mr Debattista, 38, from Għargħur.

This, he says, is mostly due to the stigma which makes society still see any form of disability as tragedy with a capital T. He has tested online dating over and over and finds it an arduous task.

Initially he did not list his visual impairment in his dating profile; however, when the topic came up in conversation, he was almost always met with disrespect and insults, including colourful language.

“One told me: ‘Sorry, I want someone to protect me and to love me’, implying that I would not be able to do that,” he says.

Now he has decided to state upfront in his profile that he suffers from visual impairment. “By and large, when they read that, they ignore it. I understand that online dating is always difficult in any case, but sadly it’s even more difficult.”

This is wrong he says.

“It’s the character you live with not the body. I am not interested in top models, but in intelligent, unprejudiced and open-minded people.”

The perception is that if you are non-disabled and date someone with a disability, then you’re doing an act of charity

An intimate relationship, he says, is like a flower and a bee.

“They both need each other and when an intimate relationship makes you happy, it can give both parties extra confidence.”

In August 2000, Mr Debattista was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa  a condition that affects the retina, often leading to complete blindness.

It started out with clumsiness after dark, night-blindness and clumsy accidents, followed by a gradual erosion of peripheral vision.

“Now I see things like I’m looking through a tube,” he says.

He doesn’t know what the future holds: complete blindness is there, hovering, in a ghostly manner.

“It was a shock of course, when I was told it’s incurable. It came completely out of the blue,” he says.

His family still consider it as devastating news and are constantly surprised by his achievements. There was nothing to prepare him for living with impairment.

“But on the whole, it was the stigma, the pitying and the patronising attitude that made it worse, because in truth, given the tools, you still live life normally.”

Equipped with smart touchscreen devices equipped with the latest software and apps, Mr Debattista makes the most of the internet: chatting, shopping, e-mailing and studying online.

He moves about confidently with the use of his cane. And to do that at the University of Malta campus, where he works full time as an administrator, is quite an achievement.

The campus is riddled with corridors, steps, staircases, and hidden corners. It was certainly not built with easy access in mind. Life is rather in slow mode for him: “You have to plan ahead, no last minute.”

At break time, he walks to the campus shops to buy his lunch. It is a pleasant stroll, calm, no rush. Students on campus seem to jump away from his white cane, with many shying away as far as possible from him.

Many look confused at the sight of the white cane – not sure what they have to do. A few come up to him, take him by the elbow and lead him down the stairs.

“There is no need for people to do that. All they have to do is ask me if I need help: sometimes I might ask them to give me directions.”

With Freshers’ week, the campus is full of stands, creating more obstacles, but he is not perturbed. He asks for directions. “Keep going at 11 o’ clock and then you’ll come to the door of the students’ house,” one student tells him.

He goes down the stairs and into the self-service shop. He knows his way about, and he feels the shelves to get to the product he wants to purchase. He then pays in cash. “It’s not difficult to tell the amounts by feeling the paper money or the coins.”

It is the lack of awareness which bothers him no end. He recounts a story – laughingly – of the day he fell in a roadworks ditch at university because workers failed to place barriers close together.

“It’s out of laziness really and because it would not cross their minds that it can be perilous for others,” he says.

Mr Debattista’s mission is to try to make awareness as universal as possible, and in fact, was also involved in the drafting of the national policy for people with disability: “Politicians need to change their blinkered approach,” he says.

He is now reading for his Masters in Youth and Community Studies at the Faculty for Social Wellbeing at the University of Malta, and he hopes that his dissertation will help to snuff out the taboo of dating people with disability.

“And for people to realise that people with disability can still love and protect a loved one,” he says.