Sex on the Brain: what it's like dating with dyspraxia

Mounting insecurity, unpredictable outcomes, unspoken rules and the stress of making a good first impression. There's no doubt about it: dating is a puzzle. But imagine for a second that your brain is predisposed to communicate, interpret and present yourself differently to everyone around you. When you throw that into the mix, cracking the search for love enters Da Vinci Code levels of complexity. 

Dyspraxia is a developmental disorder that creates these very barriers. Stemming from childhood, it causes difficulty in activities requiring coordination and movement. It’s a condition that directly impacts physical movements like walking, speech or grip, and causes internal difficulties with memory, perception and thought processing.

For me, dyspraxia has always had a significant impact on my love life, from not being able to hold cutlery on a date, to completely missing my partner’s face when I go in for a kiss. The idea of explaining these shortcomings to a new romantic partner fills me with crippling anxiety. But it's nothing on the reality that they'll find out sooner or later, likely in the humiliating situation, like me dropping a drink on them, stumbling over words, or falling flat on my face. I’ve long since accepted that trying to present myself as a poised and elegant potential partner might as well be the thirteenth Labour of Heracles, yet there is still a dread that hangs around opening up to someone intimately, burdened with the worry that your communication and their understanding might not sync up.

Interacting with a world that doesn’t understand you is a rarely discussed symptom of neurological disorders and it’s perhaps the most isolating. My own dating debacles lead me to wonder: am I alone in this? Have other people with my condition found the road to romance easy, or are we united in our ungainly isolation?

23-year-old Anna Hughes McIver found out she had dyspraxia when she was 15. While the diagnosis came as a relief that helped shape her understanding of herself, it had an unexpected impact on her love life. “I was happy to be told I had dyspraxia as I felt it made me understand myself better,” she says, “but when I told my boyfriend – my first ever boyfriend – he laughed at me and said that the condition sounded made up.”

Despite an early unsupportive response, McIver explains that the experience has shaped a full disclosure policy with future dates. “I tell people quite quickly,” she says. “I’m not ashamed to have dyspraxia – it’s a part of me. I’d rather explain how it affects me, so my partner can have a better idea of who I am. If I go for drinks and spill something, the first reaction from my date is to ask if I’m already tipsy, and I’ll reply that it’s dyspraxia and try to define it. Sure, it would be nice to not have to always explain myself, but it makes me who I am and I’m pretty happy with that.” 

“My life would be exponentially easier if I didn’t have dyspraxia,” explains 29-year-old Sarah-Louise Kelly. “I think it can make me a very awkward person to date.” Kelly was diagnosed with the developmental disorder when she was five. She notes that her dyspraxia directly affected her ability to communicate with a partner – both in speaking and listening.

“I find dates somewhat stressful because they’re often in noisy pubs or restaurants and the different sounds make it hard for me to comprehend isolated speech,” she says, “I have difficulty speaking out loud; I get confused mid-sentence and forget how to pronounce certain words, which is overwhelming.”

Kelly also highlights that dyspraxia has had a multifaceted impact on her love life. From not wearing heels on a date and avoiding dinner dates like the plague, to the more isolating ingrained feeling that she was asking a lot from potential partners, requesting changes in their behaviours and habits simply to understand and fit her. “But my type is always extremely empathetic, and I guess having this condition makes it easier to filter out people that aren’t.”

26-year-old Dylan James was diagnosed with dyspraxia last year and details how the condition affected the physical side of his love life. “I don’t think I’ve ever hugged someone without treading on their feet or bumping into them,” he says. “I always bump heads or noses going in for a kiss, so I end up waiting for the other person to initiate so I can stand as still as possible and brace myself. It definitely affects my confidence because poor motor skills mean I have no rhythm so can’t dance, and I can’t really hold a knife and fork properly. I drop things all the time and it can get really embarrassing.” 

Similar to Kelly, James highlights that dyspraxia impacted on his ability to communicate with potential partners. “I’m really bad at putting the thoughts in my head into words, so I’m bad at explaining my emotions or actions. I also get sensory overload with noise and touch if I’m stressed, which leads to me snapping at people – that probably isn’t good in a relationship.”

“Dyspraxia is fairly unheard of in my experience so the thought of explaining what it is puts me off,” Dylan continues. “I mean, I can barely get thoughts into words so it’s a big effort trying to explain something I don’t really know much about yet. I’m trying to learn more about dyspraxia so I can recognise traits in myself and be able to adapt better.”

For everyone, dating is like a jigsaw with no reference picture, littered with countless pieces that don’t make sense. Having a brain that doesn’t work like most in the dating pool around you only throws in a thousand more parts. But full disclosure, self-understanding, and the confidence to ask for empathy are excellent corner pieces to start with.

Every puzzle holds the potential to be a final picture, more satisfying a triumph when it’s a hard one. For all its frustration, those pieces might just come together to make a better understanding of your own heart and mind – and that can’t be a bad thing.