Finding love while having M.E. (Chronic Fatigue)

[Falesh]

I've just finished watching Eureka Seven (an Anime series) and it may have made me re-think my life. The reason for this is it's love story which made me truly cry for the first time in at least 10 years. I have lots of love in my life, my parents, brother and sister in law and their kids, but I don't have a partners love.

For one reason or another I have never had full time girlfriend. During primary school I had a very bad time as the head teacher did not believe in Dailysex (Ed: Dyslexia :P), which I have, this lead to school phobia and at it's worst migraines and panic attacks. With nothing else working my mother took me out of school and home educated me. This restored me to the point at 14 years old I could honestly say I had no baggage left over from the experience. When I was 16 I went to tech collage which could have been a good chance to hook up with someone but during that year I gradually became ill with M.E. (chronic fatigue) which soon left me pretty much house bound.

During the 12 years since then not a great deal has happened to me, with the exception of gaining the energy to study again in 2006 which let me in to the wonderful world of programming. This isn't a gloomy past though, I consider myself to be extremely lucky. By having plenty of time to think about things it's hard not to see that life is truly wonderful. Just being able to talk, read, feel emotions, etc. is an extraordinary joy. If I was given the choice to change anything in my life, even if that would mean me not getting M.E., I would not do it as I am in part the product of my past experiences and I like who I am.

To give a quick low down on how M.E. effects me: I have the energy to walk around the house and garden as long as I don't do this too much in a day. I also have the energy to go out now and then as long as it's to somewhere that is a short walk from the car and I can sit down when I arrive. I have limited mental stamina which rules out working as a programmer from home, though there is a chance that I could earn some cash building websites, but as yet I am unsure if this will work or not.

One thing I haven't been doing in the years since I fell ill is looking for love. There are a number of conscious and subconscious reasons for this: One is that I think I may have been waiting to get better. Another was that I didn't think it would be fair to lumber someone I loved deeply with a partner who cannot work or go out much. However this contradicts my own logic as I truly believe that you don't need to have it all, wealth, health, etc. to be happy, but I wasn't applying this to a potential partner.

In short at 27 years old I now want to find someone to whom I can give my heart. My first though is to find a relationship online and I was wondering if anyone had advice on this for someone in my situation? Alternatively maybe there is a different way of finding a partner that would be doable with my energy limit?

Many thanks!

[vashti]

Considering how this disorder affects virtually all aspects of life, I think the odds of you finding a partner would improve if you hit up the CFS support group scene where you would find other people suffering from the same problems who would be more sympathetic.