 One reason having or acquiring a physical, intellectual, or emotional disability lessens the chances that relationships will move beyond acquaintanceship is that the disability looms so large in the minds of the nondisabled person (and perhaps the disabled person as well) that it obscures or eclipses other features on which an intimate relationship can be solidly grounded. Most people do not yet see disability as one among many characteristics with respect to which humans can vary. In this way, one aspect of a person comes to dominate the whole, an aspect of stigmatization that elsewhere we have described as “synecdoche” (Asch and Wasserman 2005).