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Thursday, November 30, 2017

Obsessions

My family has a long history of Quaker Puritanism. They settled in Pennsylvania coming from Switzerland in the late 1600's, long before the American Revolution and the existence of the United States. Being omitted from the family history, I can only assume they came to America because they were pacifists, avoiding conscription into some military. I only learned they escaped some soldiers who were trying to capture them, not kill them.

Anyway, I think the Puritanism was so deep-seated, so embedded into their minds, that it became hard-wired into their genetics. They reel with disgust at the slightest innuendo or dirty joke, or even a swear word. I was adopted into this family.

My genes are different. I was raised in this family and I was conditioned to never express my desires and to repress my feelings about sex. It didn't help to be raised in a family of women who never had anything nice to say about men either. I feigned ignorance about my knowledge of intimacy out of fear of being ostracized and punished. It was a habit I had no choice but to adopt, and it stuck with me. Now at age 51, I am alone.

Without intimacy, I never had the motivation to achieve anything, and so nothing, I achieved. If I was going to be denied a relationship, because all my crushes were unrequited, I assume I don't qualify for natural selection, then what's the point of achieving anything?

Relationships for me are too difficult. Friendships have ended in disappointment because all of my friends have achieved the American Dream. Believe it or not, that's the circle within which I roll. They are all professionals, except me of course.

All of my friends went to college, got a career, then a family and then children. Do you know what it feels like to go to your best friend's wedding, only to be treated with secondary guest status? It's infuriating.

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It's now two years after I originally wrote this. I'm no longer holding out hope of entering an intimate relationship. The more I think about it, the more awkward I imagine the situation. I think I'm done.

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