Precious and Fragile Things

A few years ago, someone I'd met by chance in the FFRPG community over IRC sent me this song and said he thought it might fit me. He also later introduced me to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead. (See, I told you the icon wasn't inappropriate!) Because of him I re-discovered a love of (some of) the Anita Blake novels, formed my love-hate relationship with Harry Dresden, and was introduced to the world of Vlad Taltos, the wittiest assassin ever created.

The song still holds true for me, and if he doesn't mind, tomorrow (or rather, tonight as it's after midnight) we can watch and quote The Player from Rosencrantz. Then again, whatever he'd like considering it's his birthday. We've had some ups and downs, and we're still finding our footing, but regardless of the bad, this part of my life is something I'm glad I got to share with him.

Happy birthday, Sam. I love you and everything you've ever introduced me to. Well, except The Pest, or whatever that movie with John Leguizamo is called, but that's okay. We'll always have Big Trouble in Little China.

My landlord called this morning to talk to me about something Sam had discussed with her husband. She'd meant to call me before, but had been busy and I had meant to talk to her and then Mom got hurt and I've been distracted too.

Anyway, as of August 1, I'll be renewing the lease for another year...with Sam's name on it too. We're cleared to move in together! The only difference is a $50 rise in rent, which is the same as she's charging for another mobile home they've recently acquired, and I'm quite all right with that if it means I don't have to move and get to keep the kiddo in the same school as well as finally having Sam living here as a family.

Sam's happy, his parents are happy, my mother was thrilled, and the kiddo was very excited when I told him. I'm...nervous. Not because I think we're going to be awful together, but more because I'm always anxious and nervous when things start looking up after a lot of stress.

So for July, going to be doing some work around the house and gradually moving some of Sam's things over here, and then some other things of his will have to go into storage I think. There'll also be a consolidation of our book collections. Possibly going to getting rid of duplicates at some point (which I'll post about here or on Goodreads). Either way, I already need more bookshelves, so that's the first bit of furniture we'll have to see about buying because we're both bibliophiles and raging nerds.

I also have an update on Mom, but I'll get to that later.

Note: I'm waffling between keeping this post public, filtering it, or making it private. I think, though, that it should be public because there are a couple of people who don't have an LJ or DW account who might need to see this, so this will be public.

I haven't talked any about my New Year's/birthday weekend, mostly because I've been recovering from it and trying to get back into the swing of things with the kiddo returning to school and all that. (Man, it was only two weeks, but boy it's easy to fall out of a routine.)

I had an amazing New Year's Eve with Sam's family. I finally got to meet his uncle and a couple of other family friends he's wanted to introduce me to for quite some time now, and they were all very lovely people. Sam's father's band put on an amazing set and I heard them cover everything from Pink Floyd, the Beatles, to Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Counting Crows, plus a few original songs in there too, one of which was adapted from a poem Sam's mother wrote several years ago. (Seriously, his family? So talented it's freaky.) This was my first honest to goodness New Year's Eve party. I mean, sure I've done get together's with my father's friends when I was a kid, but this was the first time I was in a bar with a large-ish crowd with live entertainment in a bar/restaurant. Yes, I turned 30 at midnight, and it was my first real party.

My birthday itself was awesome too. Sam's family put together a dinner of finger foods and gave the kiddo and me our belated Christmas presents, and then I was given birthday presents. That last part? Overwhelming. Looking back, I think I should have thanked them more than I did, but I was speechless. My gifts were amazing, and really the first time since I was a teenager that I had an actual party with more than just my parents giving me gifts. I felt guilty because I haven't been able to get Sam's family any gifts yet, though I plan to remedy that soon -- and I realize this looks like I'm doing this out of obligation, but no, I'd planned on gifts before this. It was the best birthday I've had in years, maybe a decade or more, and...well, I simply don't have the words.

And then I woke up Sunday morning and sobbed for an hour straight while Sam comforted me.

Some of it was this anxiety that's come upon me out of nowhere, and some of that combined with the grief of another holiday and birthday without my father around. But thinking back on it, I think what really moved me to that moment, what pushed me over that edge, was what Sam's family did for me.

Someone else's family did something nice for me, spent time and money on me, and then told me that I was part of their family and they welcomed me. And it undid me.

I try not to talk about my past relationship experiences too much. It's sounds like I'm whining and complaining and going, "Woe is me, nobody loves me." Really, that's not my intention, it simply is what's happened. That, and I know I'm loved now even if I wasn't cared about then. I don't like admitting that my college boyfriend's mother hated me so much she tried to forbid her twenty year-old son from seeing me. She flat out told him that if he ever wanted to marry me, she'd drag him off to meet other women who would be much better than me. She broke into his e-mail account and read some very private e-mails that were only supposed to be between me and her (remember, he was an adult) son. She even threatened to pull him out of college at the very last minute because she hated me so damn much, and this was based off one meeting. Oh, and she never apologized for that, never made an effort to admit she may have made a mistake, and yet it was my fault for holding a grudge. Would you want to spend time around a woman who openly and unapologetically admitted to hating you? Damn right I never spoke to her again for the three years I was with her son.

As for Tofu's mom, she invaded my privacy in a horrible way (that I only found out after I was up in Maine and pregnant) by posing as someone she wasn't and getting my then-landlord to share extremely private information about me. She threw her daughter an amazing baby shower with tons of gifts and guests, and then I got a card, potted plant, and a family dinner with just Tofu's immediate family when it was my turn. So, I never even had a baby shower despite the fact I was as dirt poor as her daughter and lacked anything in the way of baby clothes, furniture, and well, everything. I never received any gifts from them, not that I expected I deserved any. And since we moved, the kiddo never received so much as a birthday card from them and only gets the occasional gift from his father on Christmas and his birthday. The entire time I was with Tofu I don't recall him giving me one gift at all, not even a handmade card.

I'll spare you the stories of my own extended family's treatment of not just me, but of everyone else. Suffice to say, I've never exactly been welcomed with open arms into anyone's family. My reaction to Sam's family has been one of utter shock and amazement. They've been so wonderful to me and I don't know how to tell them that. Yeah, yeah, I can say "thank you," but those two little words are so small and insignificant compared to what I feel. If they'd ignored me, pushed me away, and treated me like crap, I'd honestly have been okay with it because that's my expectation. It might have even been easier than this. What's happened now, I don't know how to react to it, and it's not the gifts. They could have skipped on the gifts entirely and I'd still be sitting here gobsmacked by how much they've offered me, how they've tried to include me into the family, and how much they've taken to the kiddo and how much love they've already shown him, and he's not even their blood.

I've spent most of my life feeling like and being told I wasn't good enough. I wasn't good enough for previous boyfriends' families, even when I had a child with one of them, and the fact that my son is their blood doesn't matter to them because, hey, he's still mine. Dad's friends forgot about me as soon as his body was in the ground, and they said I was a selfish bitch and probably think I just wanted his money, never mind the fact that no one ever asked me what was going on in my life (or that they even knew what it was like to live with him). I'm no better than the shit they scrape off their shoe. I've believed everyone and accepted the barest minimum of politeness from the people in my life. Who the hell am I to ask for me? Even now, I'm in this weird position of feeling like "Finally, I'm respected and wanted," and going, "I don't deserve this, any of it." And I'm tearing up while I type this and damnit, I hate that because I rarely cry. Sunday morning was the first time I've cried that hard for that long in years.

People are loving and supportive around me, and I simply don't know how to handle it, I don't know how to show my gratitude. I don't know how to react to hearing my boyfriend say not that he's there for me should I fall apart, but that they're there for me and the kiddo. And for the first damn time in my life, the first time in 30 years, I actually mostly believe it.

I'm sorry I didn't say it Saturday because I was simply too overwhelmed (and dealing with severe anxiety on top of all that, but that's neither here nor there for the moment), but I feel like I can say it here as I'm better at writing out what I'm feeling instead of saying it in person. Thank you so much, for everything. Even the Christmas shopping meant so much to me. I'm sorry I'm not better at this, but I'm trying to learn.

Day 05 - Your Definition of Love

Whoo boy, this one is kind of a doozy. Well, it is for me at any rate.

First of all, let me just say that the old saying, "Love means never having to say you're sorry" is bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Humans fuck up. Humans in relationships fuck up repeatedly. Sometimes we make a bad joke, or we say something harsh in the heat of the moment. Whatever. If you hurt someone you claim to love, no matter how unintentional, you apologize. End of story. None of this, "He knows I didn't mean it," or, "She knows I love her." Don't care. You say you're sorry and mean it each and every time you screw up, and yes, you will screw up. It happens.

Ahem. Where was I? Oh yeah, my definition of love.

Love is loving the person, the whole person, as they are now. You don't love someone if they "lose 50 pounds" or "cut hir hair in a style I prefer." You love someone warts and all in the present. Sure, your love can change in the future. Maybe you'll love them more than you do now, or maybe you'll hate them three months from now. My point is, if you fall in love with someone, make sure you're falling in love with hir and not some idealized version you've cooked up in your head.

Love is a desire to see the other person happy, even if that happiness doesn't necessarily include you. This is not something that's easy, and usually it comes with maturity and time. I want to see the person I love be happy, and I don't think I could live with myself if I knew zie was unhappy with me. I've been the unhappy person in a relationship and I couldn't bear to make someone else feel that way.

Love means sticking by a person in the good times and the bad, so long as that bad doesn't mean the other person is abusive towards you. People are allowed to have bad days, but there is no excuse for physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. Another human being is not a punching bag, metaphorical or literal. Vent to another person, lean on hir shoulder, but always realize that your partner isn't the reason your boss is being a jerk at work.

Love is still knowing you're going to find comfort in the other person's arms, even if you're mad at hir or zie's mad at you. It's feeling safe enough to voice a concern or to say that something needs to change without worrying the other person will leave. It's knowing that the times of anger or annoyance are short lived and knowing that, no matter what's happening in life, the good between the two (or more) of you outweighs the bad.

Love is not necessarily forever. People come and go into our lives. Some linger for longer than others. If a relationship ends, it doesn't mean it was a failure or a bad idea. It means lessons were learned, some stuff happened, and the two people are no longer a good fit for one another. What's important is that we remember we are capable of love and of being loved in return.

There, I think that's enough babbling from me today.

( The Meme )

Thanks to a community I lurk watch, I stumbled upon this CNN article about "negotiated infidelity."

First off, "negotiated infidelity" sounds like an oxymoron. If you've discussed opening a relationship and allowing your significant other to take on more sexual partners (and s/he follows the rules you've laid out), then it's not cheating or infidelity. It's an open relationship. Of course, it's still entirely possible to cheat in an open relationship, but not if you're adhering to the mutually agreed upon guidelines.

Hill's memoir, "Sugarbabe" details her yearlong adventure with a series of so-called "sugar daddies." The book sold 24,000 copies in her native Australia, according to her publisher, and has just been released in the United States. Holly Hill is a pen name.

"I thought it was men that would like the book," she says, "But in fact it's women, because what it says to women is that if your man cheats on you, he still loves you, and he's probably running about average."

While it's true a cheating partner/spouse in all likelihood still loves you, s/he doesn't respect you enough to be honest with hir feelings. S/he is also selfish and dishonest, doing something that brings hir pleasure and putting it before your emotional needs. Not to mention putting your health at risk if the cheater doesn't take care of hir sexual health.

Loving your partner isn't enough if you treat hir like garbage, and just because someone loves you doesn't mean s/he is healthy for you.

( More bullshit under here. Lots more. )

I am so sick of gender roles in relationships, and I'm sick of the response of "Oh, that's a wo/man for you!" when it comes to problems in a relationship. Know why I get sick of that? It's simple really. Saying a negative behavior is the result of one's gender is an excuse for the behavior, which in turns means the behavior is condoned and viewed as unchangable. When that happens, it means people are allowed to continue whatever it is they are doing to the detriment of their relationships/their partners. This is not acceptable.

NEWSFLASH: PEOPLE CAN BE ASSHATS REGARDLESS OF GENDER!

I don't get this attitude, I really don't. There were times when I saw my mother emotionally hurting and she needed someone to reassure her, but my father wouldn't talk because "Men don't do those things." Other times my mother would engage in passive-aggressive behavior instead of telling my father what happened to make her angry. The response was, "You women always do this and expect us to be mind readers." It wasn't just my parents, either. I still see it played out in the relationships around me, and I know we all hear the jokes from television, music, and other media. But that doesn't make it right.

It's not being a man if you leave your partner alone to deal with an emotionally upsetting event. It's being a jerk when you don't talk to hir. It's not being a woman if you don't tell your partner you're angry or upset. No, that's called not communicating. Neither behavior should be excused because of a person's gender, in fact, they shouldn't be excused at all.

Before people start chiming in with "Well, all the wo/men I've known do this," stop yourself and think. We all engage in some form of asshattery or another in relationships. Sometimes we're aware of it and other times we have to be smacked with a clue-by-four. How we respond to it is a reflection of who we are as individuals, not our entire gender.

I've been with a man who could cry at the oddest of moments, and then turn around and angrily get in my face when I tried to explain what was wrong. And I've been with a man who ignored me when I tried to say I needed more emotional support from him. If I were to go by the gender roles provided to me, I was the man in one relationship and the needy woman in another. Neither of those is right (except that I know I was a jerk a few times myself - oh, and I've always been a woman). When people excuse shitty behavior based on gender, it's harmful to a relationship. Regardless of your gender, you can communicate with your partner, and if you are indeed doing something wrong, be an adult and stop doing it!

The subject of marriage came up somewhere and there was some very mild debate on how much time should pass before a person should expect a marriage proposal. It seems more than a few people have the opinion that a year is enough time, and that if you don't know by then, something's wrong. Those of you who know me will know that I firmly disagree with this and, in fact, I think one year is an incredibly short amount of time to be in a relationship.

I suppose now at my ancient age of twenty-eight-and-a-half years old (she said with her tongue firmly implanted in her cheek) that I have a different perspective than someone, say, twenty-three or younger. I know that life happens and that you can never predict what road it's going to take. I know that I was with someone for three years, and it didn't work out. I know that I was with someone for five years (roughly), had a child with him, and it still didn't work out. I know I've seen marriages last anywhere from a couple of years to twenty years before they ended in divorce. I've seen people marry right out of high school or college, and I've seen it fail miserably, but then again I can tell you I know someone who married under the age of twenty and who is still married and happy eleven years later. I've talked to a man in his early sixties recovering from his third divorce who told me, "By this point, I honestly believe it's just luck." I've read the special interest stories in the newspapers of couples celebrating fifty or sixty years together, and their big secret is the joke "Never go to bed angry."

Knowing all of this I have but one question to ask: What's your hurry?

If you plan to marry someone, you plan to be with them forever or "'til death do you part," right? Why do you have to immediately rush to the altar? Why not hold off a bit? Let's say two years. Two years is enough time to get out of the "honeymoon" period in most relationships, and if after the rose-colored glasses of lust and infatuation disappear you still want to be with that person, then maybe you ought to give it a shot. However, there's nothing wrong with dating for two, three, four, or hell, even six years before even considering marriage. Considering you could live for another fifty years, two years isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things. Personally I'd rather be damn sure I want to wake up next to the same face every day before I talk about forever. Honestly? Sometimes I think it seems people are more infatuated with getting married as opposed to staying married. People forget that marriage isn't just a state of being, it's a relationship and it's a relationship that takes work if you want to make it.

No, I've never been married, and these days I refuse to make any speculation on whether or not I might ever get married. I thought I'd found "the one" when I was but eighteen years old and fresh out of high school. I thought the same thing again when I was twenty-two and then I got pregnant and thought we'd be together forever. Now I look back and go, "What in the hell was I thinking?" What happened? Life happened, and those two people changed while I dated them. I changed too, and I grew as a person, and I wasn't quite the same person they fell in love with either. When my infatuation and fascination with the newness of a relationship was gone, I looked around and realized there possibly wasn't enough to sustain us as a couple. I rushed into things thinking I had to get at it now because the offer was only valid while supplies lasted, but I realize rushing into something like that blind isn't a great idea, and that it usually has an ugly outcome.

I guess I just don't get it anymore. Why rush into marriage if you're so sure you're going to be with that person? If you want to marry him now, you should want to marry him ten years from now. If you're still going through school, wait until you've graduated and are gainfully employed. Even if you're in your early thirties and aren't married yet, don't run for the church just because you think you're too old. It's better to be happy and unmarried than to be married and completely miserable because you didn't know about that thing he does at the dinner table, or his mother hates your guts, but he can't stand up for you because, hey, that's his mom!

I think it boils down to this: Are you in a relationship because you want the idealized marriage with a white picket fence and two-point-three kids, or are you in a relationship because you love the person you're with and you want to share your life with him/her? I really hope it's the latter.

Three years ago around late-March, I joined some guild campaign called Adventurer's Guild. It was dead by June, having imploded in on itself due to a poorly constructed setting, but by that point I'd found another campaign to join called Silvertech. Thus began my membership in a community of assholes known as #returners. I've made some awesome friends, lost friends who were also awesome and that I miss dearly, and I've even managed to make a couple of people hate me (the feeling is mutual in case you were wondering).

So happy anniversary of my arrival to a community full of the best bastards I know online.

Three years ago today, I was doing an open roleplay in Adventurer's Guild with my first FFRPG third-edition charater, an Elvaan Swordmaster named Pasha. That night, my character struck up a conversation with another character, a conversation that went on for many hours. Eventually, the character's player had to bow out and said he was catching a plane for a week-long vacation some place. He said he would talk to me later, but I'd been on the Internet long enough to know that people come and go, especially when they say they're going away for a weeks' worth of time. I thought to myself at the time, "That was fun, too bad I'll never see him again." One week later, he logged back online and /query'd me, completely surprising me. We talked Out-of-Character for a long time and even flirted a bit, but it was innocent. He didn't think me odd for having a kid, being in an open relationship at that time, having tattoos, or anything I threw at him. He thought I was fun, and I thought he had great sense of humor and was a great roleplayer.

That was how I became friends with Sam. How we got from being friends with the occasional benefits to a monogamous couple is a long, long story. Suffice to say, our relationship's history is as weird as we are, and if you had told me three years ago that I'd be with Sam, I would have laughed in your face and said, "It's a nice thought, but there's just no way." Yeah. My life is strange that way, but hey, it works. He was there to help me realize how unhealthy my relationship with Tet was, and he never once pushed me to leave Tofu, only offered to listen to tell me that he would be there as my friend when I needed him (along with Elisha at that time) once I'd made the decision to leave. He called me the day they discovered Dad's tumor, and he was the first friend I talked to the night Dad died. In a short three years, he's been there for me through more than most people, and never once has he complained or denied me a shoulder to cry on.

I won't sit here and confess my undying love. I won't say that this is it for me. I don't know that, and I don't know that I ever will know that. What I do know is that, for the first time in a long time I'm happy. I know that we have a solid friendship and our relationship, despite a couple of bumps in the road here and there, has a very stable foundation. I'm comfortable, sated, and content to stay where I am. Honestly, I don't really see this changing.

We haven't been a couple for three years (and I can't really pinpoint when we did become a couple - that really just kind of happened when I wasn't looking), but we have been friends for three years, and without that, we wouldn't have the romantic relationship we do.

Sam, you are possibly my weirdest relationship to date, and that's probably because you're the most normal and sane boyfriend I've ever had, even if you don't look like anything resembling "normal." I love you, and I'm glad you're my friend first.

I have discovered a new condition. It's called Involuntary Celibacy, or incel for short. What is incel you ask?

Involuntary celibacy, or incel, is the state of a person who has not established an intimate relationship or engaged in sexual intercourse for reasons other than voluntary celibacy or sexual abstinence. The term is used especially for adults who, despite general expectations, have had little to no sexual or romantic experience. [Wikipedia]

OK, and the causes of incel?

Loneliness. Love shyness. Sexual frustration. Romantic envy. Missing the boat. Playing an agonzing, tantalizing game of catch-up. It’s alarming that a problem so destructive can be all but virtually ignored by both serious sociologists and the mental health community. It can be argued that incel is a symptom of a deeper root cause and that this cause should be the greater focus of investigation. The most obvious reasons for some incels would be social phobia or a significant degree of social incompetence. However many incels are also actually outgoing, charming, humorous, gregarious, approachable types who resemble most people already in relationships. Yet they find themselves in the same social situation of the stereotypical shut-in. Many introverts involved in serious relationships or are even married. There are no easy causal explanations.

Right, I can buy that there are valid disorders, illnesses, and diseases that get ignored by various parts of the medical community (i.e. fibromyalgia), but so far I'm not exactly sold on incel as a disorder deserving of medical recognition. Furthermore, if there are "no easy causal" explanations, and sufferers can be either socially inept, suffer from depression, or be perfectly charming, how on earth can we come up with diagnostic criteria? Or is the only symptom lack of sexual relationships?

To help simplify matters, when I say incel, I mean to include only men and women above age 25, who are not incarcerated and do not have any physical handicap that could get in the way of a relationship. For now I don’t want to include the medically celibate or prisoners and other people in strict single-sex communities in the discussion yet--even though they do actually qualify as incel--mainly because the reason for being incel is so self-evident there. I would also defer discussion on very youthful incels because I believe most people understand in the adolescent and young adult years, people are expected to stumble and get rejected, and some frustration is a natural way of life, even though it can certainly be no less troubling in one's social development.

Right, so a disabled person over the age of 25 couldn't possibly be depressed that zie is incapable of having the sort of relationship zie assumes hir able-bodied friends have? And an incarcerated person couldn't possibly be depressed about lack of human intimacy with someone zie loves? Wait, they are incel? Why are we excluding them? Oh, oh, because well, golly gee, of course we know why those people aren't getting laid. It's so obvious! You just can't possibly compare them to all the "outgoing, charming, humorous, gregarious, approachable types" not getting any nookie. And certainly able-bodied, presumably law-abiding people under the age of 25 wouldn't be upset when their friends have relationships and they are late bloomers.

But I do very much want to address the problem of mature emotional frustration of people in a sexually permissive society, who have reasonably advanced sexual knowledge, even if it is all secondhand, especially for incels who are outgoing, are quite socially competent and are free to mingle with whoever they please. In these cases, the frustration is compounded because the sufferer has difficulty pinpointing the reason they are like this. It’s not as easy as in the last century where one could be frustrated from being in the wrong class or wrong sort of family or neighborhood. Because we live in an increasingly global community, there would seem to be no excuse not to connect with people, but incel cases still exist and, I think, much more prevalently than it would seem.

Sexually permissive society? Hey, when did the virgin/whore dichotomy go away? Did I miss a news flash? And when did porn count as good sexual education?

"...the sufferer has difficulty pinpointing the reason they are like this." And instead of looking at themselves to figure out what might be the cause, they blame the medical community for not paying attention to their plight? Yes, because people die every day from not getting laid. Oh, wait...

There’s also the feeling of helplessness and that the situation is somewhat out of their hands; after all it takes another reciprocating person to form a couple, and even doing everything right is no guarantee, as incels understand too well. Obviously luck plays a role in the success of many relationships, but luck affects non-incels as well; why does fortune frown on them in particular?

Where have I heard this before? "Women only like jerks!" "Men only date sluts/bitches!" "I'm a Nice Guy! Why don't women like me instead of those assholes?" "I'm a Sweet Girl! Why don't men want to date me instead of those bitches who just use them?"

Ohhhhhh. Now I remember. The poor persecuted Nice Guy/Girl(TM) has decided to adopt a term to apply to hirself.

Actual lack of sex is not only the most misunderstood aspect of incel, but in many cases, it’s also beside the point. Some incels have had opportunities for casual or paid sex but have declined them because they don’t consider them a real relationship (or in the latter case it’s illegal for them in their residential jurisdiction.) What they are truly missing is the affectionate touching, holding and kissing and unconditional give-and-take that true couples the world over enjoy.

This right here I can get on board with. Ignoring the legality of paying for sex, some can't afford it or wouldn't know where to look, and really, sex is more rewarding in the context of a long-term, loving relationship for most people. Avoiding one-night stands or single encounters with a person is also completely understandable, but I thought incels were incapable of getting sex. Apparently they are choosing not to take presented opportunities because it doesn't fit their needs/desires, which, again, is completely understandable and should probably even be lauded as emotionally/mentally responsible behavior. Acknowledging your limits is always a good thing, but I think I've found the crux of the problem.

When I found myself single at 21 after my three-year relationship ended, I had several opportunities for sex. All of them would have likely been one-night stands, or very short-term relationships. Like what's quoted above, I desired intimacy as opposed to only sex. I wanted an emotional committment, and I knew even back then that I can't have sex without love. It was nearly a full year before I had sex again, and there were times when purchasing batteries instead of condoms that I wondered if I was being silly. Yes, there were even a few nights when I whined to a friend or to myself that I wasn't getting laid, and I worried about carpel tunnel syndrome. However, I chose to turn down the opportunities for sex. I chose not to engage in any sort of sexual activity with anyone who wasn't seeking a relationship. I accepted that the consequences for my choices were that my bed would be empty for what might be a long time, and in the interim, I put myself out there as a single woman, and was honest with myself and potential partners about my expectations.

This is why I really can't buy the incel movement. It's not involuntary celibacy if you're turning down opportunities for sex. You have, for whatever reason, made a concious decision not to engage in certain behaviors that limit your options. Illnesses and disorders are not a matter of choice. You either have/get them or you don't.

I'm sorry, I understand the desire and drive for sex. I understand what's it's like to go without and how much it can suck. However, instead of being proactive about "fixing" the problem, you come up with a term to hide behind and so you won't have to address the actual problem: You. Want to know what you're doing wrong? Ask the people who turn you down. It might seem silly and feel awkward, especially if you've just been rejected, but learning what turns people off from you can offer you invaluable insight. Will it hurt? Yes, the truth often hurts, but if you can find friends who are honest with you, it will be an asset for you in the long term. Yes, this might mean you have to change things about you, and address the root causes of your negative behavior, but that's all part of life and growing up. Trust me, you are far more appealing relationship material if you can prove to others that you Handle Your Shit, and Get Over Your Issues.

Finally, if you do feel suicidal, or feel the need to turn to drugs and/or alcohol to deal with your issues, please, please, please get help. It is not lack of sex that's the issue at that point - it's that you have a problem that needs immediate medical attention.

Cross-posted to Dreamwidth.

<Sam> You're pretty good people, darlin'. You just don't give yourself enough credit.
* Jade laughs. "I'm 'pretty good people'? :P"
* Sam grins. "Hush and take your compliment."
<Jade> Yes, sir. It's the most romantic thing I ever heard. :P
<Sam> that's me, the ever-poetic modern-day cassanova. now pardon me while I belch and scratch my genitals. :-p
<Jade> Shall I swoon now or later?
<Sam> Later. You'uns ain't even seen me spit proper yet! Haw haw haw
* Sam grins.
<Jade> Bestill my heart.
* Sam laughs.
<Jade> You know this is going on my LJ now.
<Sam> rofl. Showign me at my finest, hm?
<Jade> Well, I have to brag *somewhere.*
<Sam> fair enough.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we're the stuff Hallmark cards are made of.