‘Tis a Cruel Cruel Limbo We Live In
I'm not really into those online personality quizzes, but I decided to try out this one called the Toronto Alexithymia Scale or TAS-20. And you know what? I aced it! Finally, something I'm good at. But here's the kicker - a high score on that quiz is not exactly good news. It basically means I suck at understanding and dealing with my own emotions, and I struggle with relationships and sex. No surprise there. I've always known that I have difficulty processing my feelings. The chemicals in my brain are constantly at war with each other. Sex for me is just a casual thing, devoid of any emotional connection. The people I've been with are like objects to me, no attachments, no strong emotional bonds. I guess I can partly blame my brain for not producing enough oxytocin during sex. If it did, I'd be risking mistaking sexual attraction for love.
The other day, someone called me out on my habit of abruptly leaving people I actually like. I usually don't care much about other people's opinions, but this accusation hit me hard. I had convinced myself that I was actually doing them a favor by walking away. I didn't want them to get hurt by someone like me, someone who's so confused about love and emotions. I also do it to protect myself because I know I suck at choosing the right partners. Maybe this messed up personality of mine developed and thrived because of my genes and my messed up past. I've made some terrible choices in the past, not because I loved those people, but because they inflicted the kind of pain I had grown used to. That pain overshadowed my other emotions and turned me into a coward when it came to exploring them. I thought I deserved that pain, and that was all I would ever get.
In my piece "god is (also) a woman," I mentioned the game "fuck, marry, kill." I used to play that with my friends, and almost always, I would end up fucking (in real life) the person everyone wanted to kill in the game. It's like my body has this messed up attraction to difficult men. I would always end up disgusted with myself for giving in to my messed up desires. And you know what? I think it's partly because of people like me that the world is filled with even bigger scumbags. I admit it, I'm one of the toxic scums of the world, and maybe the world needs our small toxic doses to keep going.
Sexual selection is such a brutal game, you know? It's not even about love, really. It's nature pulling the strings and pushing people to mate with others they might not even genuinely love. It's hard to tell lust apart from love, especially when everyone is so desperate to feel loved and understood. If we keep letting sexual selection dictate our actions without thinking, we're bound to make some major mistakes that we'll later regret (and begrudgingly accept).
Now, I gotta give credit to the person who called me out on my habit, but I have a feeling that my habit of ditching people I actually like might have saved me in the long run.
The whole idea that our destiny is solely determined by our DNA and our environment is seriously messed up and limiting. I mean, come on, didn't we evolve to be complex beings who can break free from the chains of our genes and environment? We have brains that allow us to make choices that aren't predestined. Sure, our DNA and environment have some influence on who we are, but I like to believe that they shouldn't be excuses for bad behavior that people keep using to justify their actions. Our genes and our epigenomes can actually be tools that set us free, if we choose to use them that way (unless we're totally messed up and can't think for ourselves anymore). They can help us become more than just animals, more fully human.
Although I am not one to be trusted when it comes to defining love, I’d like to think that love, real love, must be a substantial force that can help humans attempt to break free from the incapacitating restrictions that make us. This real love is often first given to us by ourselves and if we're lucky, maybe others will too. And our call for real love maybe our call for our need to be freed from our pasts or from our limited selves.