04-02-2018, 11:53 AM
I've had three or four romantic-and-sexual human relationships (depending on what qualifies as relationship), with several more "friends with benefits." I am not adverse to sex with humans, but I find myself drawn to animals more. I don't shut out humans entirely, I've learned to avoid trying to fit myself under a label and just go with what feels right for me.
However, overall, my sex drive is pretty low. I've gone several years without anything beyond autosexuality (masturbation) and while I had some desire, I didn't have enough of a drive to pursue.
In terms of relationships, though, a relationship with a human seems very unlikely for me. Its not because I haven't had yearnings for some people, but I come with too much baggage and feel -- however much some earnest-feelinged few have propositioned me for a relationship -- I would not really improve anyone's life by chaining them to me. Whenever someone tells me "I love you," part of me is convinced they're saying it out of pity or feeling that they are obligated to say it even when they don't. I doubt the sincerity even when I have no real cause to. I don't have a feeling of realness, and keep wondering what I'm supposed to be doing for my end of a relationship, like its a script or somesuch, and have trouble telling how I feel.
With animals, it is different. My last mate, Covy the German Shepherd, was very depressed when I met her, and some dog experts who saw her tell me they're convinced she had been abused. I know she went through trauma. She would lay flat on the ground and sigh, not wag nor pant. She was afraid of people and would shy herself away under a table or bush, or in a corner. Gradually as I spent time with her, though, she wagged more and more, would appear and act happy, and I had no doubt at all that her happiness was genuine, and the feeling I had that I had made her happy saved my life at a time when I felt I was nothing but a drain and a strain on the humans I cared about and whom cared about me. She gave me something I have never been able to obtain any other way -- a genuine, solid sense of value in myself.
I have never been able to have that with people, no matter how sweetly they tell me they love me. I just don't feel it. Its not their fault, its some emotional or mental weakness on my part.
In the human relationships I was in, especially the first one (or second if one counts four -- I had a secretly sexual relationship with another boy when I was a teenager ... our parents and family and friends thought we were just friends, but we were secretly 'friends plus'), I let myself get led around. I let myself get talked into doing things that my conscience had qualms with. And I was abused emotionally, and a couple times physically ... I developed "battered wife syndrome" where I convinced myself that I was the problem, things would get better if I became a better lover ... others saw how I was being led around and controlled and tried to talk me into leaving the relationship but I ignored them for years [img]<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/unsure.png[/img]/emoticons/[email protected] 2x" title=":/" width="20" />
I can't trust myself in a relationship at all to not get led around.
I won't completely foreswear off ever getting in a relationship with a human, but only after I achieved a level of both emotional and financial healthiness I am not certain I can achieve.
