I Don't Love Anyone.

I don't experience love.  I never have.  It's a state which I recognize the theoretical existence of, and I have no problem believing that other people, even most people, do feel it and allow it to guide their actions . . . but I've never loved anyone, personally.

What do I mean by love?  Well, more or less, the whole empathetic connection to someone else, emotionally.  The real concern for someone else's well-being.  The placing of their needs or desires above my own.  The ability to feel genuine happiness solely because the other person is happy, or genuine sadness solely because the other person is sad.  The feeling of obligation to another person in a sweeping or permanent sense, beyond a limited-scope contractual situation.  The willingness to allow considerations for another person to dictate my own choices, even when those choices would inconvenience me without offering suitable reward.

I have all sorts of ideas about love.  I'm a philosophical sort, I enjoy speculating about vaguely defined and perhaps indefinable topics more than nearly any other activity.  I think that, as an ideal, love is very cool.  Maybe the best thing humans can do, experience, or strive for.  It's just . . . not possible for me.  And I'm okay with that.  I've come to terms with the simple fact that this is who I am.

Love, to me, is a selfless thing.  It's a gift thing.  It's a sharing thing.  It's about blurring or entirely erasing the line between "self" and "other".  It's saying, "Hey, I want your happiness more than anything else, more than even my own.  And I'm actually going to behave accordingly.  Because you, as a person, mean that much to me."  I think it's a beautiful concept.  But I don't function that way.  No one has ever "meant that much to me", and I do not believe that anyone ever could.  Not because I haven't met people who are "worthy" of it, but simply because it isn't in my nature to even experience that.  I just don't feel that way, not ever.

It's not really as horrible as it sounds.  Challenging sometimes, but not some kind of existential nightmare.

Although I don't love in any real sense, any noble, spiritual, or romantic sense, I do still like people very much.  I'm certainly capable of being very fond of a person, and even in developing some rudimentary, conditional loyalty to someone.  But it's all a transaction, hidden though it might be.  It's all a secret, subtle numbers game.  It's about what I get out of that person, versus how much they inconvenience or demand of me.  As soon as that balance becomes "unprofitable", I'm done with them.  There's no unconditional, continuous devotion to anyone else in me.  I can't even imagine what that would feel like.

I can't love, but I can adore.  To me, it's a very different thing.  I often feel quite strongly about a person, in a positive way.  It's essentially an extreme sort of appreciation.  It's a huge feeling of enjoying someone, of really being very satisfied with how they make me feel, or what they do for me.  But still, it's all about their effect on me, on my life, on my mental state.  Not about some inherent value that I place upon them as a person, irrespective of how they impact me in practical application.

But when I adore, I can adore very sincerely, very intensely, and very passionately.  I know, it's odd to think of someone being "passionate" and being "unable to love", but again, I think they're not the same thing, despite being often conflated in popular thought and cultural dialogue.  I can form very powerful (even if temporary, or exceedingly brief) attachments to people, or infatuations with them, or other expressions of appreciation.  Even genuine gratitude, or a sort of humble awe of someone, I can feel.  Just not selfless, unconditional, inconvenient love.

I do view people as means to an end, and in a more subtle way, as objects.  No matter how much I adore someone, no matter how much they impress me, inspire me, totally blow me away with their awesomeness, they're still, ultimately, just an apparatus by which I achieve favorable states of mind and enjoyable experiences.  If they stop being useful, stimulating, comforting, or fun, all of that passionate admiration will vanish like smoke in the wind, and I won't care any more about them than I do about any other competitor for resources.  Which is to say, not much at all.

It's a lot like when we say that we "love" certain music, or a book, or a movie, or a type of food, or an activity.  It's not an altruistic, interpersonal connection we're talking about.  No one literally loves ice cream, they wouldn't put the needs of ice cream above their own, they wouldn't dive in front of a bullet to save ice cream, they don't stay up tossing and turning at night worrying about whether or not ice cream is happy.  (Or if they do, they're a whole different kind of interesting, and I'm interested in meeting them.)

When someone says that they "love" ice cream, they mean that they appreciate it.  That they enjoy it.  That it gives them pleasure, satisfaction, desired stimuli.  It amuses them, it causes effects upon their mind and body which are fun.  But that's as far as it goes.  It's not a two-way street.  They're not trying to make ice cream's life better, nor would they be likely to ever spare a moment's thought for such a ridiculous idea.

When I "love" people, I do so in exactly the same way that I love ice cream, orange juice, Dostoyevsky, or Rage Against the Machine.  That's what it means, to me, to say that I do not and cannot love.  Because while humanity may have countless definitions and ways of viewing love, they almost certainly do not mean, when it comes to the question of loving another person, simply "loving" them as you do a mere object of pleasure or pastime.  So even if I say "I love you" I don't really mean anything by it that a normal person might reasonably expect that phrase to mean.  I don't mean anything giving or sharing or selfless or devoted or unconditional by it.  I simply mean, "Hey, you taste good.  I'd like to continue eating you.  For now."

Does this mean that I cannot form any relationships, have any friends, experience intimacy or romance?  No, it doesn't mean that.  Because I'm not psychotic, or wildly fickle, and I do have a very strong sense of appreciation for others.  I'm perfectly capable of adoring a person for years and years, indefinitely, perhaps for my entire life.  That is, if they remain interesting and don't become unduly troublesome to me.  I have lifelong friends who have managed this perfectly well, and I am deeply pleased by them, and I think that we contribute a lot of value to each others' lives.

What it does mean, though, is that there is a lot of acting involved.  A great deal of lying, pretending, and manipulation on my part.  Most folks don't want to hear that you don't really give a shit about them, at the end of the day.  They want to believe that you do, in fact, love them, and ironically, they usually place that as a condition of their own "love".  (Which, to my mind, makes claims of that love a bit questionable, but who am I to tell others how to love?)  I'm fine with that, I understand how humans are, and happy to adapt, to play their games, to put on whatever show they require.  As long as I'm getting what I want from them.  And if not, I just move along.

So yes, there's a lot of deception, but I like to think of it as benign deception.  I'm generally not out to trick anyone maliciously.  I don't see much upside to just hurting or screwing people over for no good reason.  I don't wake up in the morning and think, "Hahaha, who will I torment today?  What weak-willed fool will I break with my fiendish machinations?  I will see them all suffer!"  How would that be useful?  I deceive because it's expedient, because it makes my interactions with other people work, because it gets me what I want, and because the reality of who I am and how I feel about others would, for the most part, freak them out.

I usually act pretty nice, really.  I act like I care about people.  I do the things that caring people do.  I perform the role of a person who loves, even though I'm not actually feeling or experiencing love itself.  And in return, I get all of the things that people want from other people in social relationships.  Company, camaraderie, intimacy, laughter, fun, conversation, partnership, sexual gratification, ego boosting, comfort, acceptance, and all that stuff.  It can be more challenging, and a lot more temporary or prone to loss, but it's all still possible, even without ever loving anyone.  Most people never even realize that I don't love them.  They don't need to know.

I don't think of people -- and here I mean specific individuals that I choose to develop relationship with -- as hapless morons whose silly little minds I'm toying with like puppets.  I don't think of myself as some kind of devilish mastermind, weaving a wicked web to ensnare all those around me.  It's really not like that.  I say that I'm a sociopath who loves no one, who cannot love, who sees people as objects and means, who is only concerned with how they effect me, and who has no ultimate morality guiding me to treat others well . . . but honestly, it's not as sinister as it might sound.  It really isn't.  I'm not some comic book villain.  I'm just lacking a certain capacity which most people (presumably) possess.

I don't even especially lament the inability to love.  I'm fine with things as they are.  I'm fine with myself, as I am.  I don't feel like I'm especially missing out, in fact being able to selflessly love or genuinely empathize with others seems a lot more like a big hassle, burden, and liability, to me.  I'm fairly glad I'm not saddled with that mess. Not that I think that people who can feel that (normal people, I guess) are somehow inferior to me.  I don't really see one or the other as "better" . . . just different.  Each has its advantages and disadvantages, I'm sure.  I can't make a direct comparison, as I haven't been able to experience both and lay them side-by-side.

It's really only troublesome in that it makes it very difficult to form long-lasting relationships with anyone, or to maintain the ones I have.  Because I really don't care, I tend to be excessively casual with others' feelings, or with honoring any kind of commitments, or making sustained efforts to be involved with others.  I lose out on a lot of potentially very enjoyable and beneficial associations because I just can't be bothered to even pay attention to people most of the time, and I lack that intrinsic empathetic connection to others that would, or so I gather, make me feel compelled to.  Normal folks, apparently, feel that it is very important, even necessary, to stay in contact with their "loved ones", to make a conscious effort to "be there for them" on a regular basis.  This allows them to maintain long-term, deep and complex relationships much better than myself.  I default to only attempting to interact with anyone when I need something, when I'm looking for some specific sort of gain from that person, right in that moment.  I don't feel any drive to do otherwise, and that tends to piss people off and cause alienation.

I don't do well with obligation or expectation.  Pretty much, expecting anything of me is going to end badly.  But it's all dependent upon what I'm getting from someone.  The better they're giving me, the more I like what they have to offer, the more value I place on the specific effects of my relationship with them, then the more inconvenience and effort I'm willing to endure in order to maintain our arrangement.  Not endure for their sake.  Just to enable the function of me continuing to get what I want from them.

It all sounds very calculating, and occasionally it is, but mostly, this stuff is all going on automatically, unconsciously, deep down below any sort of real thought process.  I'm not sitting there carefully weighing each moment, each exchange, each tiny transaction with every other human being, like some sort of obsessive-compulsive accountant.  It's usually more of a general gestalt, it's pretty intuitive really.  And I don't consider myself especially unreasonable or unfair about it, either.  All I really require from people is that they don't expect more from me than they're giving me.  Well, and that they don't expect me to do, feel, or be things that aren't possible for me or aren't in my nature.

I don't love.  I can't love.  So, it's all well and good if someone wants to love me, as long as they're prepared to accept that it's going to be one-sided -- forever.  (Or are willing to be deceived, and don't try to look too deep beneath the facade.)  The only tricky part of the whole deal is, most people are not okay with that.  In fact, they tend to be pretty horrified by it.  It seems unfair to me to be hated for who I naturally am, and cannot change, but I don't hold that against them much.  We all want what we want, after all.  Who am I to begrudge folks wanting to be sincerely loved?

So, that's one of the major reasons why I feel that the "sociopath" label fits me.  The inability to love, to genuinely empathize with others, to selflessly care about others, and the lack of any inner compulsion to behave in certain ways solely because other human beings would wish me to or because it would benefit others.  There are more reasons, but we'll explore those another time.