Some days I look at women, shake all context and past experience out of my mind, and look at my feelings.

Then I realize that nothing prevents me from loving, sharing intimacy, having sex, support and live with one. My closest friend is female; the colleagues I go along better with are female; I find the female body beautiful, and I actually take pleasure at admiring females in art and around me. Some people have even told me I would be the perfect lover: I like to and know how to take care of a household; I can create and animate conversations; and I have demonstrated an ability to handle and educate children. I actually feel proud that many women like me.

And yet, I’m still not married and never been into a relationship with a woman. And I’m over 25!

I could, and I’m not.

I feel sometimes sub-human. Like I “miss” a feature all humans should have, even for basic reproductory purposes. I am just totally not attracted. No tingle spreading for voluptuous lips or gorgeous breasts. No out-of-the-ordinary interest for curious or brilliant female intellects. Absolutely no feeling when witnessing intimacy between males and females, or females and females. None. Nada.

And yet, I know how it feels. I have been branded several times by intense attraction at first sight, and I remember it so well that I’m still shaking of the memory. In fact, I know very well what I like and what makes the warmth spread from my heart to the rest of the body.

I do find it difficult to feel different. Especially the part about living with other people who are not this way and still be confortable. But I would give it up for nothing.

As would Shakespeare state it:

To be or not to be, that is the question —

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep —

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to — ‘tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep —

To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There’s the respect

That makes calamity of so long life,

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

That said, the acute reader could observe that some words are missing from this entry. I am actually having an vocabulary issue about it, which is beautifully explained by someone who shares the same concern.