this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2024
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Why have you convinced yourself that you have nothing and that you need to be in a relationship to have something?
Joining with the other sex and reproduction is literally the main purpose of all living beings, regardless of their level of intelligence or levels of consciousness of creating things like society and religions. When you don't have that as your adulthood passes you feel like a failure, regardless of what anyone else thinks.
I would say that survival is the main purpose. For which reproducing is one of the available 'tools' like is eating, fighting, and running away.
Reproducing doesn't require having to join the other. I mean, gametes exchange can be done without mating (ask plants) and you also have asexual reproducing. Mating is the way human beings are doing it, like many living species but it still is just one way.
At the individual level, reproducing is not a necessity (a far less urgent one than is eating and surviving, ie get a shelter, get away from trouble,...). It's only a necessity at the species level. At least, as far as I understand it.
Many people do not have sex or have sex and do not reproduce. They are fine and not unhappy and their choice is fine at the species level — it's not like human species is on the verge of extinction because of the lack of humans: we've never been that many on teh surface of the planet (most probably even a little bit too many ;)
Edit: even among other species, reproducing is not the aim of all individuals. Just look at bees: the queen is the only one that will lay eggs (other bees are either workers/fighters/nurses, even though they can switch role during their lifetime they won't ever have a baby bee) and the males... well, the one that gets to mate the queen die just after that.
This is an interesting take that I honestly hadn't really considered before. As someone without the human instinct to reproduce that 99% of all humans seem to experience, it has always felt a bit like I am an alien from a different planet. Or like I am born without one of the lesser senses or something. But thanks for this. It was an interesting read.
You're not. Or you're not alone.
My spouse and I (50+ year-old) have been together for 25+ years and have no children — be it by making them the good old way, or by using some medical help, or by adopting them (to remind the OP there is more than one way to 'reproduce' as human beings).
We never had any drive/urge to have and raise children, so for us it was a question we tried to answer in a calm and non-emotional way: will we or will we not have children? Also, we were still a young couple when we realized the absolute shit world they would have to live in as adults, which did indeed help us a bit in deciding to not have children.
25 years later, I don't think we ever regretted it. But, who knows, maybe people like us do indeed lack of something important? I doubt it, though.
You're more than welcome.