The answer to all our problems
Why do love, attraction, and relationships have to be so complicated?
For every person who finds true love, there is someone who is hurt, someone who is rejected, someone who is jealous, someone who is lonely. Some people will never find anyone, and either must learn to live with that or be miserable. It's a very inefficient system.
Attraction messes up friendships. It makes things weird. It makes people run away. And it's just not worth it. In my heart of hearts, I'd rather have one true friend than a hundred girlfriends any day of my life.
Yet there's this awful drive inside me that is forever propelling me towards pain and destruction, both my own and that of others. And I'm tired of it.
I'm convinced that for me, at this stage in my life, I have no use for ερος, the love between the sexes. I will not go looking for it. When the girl for me comes along, I will know her because she will bring joy to my heart, not anguish, and because then I will be ready for her. I will not go so far as to say that it's of no use to anybody ever, because I do believe that we humans were designed to love each other in that way when the time comes, and that it's an important part of a fulfilling human existence.
But when it all boils down, what is that really about? From an evolutionary standpoint, men and women must be attracted to each other in order to guarantee the perpetuation of the species. But we've come a long way in the past few million years, and I don't think there's any danger at this point in time of our immediate extinction. So why do we really need sexual attraction? Yeah, it can be fun; yeah it can be fulfilling; but all the rest of the time, it causes us more pain than anything else in this existence. I propose we eliminate it entirely. Make sex a purely procreative act. Deprived of its pleasure, it would be an uncomfortable, scary experience that no one in their right mind would want to do unless they were serious about bringing children into the world. Reproduction could be mandated by the government when the population begins to dwindle, and in the near future, the unpleasant experience of childbirth could also be eliminated in favor of artificial insemination, gestation, and cloning.
I am convinced that this would solve most of the problems of the world. Murder and suicide rates would drop like bricks; no more jealous or spurned lovers. Overpopulation? A thing of the past. Teenage pregnancy? What teen would want to do that? War? Famine? Plague? Poverty? It's a well-known fact that most wars have been fought over women, anyway. What about rape? Sexual abuse? Adultery? Gone. Same-sex marriage? Why worry about it? Heck, why not just do away with marriage entirely; we'll all be asexual anyway. Love would still turn the world round, but it would be friendly love, moral love, the kinds of love that really matter. Yes, this is the answer we've been looking for.
No, I'm not serious. But I do think the world would be a lot happier place, for me at least, if we could all just be friends.