Libb

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.

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.

But thanks for this. It was an interesting read.

You're more than welcome.

May I have an autograph?

What was a time that two adversaries had such different objectives...

Then, would they be adversaries in any meaningful way? I mean, fighting against someone means both must be competing for the... same objective, resources, whatever. If they aren't they aren't competing.

Joining with the other sex and reproduction is literally the main purpose of all living beings

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.

When you don’t have that as your adulthood passes you feel like a failure, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

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.

Yep. Like I said, videos are great and legit. They just can't replace a book, like today's trend seems to be.

Even as far as using an how-to go. Like everybody else I enjoy watching someone doing it while explaining how/why they do it. But I would also rather use a text file when I need to quickly find any specific step of said how-to than using the limited playing control video is giving us. It's no wonder YT added chapters to videos in order to make the situation somewhat better: chapters are just text ;)

• Lemmy, wanting to believe more people will come here from reddit, like I did ;)
• Discord, for the few online courses I'm following that offer Discord salons.
• I have a mastodon account but almost never think about using it.
• I quit Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,... and have not looked back. I miss them as much as I would miss, say, being spat on in the face by strangers in the street.

/me dutifully write this down.

Never tried that, thx for the suggestion.

Yep, I drink tea (I already was) and decaffeinated coffee. For the most part, I drink good old water.

I learned to ignore it to some extend

That must not have been an easy thing to do, and I feel for you knowing how omnipresent coffee is. Heck, I had my first coffee I was not 9 year-old. I remember it vividly, it was a large and thick cup (to my kid eyes at least) half filled with black coffee (not the tinted water many people erroneously call 'coffee'), without milk but with sugar, way too many. I liked it, probably because of the too many sugar in it, and I never quit drinking coffee for 50 years or so, up until very recently and only because my doctor told me so.

As for the smell, obviously I would not compare it to poop like you did but I reckon there is one thing they may both remotely share, very remotely though, a kind of 'earthy' smell?

I call them Satan’s dick because of how inedible they are and how they ruin anything they’re mixed in.

:)

What seemingly random thing do you vehemently hate?

Hate is a strong word, with or without vehemency.

There are things I despise (most media, social or traditional, being an example of), there are things I don't like (bananas), stuff and behaviours I disagree with (certainties and personal opinions used as indisputable truth, violence), and then there are people I dislike, some deeply (like... nope, I won't name anyone) but I'd rather not hate. Not anymore, like I may have hated when I was younger.

Hate helps no one solve any issue, helps no one in becoming a better person. It certainly does not help me, quite the opposite.

My spouse and I have been living for the last 25 years in a small apartment in a big city. It's 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 1 living room + kitchen and a couple closets. I reckon the whole surface of our place would barely qualify as enough for a 'master bedroom' to the average US menage but we're not Americans so we don't care ;)

We're not poor (we're not rich, either). We simply have chosen to live like that. Learning to make with the little space we live in. Exactly like we have chosen a couple decades ago to not own a car (and to not take the plane) anymore. We want to try to reduce the amount of waste we generate and reduce our 'ecological footprint' on this planet.

Trying here being the important word: we do our best but there are obviously many things we could do better and a few we probably can't improve much upon (like, I have lifelong health issues that require regular medical care and surgery, which means a lot of waste are being created just to keep me alive a little longer but, nope, I don't feel like ending myself sooner would be a good idea, not even to spare the planet some waste, sorry ;)