No Sympathy

Moving out to the country has involved a lot of cultural adjustment. One thing I picked up on when reading the Kinsey studies, that I've found to be accurate, is that although some parents worry that sending their kids to college will open them up to more sexually liberated attitudes, the hard fact is that people out in the country (who are statistically poorer, and less educated) have more sex more freely, and at younger ages. It's something that we sometimes forget in our civilized society (and it certainly wasn't something I was ever taught, attending one of the best-rated high schools in the country), but teenagers are programmed to have sex. It's a natural law.

Look, I understand hormones. I challenge you to find somebody who's more sex-positive than I am. But we're not just animals. Our intellect is what separates us from the beasts of the field. I have little respect for teenagers who go around spraying and praying without using the tools we've developed for ourselves to enjoy sex with fewer life-changing consequences, only to inevitably end up in dire straits. How am I supposed to sympathize with their plight, when they lack the common decency to put off their own immediate gratification in deference to those of us who have had to struggle more than half our lives, in some cases, to even find companionship with the opposite sex?

I know it's not really their fault. They aren't taught the things they need to know, and they're not given the resources they need to win the battle against their own evolutionary instincts. We live in a backwards, regressive culture that glorifies ignorance and demonizes science. And it's a vicious cycle where parents make poor, impulsive decisions, and then teach their kids (against their own intentions) to make the exact same mistakes they made. And so it goes, on and on.

I know it's easy for me to say this, standing here on the outside, but if missing out on a normal life imbues me with any advantages, it should be this. All you need to break the cycle is the awareness that you're in a cycle, that the cycle isn't doing you any favors, that there's something outside of that cycle, and that you CAN step outside of the cycle. All you need is the will to do it. But I don't know how to impart this knowledge to someone who thinks they're invulnerable and already all-knowing, and who treats any form of perspective as insidious "lecturing", before which they suddenly and invariably suffer a temporary bout of acute deafness.

Fine. I get it. The kids are alright. Figure it out for yourself. But don't expect me to have sympathy when you crash into the brick wall I've been trying to warn you about all these years.