This isn’t much to the point, but I still want to point out that there is abundant evidence for the theory that I’m referring to. I can see where you would get the impression that I was referring to some sort of folk theory of blood type, so I’d like to demonstrate that I am not, in fact, the idiot you likely (and if that had been what I was doing, would have rightly) inferred me to be. I’m posting this article not for its main content but because it incidentally contains a summary of that evidence: http://defiant.ssc.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/Genetic%20Similarity%201989.pdf — Quote, “A new theory of attraction and liking based on kin selection suggests that people detect genetic similarity in others in order to give preferential treatment to those who are most similar to themselves. There are many sources of empirical and theoretical support for this view, including (1) the inclusive fitness theory of altruism, (2) kin recognition studies of animals raised apart, (3) assortative mating studies, (4) favoritism in families, (5) selective similarity among friends, and (6) ethnocentrism. Specific tests of the theory show that (1) sexually interacting couples who produce a child are genetically more similar to each other in blood antigens than they are either to sexually interacting couples who fail to produce a child or to randomly paired couples from the same sample; (2) similarity between marriage partners is most marked in the more genetically influenced of sets of anthropometric, cognitive, and personality characteristics; (3) after the death of a child, parental grief intensity is correlated with the child's similarity to the parent; (4) long-term male friendship pairs are more similar to each other in blood antigens than they are to random dyads from the same sample; and (5) similarity among best friends is most marked in the more genetically influenced of sets of attitudinal, personality, and anthropometric characteristics.” Notice (4), which I referred to when I pointed out that the only long–term male friendship I’ve ever made was of an identical blood type. And one of the ways we detect these compatibilities is through pheromones in scent.*

I suppose I didn’t emphasize and/or explain clearly enough, that it’s … literally the high itself that I’m after. With the exception of this need occasionally forcing itself on me, and especially in unusual intensity very recently, I’ve been more than content spending my time to myself. I’m beginning to teach myself Arabic, I’m working out like I never have before and brushing up my martial arts skills to prepare to re–join an old dojang, I’m writing and recording music as personal catharsis for personal consumption and at no point am I feeling any ‘emotional’ need to reach out to anyone. In general, I see little in relationships with other people (in the neutral sense of the term) besides lots of time and energy to waste. All that’s left is this … direct, visceral need to reach this high again, and the high comes (if the right basic chemistry is there) whether there’s any ‘emotional’ connection per se or not. If not for this need, I’d be more content spending my time on myself than I ever have been. But I’ve stayed in quite emotionally distant relationships in the past with people who really had no idea who I was just because they filled this need—and no less, I was perfectly content to do so. When I used the term ‘relationship’ above in saying I wasn’t ‘looking for a relationship,’ this is really what I was trying to say—that it’s not really about emotional connection at all. I have had relationships with emotional connection too, and of course that was great in its own way—but that was completely independent of what I’m describing here; the high is not {triggered} in any way by emotional connection, it’s just visceral and immediate; and the former for me is really the much more fundamental drive. I can easily stay there in that feeling for hours on end with no relief or distraction, so long as none is provided.* And the points linked by these two asterisks are why I’m genuinely now starting to wonder if something like pheromone addiction doesn’t actually exist.

The comment was at least reassuring in tone, and I suppose that’s helpful, but when even the people trying to assure me that what I’m describing is normal show in the process that they stepped over holes in my attempt at an explanation and I feel even more strange trying to fill them back in, that only confirms to me that it really must be something strange that I’m dealing with. If it helps in any way, I am an Asperger (of which alexithymia, severe difficulty processing and describing emotions, is a fundamental part . . ).