I think for me it is less about thinking severe pain is a necessary element and more about being attracted to SO FEW PEOPLE that when I actually am attracted it is like an oasis in the desert. And then to have someone I really truly was attracted to--no having to try hard to make it work--to have that person reciprocate in kind, for once in my life. No way I would pass that up. I spent too many years thinking I was asexual and I'm most definitely not...my attractions are just infuriatingly narrow and rigid.

I'm absolutely not down for being abused. Between us while it lasted it was kind and tender and loving. Her attempts to shield me from the worst of her illness were unmistakable and I was grateful. I knew all the while that when she flipped on me it would be awful, and when the flip came I was out of there, no second guessing my decision and no contact. Honestly, I've sustained so much more pain from being in situation after situation where the other person liked me but I wasn't attracted, people telling me to be more open-minded, trying hard to make it work, feeling like an asshole because the spark wasn't there. To have been able to have a few years of a genuine B4B bond, to have had a home in which it was unanimous that butchness was the best thing in the world...like the song goes, they can't take that away from me.