Fark thread about a dad who is supportive of his diagnosed sociopathic daughter brings a comment from a user who first claims that he ticks

“…boxes on a number of DSM scales, enough that analysts tend to take notice. Everyone likely has some behaviors that would, it’s the number of these, their frequency and severity that matter.”

He goes on to list the good points of his personality thusly:

“I have no criminal record and I’ve never been arrested. I’ve never assaulted anyone that didn’t attack me or someone else first. I don’t self medicate with drugs or alcohol.”

Okay. Fine. Sociopaths aren’t necessarily dangerous people, just…disconnected. As I understand it, every human interaction is entirely left brain with them. Sympathy, empathy, just aren’t there. People are things that one must deal with. But they aren’t quite real now are they? Then he lists what he considers to be his not so good points. This quickly ratchets up my attention…

“I am impulsive. Dangerously so. Intimacy is illusive. Sex is mechanical, but being proficient makes my partners feel good, that feels like a reward so therein lies my motivation. But I have little or no desire for it personally. I think sex is the most overrated thing in history. I am very self focused. Everything you do, you do for yourself anyway. There is no such thing as altruism.”

Apart from the impulsive thing, this reminds me Very Much of things a certain someone once told me nearly word for word. Mind you, not about himself specifically, but in a manner of trying to educate me about some elemental life truths I seem to have missed.

This guy at least, didn’t compare sex to farting. But no…for some folks it’s about not having desire, asexuals do exist after all, and the ones I know personally are capable of love, sympathy, empathy, and form deeply emotional bonds with the ones they love. But for others it’s about not having the politically correct set of desires. Why is that queer kid from school calling you? Why did you give him our phone number? It isn’t sex that’s overrated, it’s third party approval that’s overrated. Love and desire, linking bodies and souls, heart to heart, can move mountains. Which is why authoritarians fear them. Courage. Too late to learn that now I suppose.