Immaculate Deception

I find it ironic that you are having a difficult time separating a natural, physical response/desire from 'pop culture,' which is sort of odd for someone who prides himself on being rational.

By chance, have you found someone physically attractive who you can't tolerate on an intellectual level?

ID

Stiletto One

Good job, you just removed yourself from the gene pool. Sex is often incorporated into pop culture (did I say 'often'? I meant 'always'), but that doesn't make sex and BEING HUMAN (read: having healthy feelings for other people) inherently part of pop culture.

Dark Cobra

I realize that pop culture includes sex but sex is independent from pop culture, but I cannot help but feel they are associated. It's part of my life experiences-- after all those higher up socially are more likely to form relationships.

I have of course found people physically attractive that I can't tolerate on an intellectual level-- in fact it's a big problem for me and another reason why I hate attraction.

Stiletto One

Simple solution for that, really: learn to sort feelings of lust from feelings of actual personal attraction.

Simple filter, when you feel 'urges' toward someone:
1.) "Would I like to get physical with this person?"
2.) "Would I like to have a deep philosophical conversation with this person?"
3.) "Would I like to know this person as a friend?"

If you answer no to #2 and #3, chances are that it's just lust.

Dark Cobra

I don't even like the idea of having sex very much.

Yes, I won't reproduce. Why is that a problem?

I know attractive is something most people feel. I know that it is normal. I am sometimes attracted to people I don't like. I am never attracted to people I like. There aren't much people I know that I can like on an intellectual level...

For instance, I'm the only skeptic I know in personal life, outside of the internet. I'm not a fan of irrational and uncritical thinking.

You tell me to wait until college, but you forget the fact that I will still be annoyed by the thoughts until then.

Dark Cobra

You think I don't use something more complicated than that???



That's one reason I get uncomfortable, #1 sometimes influeces #2 and #3, even though they are unrelated!

If we find someone physically attractive we usually look at the rest of them through rose-colored glasses.

Stiletto One

Huh.

Not me.

Then again, I usually don't even consider people 'intriguing' until I've established that I don't mind them as sentient entities. Someone who's physically attractive and otherwise utterly uninteresting...well...I make bad things happen if they expect me to pay them their 'due attention' as per standard high school codes of etiquette.

Non-praying Mantis

I suppose I was a bit too subtle before...

More direct (my apologies if I offend):

Do you masturbate?

If so, then you do like sex.

NPM

Dark Cobra

That's certainly a fallacy, as masturbating doesn't involve two people.

Purple Smartie

Masturbating can involve two people. Sex is many different things to many different people.

I think I've deciphered that you are male... are you straight or gay or is the jury still out on that one? I wasn't sure when you said you wanted to find someone like yourself, whether you meant of the same gender or same personality or both.

As far as waiting until college... I'm in university right now and I am still amazed all the time at the incredible diversity here. I knew no such thing in high school, even though I went to a rather large one.

There's one other thing to consider here... people your age have raging hormones. There's not a darn thing you can do about that but outgrow it, and I'm not sure that's even a possibility.

You seem angry with yourself for feeling attracted to a person who is not intellectually up to your standards. Perhaps you're feeling guilty about all these sexual feelings and urges that are for the moment beyond your control? It happens. It's hormones. You live through it.

Humans are very sexual beings. We are animals afterall. A person can be sexual without having sex with another person, and I tihnk that's what Mantis was referring to with his masturbation questions.

At one point you asked for references to documented cases of people living without relationships. I haven't looked for any, but I recently read statistics concerning senior men whose wives had died. A high percentage of them also died within a few years of their wife. Granted, they are old and old people do die, but they died younger than men whose wives were still alive, unless they remarried within a few years.