Is it really better to have loved and lost . . .

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I think it is MUCH better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all. If you've been single almost 30 years, you understand the burning lust you feel inside yourself that makes you want to be with women romantically and to have sex with them.

I've been single all my life as well, 22 years now for me, and that lust burns deep within me and unfortunately controls me in how I deal with it, which is not a good way for any male to go. To be alone and to burn with lust but never to be satisfied romantically is the worse Hell possible on Earth. To desire love so much that you end up doing things you're not proud of to satisfy it, that's pain and embarrassment.

So yes, it is better to have loved and lost, it is far worse to have never have been in love and to be controlled the feelings of sexual desire and lust than it is to have felt love and lost.

Depends on the person that you loved/lost.

Some are worth it.

Any love is better than no love at all. I believe most people, especially if they have dated before, will say it depends on the person. However, if a person has been alone all their life, they know how painful it is to be alone and to lust and desire so fiercely, but to always feel the sting of rejection and isolation. It is a totally different matter when you've never felt "love". Romantic love is the most precious and valuable kind of love there is, besides God's love for mankind. To be without it is to be tormented by lust and loneliness.

Did God not say in Genesis "It is not good for man to be alone." He knew EXACTLY why it is not good to be alone, because people who are alone for long periods of time will turn to alternative means of gratification to satisfy their loneliness (be it cheap flings, pornography, masturbation, casual sex, etc.) and thus sin. Even in Corinthians, Paul the Discple/Apostle said "Now I say unto the widows and those who are single, it is good if you are single, like me, but if you can't control yourself, it is better for you to be married. For it is better for a man to be married than to burn with passion". Absolutely right, those who are not satisfied burn, and in their desire, do things often contrary to their true nature.

Perhaps you imagine the power of love to be more than it is? For me, it was not like the poems.

I am still surprised this relationship stuff means so much to some AS. I have a hard time understanding why.

Sex, romance... these things are a source of pleasure and some happiness. But to take relationships so seriously? That seems like an NT thing.

I totally misunderstood... I didn't understand the importance of these feelings to so many people here.

Have thought about this question before, and
my answer is a clear no thats cut in stone.

Because, if i had never loved i would not think
about it or miss it, i would not know what it was
and i cant miss what i dont know. But, i tried it,
lost, and then thats gonna bother me until i die,
impossible to erase the memories no matter how
hard i try.

So no, its not better to have loved and lost then
to not have loved at all. I have no idea where
that stupid saying comes from, makes no sense.
Of course its not better, duh - how could it be.
If there was such a thing as a pill i could take
and erase every memorie of love i have, i would
swallow it so fast. Hell, i would swallow the hole
pack. It only torments me now, nothing more.
I have no good memories about it, only memories
that haunt me now and wont let go.

Some say you win the experience so its not a loss.
Well, i really dont need experiences that makes me
feel like s**t every day for the rest of my life but
thats me. I`m 32, if i live to be 70 that means i
have 38 more years ahead of me thinking about
this.....f-ing hell how i hate this s**t when i think
about it Love...f*** it. I`d rather take a
baseballbat to the head, at least that dont
hurt as bad.

""Not having loved at all means only that you don't hurt as much.""

Yes. I`ll take that please, less hurt sounds very very nice
right about now.

$1000 says that whoever it was that came up with that
idiotic saying had never been in love. Only someone
who dont know how it hurts can say such a stupid
thing.

Agreed and agreed yet again. People who have never been in love have no clue what it is like to be alone, it is beyond their scope of understanding. It is easy to dismiss loneliness if you've never really had the problem of loneliness, it is hypocritical to talk about something when you've never experienced it to the full extent that other people have.

A friend once asked me "How are you doing, anything new, dating anyone?", and I said "No, I've been single 21 years now". She said "Oh, it's fine to be single, it's good". This was while she was dating someone and while she had several relationships before hand, which is flattery and hypocrisy in my book.

I understand your anger and pain, I've been there MANY times. I often said it would be better to have never felt lust or desire than to burn with it everyday of your life, like you and I do. To burn is to feel pain, it is to lust, it is to desire, it is to never be satisfied, to always long for what you can't have. Look at Maslow's hierachy of needs and you will see that guys are stuck on the "Love and Belongingness" needs tier and can't move on to "Self Esteem" needs. It is no wonder why guys who have been single for all their lives feel discouraged and not confident at all. Good luck, brother, I hope you find a girl, cause it is hell to be without one and to burn.

You're bewilderment at this is understandible, because I'm under the assumption that you've been in love before. So I will try to use an analogy that make sense to you.

Love can be readily compared to sex. We see sex in the media, we see in on television, we see it in some form or another, whether it be sex appeal in designer clothing commercials, or in movies and t.v. shows. Let's pretend that almost everbody has had sex by the age of, let's say, 16 (which isn't far off from the truth )

Now let's say you're one of the very, very few who are still a virgin. Everyone around you has had sex and you're one of the few who hasn't. Not only that, almost all of the opposite sex doesn't find you physically attractive, and you've never meet a guy/girl who was the exception and really thought you were beautiful and worthy enough for sex. You live your life, constantly being reminded of how you're one of the very few virgins around, and everywhere you see that people are enjoying sex, something you've never had the pleasure of doing. There is peer pressure, but also, there is a feeling of helplessness and sadness because you feel that no one cares about you romantically.

Can you see now how guys like us take love so seriously, why we get so angry and depressed over love? We are constantly reminded everyday of how alone we are, and how everyone else is enjoying the one thing we've never known or taken pleasure in, relationships or love. It is also feeling that no girl cares about you romantically, and that you'll have to live the rest of your life alone, discontented. You might even learn to hate and resent ALL women because you feel they have "turned their backs on you", and won't give you a chance in Hell. Then you might consider them superficial b*****s and so on.

That is why we are so desperate for love. We don't want to spend the rest of our lives alone, we don't want to burn with lust and passion and to never be satisfied, we don't want to spend the rest of our lives with our dick in our hands, whacking off to porn (which I assume a lot of lonely guys do, if you can't find love, you'll find other ways to satisfy the feeling of lust), we don't want to die alone.

Does it make sense to you now? This isn't some romantic poem, it isn't a silly dream, it is a need that hasn't been satisfied and thus it is psychological torture. Does it make sense to you now?

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. When I look back in retrospect at the years gone past, the single most important thing was romance and love. It gave meaning to life in a way that nothing else ever will. Even if you've loved and lost, you still have fully experienced one of the greatest things known to humanity since the dawn of time, and something that some people spend their whole lives searching for- love and attraction.

Off the top of my head, how many famous books and movies have been created off of the "loved and lost" theme? The list goes on forever. Shakespeare wrote "Romeo and Juliet" about two people who literally loved and lost in the largest way possible. If the story would have been about a boy and a girl who never met, never fell in love, and instead spent their days engaged in pleasant little passionless diversions, I doubt it would have been such a popular story.

^Very insightful and helpful as I am confused about guys and the ways in which they deal with their inexperiences of love and past rejections. I can relate to most of this only that I deal with it much more differently than most guys.

I'm a bit surprised that the majority of women on this forum don't bring most of these similar topics as guys seem to do the majority of the time. Maybe they don't want to be deemed "undesirable" or I'm the only one who hasn't experienced that in which most of us envy when without.

I can attest to many of the experiences that involved the absence of any love or intimacy. Throughout highschool not only was I socially clumsy but I was the only one it seem to never have dated or even wanting to lose virginity. Part of me scorned the peer pressure but the other part of me knew I wasn't desirable like many of my female peers. So I kind of distanced myself from even wanting to pursue a relationship since I rejected myself.

I think for me, I didn't exactly express my bitterness criticizing or hating all men. My own criticisms were aimed at myself. I became heavily involved in drinking and using then it got to the point where I actually did want love but "knew" that would never happened and so I think that's when I attempted suicide.

The strange thing about it is that I put too much happiness into this notion of romantic love. Many of the pursuits I'd get from guys ended only because I was too insecure to actually have a relationship. I think most of this was contributed to the fact that I really didn't like myself. The past events would constantly run through my mind and the puruits didn't make me feel any better about myself.

I guess it's something I'm still working on.......

With me, I've never been in love and yes, I'm not very happy with my life. One of the reasons I don't want to fall in love is the fear of losing it. If it's lost, from that point on, I believe I would feel worse than I do right now. I'd rather maintain the status quo than risk doing something that would ultimately make me feel worse.

I've heard that several studies suggest that most single women are happier than their taken counterparts, but most single men are more unhappy. That may be food for thought. Also there are a few apparent asexuals on this board, they seem happy living single.

My first instinct has always been to say that I would be happier now if I found myself in a relationship with the last few girls who ignored my initiating moves or rejected me outright than if I was single. But that could just be a "grass is greener on the other side" sort of perception, I can't tell for sure. Ultimately I'm considering a future where I die a virgin and a future where I die leaving behind a family, and the latter is much more attractive for my own selfish reasons. Also I can only imagine a relationship giving me more confidence that I can at least interest women enough, seeing as I have nothing to show for my efforts or qualities at present.

What kind of life can you live if you never take any risks to find happiness? It's like saying that you never want to be truly happy for a single moment in life, because from then on you might never again be as happy as you were for that one moment.

Human existence was not meant to be lived doing safe risk-free busy work to take up time, with each day being the exact same as the day before it. I have two friends in their 20s, both of whom started out this year single and without ever having been in a relationship before. The first guy spent as much time as possible getting out of the house and meeting new people (both girls and guys). He also took up some hobbies (marathon running and surfing) that didn't involve self-isolation, like many solitary hobbies do. Last time I checked, he was dating a pretty girl who was actually genuinely nice to be around as well.

The other guy spends all his free time playing online RPGs. He goes to class, then comes home and sits on World of Warcraft all night. Needless to say, he still spends every night alone in his room. I've heard him constantly declare his unhappiness at being single and alone, but if you never leave your house and all your interests involve academics or sitting in front of your computer, it can be difficult to meet people.

Why maintain the status quo, when the status quo is unfulfilling? Is it not better to constantly hunt for something to slake the desire?

But, as the saying goes, each to his own.

I'm glad I could clarify things for your understanding I know it must seem confusing why guys are so embittered, but I tried to explain it so it made sense. I'm sorry to hear about your bad experiences, and I can understand that with your own insecurity, you felt you just couldn't hold on to a relationship, much less start one. I find it interesting that you became angry at yourself, but did not turn to being angry at men, rather odd.

I'm also suprised that more women don't complain about this matter as well. Here is my reasoning concerning that: I think almost all girls are not nearly as sexually inclined as males. There are exceptions, but I think generally, women don't have the extreme sexual drive as men do.

When a girl gets into a relationship with a guy, she is NOT looking for sex. In fact, she's looking for a romantic companion whom she can talk to, care about, and who will love and support her. Thus, sex is the last thing on her mind, she'll probably show much resistance to it. Only when a guy appeals to a girl's emotional needs enough to make her believe that he is truly in love with her, will she give into sex.

Most girls in life will be pursued by some male or another, especially those who are attractive, and thus they are not really isolated from males, unless they choose to be. Many NT and Aspie girls alike are attractive to one guy or another, so it makes little difference. It is us males that have to gain the courage to ask out girls or to be romantically friendly.

Now as for guys, almost all of us are VERY sexually, with exception to asexuals. I'm going to say some very obvious things, but oh well. We are very attracted to women physically, and thus we are only interested in girls we find average to cute to beautiful. This explains why obese girls and unattractive looking girls are ignored by all guy practically, because physical attraction is IMPERATIVE to us. We do have a large sex drive (for most of us) concerning women, and it must be dealt with in one sense or another.

Most guys deal with this lust and desire in two ways if they are sexually attracted to girls: pornography, or dating/trying to befriend girls. Pornography is use in two aspects. It's primary usage is for guys to beat off to release their sexual frustration as a recreational activity. This is the first usage, because many guy who know girls well or have gfs masturbate for fun. The second, which is the sad and depressing way, is for guys who have been sexually alone for long periods of time. They use it to try and stop their lustful feelings that control them.

The last method, and the most sucessful to find romance, is dating/making friends with girls. Most guys have done this already and are satisfied, they have had their days where they have been romantic with a girl, so they are satisfied. However guys who have been single for a very long time lack the social skills nesscary to be successful, and often feel devoid of hope because they are alone, which in turn, makes them find any solution to solve their lustful feelings- like cyberdating, cybersex, pornography, trying dating sites, or adding random girls on social networking sites and trying to be friends with them to possibly start something romantically. If a guy is rejected continuously, he might in turn turn to hatred in his dissapointment and criticize women as being superficial b*****s and other vulgar terms (which I have done before in my anger) If romantic needs are not met, it is sad and pathetic what a guy will do to satisfy them, I know, I have been the lonely and depressed guy before.

Girls can live or live without romance more readily than guys can, I believe. For guys, it is an imperative need that needs to be satisfied immediately or soon. For girls, it is something that can be taken care of later. Make sense?

I hate taking risks. Always have. Don't know if it's a part of my Aspie condition or not, but I've always hated it. My view is that as much as things in life could get that much better, they could also get that much worse, so I live my life trying to figure out how to keep things getting worse than they are now.

I definitely have more in common with your friend who just plays WOW. I like watching good TV shows and movies. My one social hobby is playing board games, but, unfortunately, no single women ever seem to participate in our events. I have no other social interests/hobbies/obsessions so going out just to go out is not better than staying home and watching TV, at least for me.

I didn't mean taking risks to your personal health and safety, like going sky diving or something like that. Just having the courage to engage in conversation with a member of the opposite gender can be a risk-filled undertaking to some people.

I was referring more to the courage to have the drive and passion to hunt for something more fulfilling than just the status quo. Life is very short, and youth is even shorter. Why experience things like love, excitement, sex, and attraction vicariously through TV shows and movies? When you watch an actor on the TV screen act out facets of life such as love, hate, loss, obsession, and attraction, how can someone identify with such things if they have never felt similar emotions?

Life is meant to be raw, human, and unpredictable. Not sterilized and sequestered away into a form of living-by-proxy.

But, like I said, each to his own. It's all good.

Although I must say, board games are awesome, so props to you for that

Better to never love at all from my experience.