Monogamy is "unnatural"... unless you're Eddie?

I've actually had an idea to do stuff like this for a while now (posting my reactions to articles that I stumble across on Facebook here, rather than just real-lifey stuff), but ended up never getting around to posting my first one a while back when I originally got the idea.

But anyway... this is a pretty long ranty post, and may not be "Mormon safe" (in the sense that sexual stuff is discussed, though not explicitly or anything, and a blogger who some of my Mormon friends seem to frequently share posts from is called out as being full of crap... though for the most part, this post isn't about him.  It's about a really awful misconception that's taken root across much of society, which both he and the person he's arguing with both somehow agree on.)  So those who are easily offended and prone to posting angry, insulting comments on anything you disagree with, run away and never look back.

Anyway... those of you who are still reading, this post refers to this blog post.  All that you really need to know, though, is that both of the people who say some stuff in said post agree that "monogamy is unnatural" and humans (especially male humans) are naturally predisposed toward screwing everything that moves.  The difference being, one of them is a college professor who you've probably never heard of unless you're in one of his classes (taking the "we're all naturally non-monogamous so let's go ahead and mindlessly screw everything that moves!" stance) and the other being a religious/political-ish blogger that you've probably never heard of unless you've seen your religious/political-ish friends share his posts on Facebook (and his stance, of course, is something along the lines of "monogamy isn't natural, it's a commandment from the Old Man in the Sky and his son White Jesus to test our righteousness by making us do something hard!")

And now that you have that much information, there is no longer any reason to read that article I linked, so you can continue on to the rest of my rant. XD

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Okay, a lot of this Matt Walsh guy's blog posts are full of crap from what I've seen (this one included, honestly; I only included a link to the article for context purposes, not because I'd actually recommend it! XD)... but this professor claiming that "monogamy is unnatural" and trying to say that all men are just inherently geared toward wanting to have sex with as many people as possible might be even worse.

...Actually, scratch that--Professor Widespread McMisinformation is definitely worse. The "all guys are pre-programmed to be ravenous sexmonsters" line of thinking is probably one of the most horrible untruths to become accepted "fact" by a depressingly large segment of society in a loooong time.

If monogamy is "not natural," how the heck do either of these guys (who somehow agree that it is "not natural" even if they don't agree on anything else) explain ME?

I'm only interested in monogamy when it comes to relationships. I've only ever been interested in monogamy. There was no "party phase" earlier in my life that I've since grown out of--I just have never seen any appeal in the typical "go out (drunkenness optional but encouraged) and have sex with as many people as possible" thing a lot of people (especially guys) get into starting around high school. When other guys would brag about stuff like that, it always seemed so strange to me that they would think that was a GOOD thing. While other guys were being all "aw man, when will I lose my virginity?" my concern was always something more like "when will I find a girl who actually likes me?" instead--losing my virginity is something that'd be more of a nice bonus that would ideally come along with finding someone who actually felt as strongly about me as I do about her, not an end goal in and of itself (even now, the only concern related to that is "if I DO actually find someone, will she reject me just because I'm still a virgin at age 28 or will she actually be a decent person and try to understand and work with me on that instead?")

Oh, and that's not all. Just having strong feelings for one person (even if they're one-sided feelings which that person doesn't share at all!) basically blinds me to all others, to the point where I'm pretty sure by now that I've missed a few people who may have actually liked me because I just couldn't turn my attention away from someone else long enough to notice. Even on the rare occasion that I start to like multiple people at once, that only lasts until one of them manages to push ahead of the others in my mind and become the lone person that I end up mildly obsessed with. I can't imagine how much MORE focused I would be on that one person if I actually was in a relationship with someone, rather than just an "I like her but she doesn't feel the same way" situation. This is literally the exact opposite of the supposedly "natural" walking stereotype guy who can't help but have his eyes drawn to any nice-looking girl he stumbles across, even if he's already taken.

And I'm pretty sure at this point this is something that's built in for me, not something I've learned. I haven't gone to church (occasional visits alongside friends at SVU aside) since I was 12, and even then I barely believed most of what they said in church, so I definitely didn't pick it up from religion. My old church rarely (if ever) talked about what they thought was right or wrong in relationships anyway from what I remember, so that makes it an even less likely source. And I'm not a "traditional" person at all, either... so it's not like I was taught that monogamy was the only way or anything (I wasn't taught hardly anything about relationships, actually--I didn't even have a clear concept of what a date was until I was in my 20s.)  And it's not even likely that I just sort of unconsciously absorbed it at a young age, because I remember hearing a lot of stories about historical figures who had both a wife and mistress, or wives and concubines, or various other "more than one person" sorts of situations for at least as long as I've been hearing about monogamous relationships.

Maybe it's not the same way for everyone else; maybe some people are "programmed" to tend toward some polyamorous sort of thing and have difficulty only being seriously attracted to one person at a time.  But it seems to me that, for me anyway, monogamy is indeed "natural." Am I just this rare weird sort of person that's "programmed" for monogamy? Or are a lot of us like that to start with, before society manages to reprogram the majority with that "as many as possible, as often as possible, as early as possible" mindset when it comes to sex/relationships?

It's hard for me to even guess about how it is for other people... but I know how I work, at least, and that alone blows the "all guys are like this naturally" nonsense out of the water.  I mean, what are the chances that I'm literally the only one like this, out of 7 billion humans? I'd say not that high.

Yep, I think I've recovered from summer now.

As the title says--all the awfulness of summer seems to have pretty thoroughly disappeared at this point.  I'm pretty well settled in at my apartment here in Buena Vista, with all my stuff unpacked and set up and September's rent paid so I won't have to worry about that again until the first week of October (which is... still a good ways off.)  I'm also no longer suffering from the horrible boredom/loneliness/lack-of-motivation stuff that was hanging over me for most of the summer, and have actually gotten more work done on Okédoké! (not enough for a late-August release sadly, but early/mid-September should still be doable) lately, to the point where I should be out of "actually adding new stuff" stage and into "final playtesting before release" stage within the next week.  Speaking of Okédoké, here's a few random screenshots of new stuff:

Gravestones in El Pueblecito and Frogbucket now have readable text, rather than just being scenery.

A new scene added to an early part of the game if you do a certain specific thing.

A little preview of an optional boss boss battle later on.  Yes, those are maids. XD

Hmm. Wonder who lives here...

A new feature added: you can now talk to people from the other side of tables.

This guy only exists to keep you from getting to that trash can from the roof. XD

The "Wizdum Guy" hands out somewhat vague advice for only a few pesos.

Also, some pretty big news: I've got a job now!! As of... last Thursday, I've been working at the Papa John's in Lexington.  Did training for answering calls and operating the computer system on that Thursday, then worked a few hours this past Monday... and then immediately got a second day (Tuesday) added on to my schedule, during which I did some more training (for topping pizzas) and got to practice answering the phones and taking orders a bit more.  And then right near the end of my original Tuesday shift, I got more hours added on--coming back in around 5:30 and staying until 8:00ish.  Thursday was another "short day that turned long," since I was originally signed up for 10:30 to 2:00 (was supposed to do training before the store opened... but it was the training I already did, so I didn't have to be there until 11) but somewhere along the line that transformed into 11:00 to 7:00!  Long day, but it was nice to have something to do during the day for once that isn't "sit around alone on the computer and I hope I actually get stuff done."  Actually managed to get some drawing done during that long shift's slow periods; I sketched up some of the gods from the ancient K'hyurbhi religion (...which hardly any K'hyurbhis believe in anymore) on the back of some napkins.

Yikimahn -- believed to be the creator and/or ancestor of K'hyurbhis and all other round-bodied creatures.  Hamhu revision added the nameless mother goddess drawn below him, while older versions had Yikimahn himself laying the original K'hyurbhi egg (which contained a lot more than just one K'hyurbhi, as the species wouldn't last otherwise. XD)

Gatadz -- generally seen as the god of death and cold weather, who watched over the frozen cave-like afterlife known as "Lahnan."  Hamhu revision made him out to be the bad guy, but originally he was just doing his job (much of which involved deciding how much ice to freeze the actual bad guys in when they ended up in his place after death.)

Zhingaru -- seen as the god of Kihlah, who was originally the only being with that power but decided to hand it out to K'hyurbhis and various others so he could share it.  Hamhu revision claims he gave it to K'hyurbhis ONLY, and that all others are using some form of "false Kihlah" or somehow stole actual Kihlah energy from a K'hyurbhi.

Mozzu -- the god of war, and sometimes also of metal and stone.  Minor earthquakes were thought to be caused by his footsteps, and thunder was the sound of him fighting somewhere in the distance (usually by throwing his mace up into the sky to hit some unknown attacker.)

...yeah, I just posted all of the drawings there.  The old K'hyurbhi religion (along with a lot of other Nummorrian cultural stuff) is getting a lot more fleshed out now, and I'll probably continue to add more onto it over the next few weeks/months/years until I can finally say "okay, this is pretty much the whole thing" like I can with the Blurby religion I came up with a few years back.

I also ended up actually making some pizzas (well, putting the sauce, cheese, and toppings on them anyway--can't do the dough just yet) on Thursday, and after a few somewhat shaky attempts (which were not quite shaky enough to be rejected when they came out of the oven, thankfully!) I think I've pretty much gotten it down well enough to do it consistently as part of my job in the near future.  I suppose the next step in training will be either preparing toppings (chopping up the veggies, filling the containers) or getting pizzas off the oven line and into boxes (which seems fairly simple aside from using the pizza cutter to cut the slices out right, which I haven't done anything really similar to before.)  Apparently there's a chance I might be able to become a fill-in manager eventually once I get through all the training, and the more training I do the more my pay will go up, so... overall I think doing the full training is probably a good plan. XD

Oh, and I finally got to meet one of my formerly-online-only friends last week!  Which means that I now no longer have "friends that I've talked to online but never met" (though there are still quite a few "friends that I unfortunately haven't seen face-to-face in pretty much forever.")  I drove over to the Vinton area to meet her as she got off from work and then we headed into Roanoke to get some Mexican food (and my first ever margarita, which was pretty good.)  Also stopped in to the Goodwill nearby before heading back, where I found some of the khaki shorts that I need for my job.  And also... some kid's drawing in a book:

Apparently somebody forgot to check the book for loose papers before donating it to Goodwill... whoops. XD

But yeah, that worked out pretty well.  Only issue was related to the traffic on the way back, which was pretty nasty (and made worse by me accidentally driving off in the wrong direction at first and having to turn around before I went into a city-ish area where it would've been even worse.)  But aside from that slight detour on the return trip, I didn't have any trouble with the driving... though there was a lot of driving and I was a bit worn out when I got home.  Still, it's always nice to actually see my friends (and hang around with them and talk and goof off for hours) and not just type messages back and forth online.

And today, my work schedule for next week rapidly expanded--first I was only signed up for Monday and Wednesday, then Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday got added to the list, and then finally I ended up on the phone with my manager while on the way back home for a dentist's appointment today and got a few hours each on this Saturday and Sunday.  Thankfully, my three hours on Saturday don't butt up against the Doctor Who club meeting later (it's just noon to 3), though next Saturday's shift goes from 5:45 to 10:00 so I'll end up missing that week's episode.  However, as a friend (who I hadn't heard much from in months, so it was nice to get to talk to her again--unexpected messages from people that turn into hours-long conversations about half a dozen random things are always appreciated!) just reminded me of today, there's probably places to find and watch these online... so I may actually manage to get caught up on Doctor Who at some point.