As frustrating as that article may have been to read, if nothing else, it provides a fascinating window into the minds of the people who take it upon themselves to sit in judgment of us. This is a woman who had been married, had lived as people tend to, and now believes herself to share the experience of the fundamentally unlovable because now, in her fifties, she's shocked to find the affection she once took for granted is not quite so accessible as it used to be.
Could a woman like this comprehend the experience of a man her own age who had never so much as shared a kiss, let alone have once been married? Such men exist, of course, though I have no doubt a woman like this would dismiss such a notion as something as absurd as a lunatic's fever dream.
As some tiny vestige of humanity is left to me, I'll admit I feel badly for this woman. I have no doubt it's a terrible thing for a normal person to grow old, to watch loved ones die, to slowly come to the realization that the pleasures reserved for the young and lovely are no longer accessible to you. Nature is cruel to everyone, after all, and this woman who was loved once but is loved no longer is no exception. Nature has betrayed her, left her to die alone, afraid and unwanted, and our poor widow has learned all too late that the gods revoke their blessings with the same heartless caprice as they bestow them.
Granted, this woman was able to participate in life in all of its stages while the truly repulsive are denied that privilege, the cradle they slept as they took their first breaths little different than the tomb they will someday sleep in long after they've breathed their last. She will have happy memories of being held by someone who desired her while hideous things like myself will not. However, even the best of memories are empty, painful reminders of what one no longer has. Even the loveliest ghosts make very poor companions. Though they may offer some modicum of light, said illumination is dim and cold. Foxfire isn't much comfort as the sun sets and the long night approaches.
So I resent this woman's callous dismissal of the unlovable and I despise her inability to recognize that her experiences and those of the men she criticizes are fundamentally distinct. But, when all is said and done, it doesn't really matter, does it? Though she and I lived our lives radically differently, she in the light and I in the darkness, we'll end them the same: alone, unwanted and ultimately forgotten.