So, I’m a lesbian. I came out when I was 16 years old upon the realization that while I could pick and choose boys that I found attractive to be a designated crush of some arbitrary time period, women were embodied ignition. Certain girls sent adrenaline coursing through my body like a bullet discharging through the barrel of a gun.

Once I had finally admitted to myself that I had liked girls, I felt my self-awareness figuratively click into place. However, I’ve made a new discovery. When I see two women or two men holding hands or pecking each other on the lips as they part ways, I feel a visceral connection to their adoration for each other. However, when I see a man and a woman do the same, it’s not an unpleasant or fearful feeling by any means; if anything, I’d say I feel nothing substantial. I feel no emotional connection, unless they’re unbearably adorable, like a fictional couple (Titanic and The Notebook always get me).

There are theories that homosexuals have more emotional connections to same sex couples. Whether or not it’s a socially empathic trait or an innate attraction to same sex activity, I have no idea. Once again, I’m not bashing on or saying I’m disgusted by straight couples at all; all love is beautiful and should be celebrated. Just, for some reason, I’m more likely to cry about Callie and Arizona breaking up than I am Meredith and Derek, and I know I’m not alone in that.

Now, I’ve only talked about this following feeling with one person, so bear with me as I go down my windy road of reasoning. I’m very proud to be gay. When I’m in a relationship, I show not a flicker of shame. I brag like there’s no tomorrow about how my girlfriend is the greatest and most infectiously adorable creature to roam the planet. I’m very forward about my sexuality, because I advocate equality as much as the next socially liberal lesbian.

However, I’m also a scientist with a deep, cosmic connection to evolution. I can’t help the feeling that I don’t belong to a group that feels intrinsic importance.

In literature and other forms of media, there’s a familiar archetype that two people feel they “belong together.” From Romeo and Juliet to Big Fish to Slumdog Millionaire, couples feel that they simply and universally were meant to be. I think that some of this has to do with how we’ve evolved. In order to procreate, a male and female must copulate, and, in the process, occasionally form a special bond, one similar to these relationships popularized in literature. It’s a process that for millions of years (or as long as sexually reproductive organisms have existed) has made all living things uniform. They meet, they mate, and they raise their child. And, as many humans across all sexualities maintain, it is an intrinsically beautiful thing to perpetuate that cycle. The cycle of finding a member of the opposite sex and creating a living being is one that has kept us alive and thriving on this planet. It’s one of the most profound and historically binding thing two people can be a part of.

Somehow, I can’t help feeling left out.

Heterosexuals typically feel the same way I do about homosexual couples, except for me it’s toward heterosexual couples. In addition to that meaningful connection of seeing two people in love and empathizing, they also get the benefit of belonging to a club that is so special, they play the most powerful role in continuing our place on this planet. It’s been written into their code to fulfill a destiny to conceive and raise a child. I don’t believe in fate or destiny by any means, but I do believe in predispositions, and we are predisposed to reproduce.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m very happy with who I am and how I turned out. I know I’ll be able to offer a woman a happy life, and vice versa. I know I want to have children, though it will be considered “unconventional” by traditionally mammalian standards. I’m more than ecstatic that I can still have children somehow and that I can enjoy companionship like everyone else. I would never consider myself disappointed or downtrodden; I just can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing out on a cosmically beautiful experience, and I’m powerless to change it.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, I don’t wish I were “straight” for any social or political reasons. I find a beauty in fulfilling what has been biologically encoded in so many of us, to be a part of a species that almost uniformly and cyclically engages in the wonder of creating new life in the same way for millions of years.

Straight couples, I’d suspect, can’t help but feel so empowered and important gazing into their lover’s eyes, knowing they’re a part of a masterful and overarching process. If not, I think they should start. It’d be so goddamn amazing to be a part of it; to be an infinitesimally small cog in the machine of populating the planet, of acting out our historically and genetically adaptive code.

Have you ever shared similar feelings? Please leave me a comment and discuss your thoughts, I’d love to get some feedback. 

Written by Alisha Meschkow
You can contact her via e-mail at [email protected]