Basic Instinct

According to Webster's Dictionary, the definition of instinct is: 1: a natural or inherent aptitude, impulse, or capacity; 2 a: a largely inheritable and unalterable tendency of an organism to make a complex and specific response to environmental stimuli without involving reason b: behavior that is mediated by reactions below the conscious level.

This word in interesting to me now. At my counseling session tonight, it took me forty minutes to understand what it was my counselor was trying to get me to see. For as long as I have been living, I have ignored a certain instinct in me. This instinct that I have neglected is what prompts other people to decide to take a chance, get to know someone, and perhaps develop a relationship of some sort. For weeks now, a friend of mine has been repeating the word companionship to me. I honestly could not understand what in the hell she was talking about. I have never understood why anyone sought companionship. Its not something I have ever sought, or wanted to explore. Ever since I was six or seven, my mother taught me that the only thing I ever needed a man for was a "good fuck," and that was it. I have always been taught and raised to take care of myself, and never fall in love with a man. So whenever I met a guy, I would look at him physically to see if he was someone I'd like to have sex with. After sex, I lost whatever interest I had in him. I've never looked for anything past sex with men. With the exception of one man, I have never sought a relationship with any of the men I have had sex with. The one exception was a decision made after I was raped of course. I was too scared to get to know anyone new. I later realized that I didn't really want to be in a relationship with him either. Out of fear, I was trying to force something that wasn't there. Tonight I realized that ever since the latter part of my teenage years, I have only been interested in men for sex and that's all. Sex was my reason for befriending a man.

Here's why the definition above is important. A "...complex and specific response to environmental stimuli without involving reason." To me, that definition means that instinctively people respond to certain things because its just something within us. There is no conscious or aforethought to love. There is no reason to companionship, marriage, love, etc. People respond to those things because that's just within us as humans, and maybe that's just our inner purpose; which requires no reason or logic. Its been my experience that no one can articulate why they love someone. They just do. And no reason has to be attached to it because its an unconditional love; I suppose. But with me, its just the opposite. In my mind, there is a reason for everything. A reason for everything I say and do. My life is dictated by logic. In my mind, B has to logically follow A. If that doesn't happen, then it doesn't make sense to me. Love is something that has never made sense to me because it couldn't be explained to me. And I didn't take the time out to understand it because it was so "complex" to me, and didn't "involve reason." I guess all this time I have been viewing things wrong. All this time I have been ignoring that "natural impulse" that doesn't require reasoning. All I had to do was explore its possibilities. Imagine that....