Oh ffs. Yeah, maybe part of being a child in a first world country. I think the starving, malnourished, abused children would beg to differ on that. Joy is not a part of every childhood...and it's not a part of every life.
I am really sick of being told that there's something wrong with loving someone, expecting love back.
Humans fuck it all up...other animals get it right.
I am not twisted, creepy, or anything else. My view makes perfect sense. I have never broken a heart.
The bolded bothered me so much, I had to make an account so I could respond. No, the starving, malnourished, abused children of the third world do not lead lives completely bereft of joy and satisfaction. That they have much harder, shorter lives than ours does not preclude them living completely. In fact, when everything is darkness and pain in so much of your life, brief moments of respite become great sources of joy. Imagine that your daily life includes never knowing when your next meal will come or if your sister will survive this latest bout of dysentery; now imagine a night when you have an extra bit of food to eat and share with her, and for once it's not too hot to cuddle as you chew. Life in that moment is full of satisfaction, regardless of what it otherwise holds for you. Hell, just seeing the weeds that grow between stones or feeling a cool shadow pass over you as you work can fill you with content when you least expect it. To say that the starving, abused, etc. never feel joy is like saying they are incapable of it, which couldn't be farther from the truth.
And I don't think you're a twisted, creepy person, but I do think that saying someone who is loved must necessarily love back is a bit...rapey, by way of unfortunate implication. I also have seen enough of the animal kingdom through my childhood obsession with Animal Planet and any related reading to know that idealizing the way that all animals approach sex is not the way to go, unless you'd count rape as love and squealing, kicking resistance as returning said love. Angus did not betray Marigold by being honest: he was being a good friend to her. When one of my guy friends asked me out and I just didn't feel the same way, it hurt like hell to have to tell him no, and if he'd reacted using the logic you apply to Angus and Marigold, I would have lost his friendship completely. Instead, he accepted that romantic feeling is no more a switch you can flip at will than, say, sexual orientation, and our friendship did not suffer a whit for it.
I hope your wound heals as smoothly as possible and I also hope you don't take my response as an attack. And, um, hi, forum! It's nice to be here!