I do often wonder sometimes how much of the "tfw no gf" stuff is performative and how much is me just differing from the norm. I can understand loneliness from a having nobody to communicate with perspective, and I can understand lust from a wanting to jerk off perspective, but something I think I've never come to understand has been the romantic need perspective. I've considered the prospect of having a partner before and determined it's too much devoting myself to another person for me to want to engage in that aspect of life, and even then for the most part I have hard times envisioning myself with anyone in real life and most of my fantasies have involved some sort of conquest partnership with my waifu. Likewise I'm able to appreciate and enjoy romance anime for what they are and passionately root for and feel happiness about the cute couples in them without feeling any envy or bitterness myself, while I see others all the time talking about how watching those anime opens up a hole of despair in their hearts. All I want out of life is to be able to enjoy myself and appreciate the art and media other people create, with my only real desire being to create some game or story of my own one day.

When I think about this topic, it always reminds me of prior conversations we'd have in the past about failed norms vs true sages. But then there's been plenty of stuff I've seen strewn about the internet about "epidemics" of people without love and how it's a big social issue or whatnot. It's just that not feeling those supposed pangs of desire myself makes it hard to believe this stuff actually exists, or if it does is that big of an issue to people.