Dear Dr. Robert,

I just read you read website and deeply impressed with you social work

and helping masses through your website. It’s after reading your

replies that I decided to write to you to get your help.

I am 26 year old male, bachelor from India.

My problem is that I am deeply attached to a male person. Usually I am

obsessed about him. I want to meet and talk with him. And just to be

with him. This person is just one of my close friends. I am also

sexually attracted towards this person. It is tough to forget him and

to bring him out from my thoughts. Especially, if I am free then the

thoughts of this person would just cover and disturb me.

In fact, I had the same situation around six years back too. I had a

deep infatuation towards another person and all the time thinking and

praising about him. But in that relationship, I did not have a sexual

attraction. My infatuation linger till last few months from last six

years even though I did not meet, talk about that person during last

six years. Six years back, we just had a close interaction of 4

months. Still, i have very soft heart for that man and just want to

again getting myself engrossed in his thoughts.

Today when I want to get rid of the disturbing and obsessed feeling

about the current person, I am swayed and bound to get think more

about the man, whom I was infatuated six years back. Indeed, i could

forget this man only after getting attached to the current person.

When, I retrospect my life, I had the same feeling for few other (one

or two) persons in my life. That was from 10 to 15 years back.

Sometimes, I feel myself to be much different from others because I

get emotionally attached to few persons too deeply and find it tough

to forget.

I just don’t have much idea about, How to overcome this problem? Now,

I just don’t want to be emotionally attached to any one.

Your advice would be of great help and may give me a new fresh life.

Thanks & my hearty regards,

CM

Hello, CM--

Thank you for you kind remarks about my website.

You say that you have a problem which is that you "get emotionally attached to few persons too deeply and find it tough to forget." I see that you have a problem, but the problem, I am afraid, is not what you say it is. Judging from your letter, your problem is that you are gay—homosexual, that is—and do not want to accept it.

There is nothing wrong with becoming emotionally attached to another person. In fact, falling in love is, for many people, one of life's best and most important experiences. I imagine you resist your obvious and powerful desire to get close to a man, not because you fear attachment, but because you feel that falling in love with another man is somehow wrong, sinful, or perverted. Those are old and foolish ideas kept alive today, not because there is any sense, compassion, or real understanding in them, but because some superstitious people believe that "God" condemns homosexuality, and that homosexuals will be punished in the imagined afterlife. This nonsense is based upon their so-called "holy" or "sacred" books, which were not written by "God"--obviously--but written by people whose ignorance, superstition, and prejudices, much of it dating back to stone-age times, are reflected and perpetuated in those books.

The plain fact is this: some people are genetically inclined to fall in love with a person of the opposite sex, and some people are genetically inclined to fall in love with a person of the same sex. This is not, as some of the religious nuts maintain, a matter of choice. You don't choose to be gay or straight; you are born that way, so condemning someone for being gay is the exact moral equivalent of condemning someone for being born blue-eyed or dark-skinned: pure bigotry. You, judging from your letter, are one of those who is genetically inclined to fall in love with someone of the same sex, and it is time for you to accept it. As soon as you do accept it, you will find that your "problem"--the one you have stated in your letter to me--will disappear. Then you can get on with your life, including the emotional and sexual side of it.

Be well.