I find the OP totally uncomprehending. People want to have babies, which is why infertility is treated like it’s a problem. It is a problem for the great majority of people–people who actually want to have children.
As for the suggestion that this comes from self-absorption: any desire can be construed as being self-absorbed. Is my desire to live tomorrow self-absorbed? Is my desire to have functioning ears self-absorbed?
Dio, here we go again:
Google results for “I am grieved by …”
She is grieved by …
[He is grieved by](i am grieved by - Google Search
client=firefox-a&hs=156&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&q=He+is+grieved+by&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=He+is+grieved+by&gs_rfai=&psj=1&fp=2304850557947867)
It is disingenuous – no, it is outright dishonest – of you to pretend that the word grieve is never used to mean saddened. But that doesn’t bother you, because you are not interested in debating with integrity.
One could say the very same thing to you. You know absolutely nothing about this subject. You should stop talking about it. “We” don’t treat infertility as if it’s cancer, although sometimes cancer is the cause of infertility. In the real world we – the rational people of the world – treat infertility both as a medical condition and something that deserves to be recognized as an often very painful physical and psychological experience.
All you keep doing whenever this subject comes up is to prove that you are not capable of rational thought or normal human empathy for people who have not been as reproductively lucky as you have. To anyone who reads your posts you come across as both insufferably smug and inexcusably jerkish.
Actually, this is different; this isn’t a thread hijacked by Dio, this is a thread started by Dio on a controversial topic. People are free to not participate in it.
If you were joing I apolgize, but lately I get pitted at the drop of a hat so it was believable to me.
People WANT fabulous wealth and orgies with supermodels too, that doesn’t mean it’s tragic if they can’t get it.
You don’t know what I know about the subject.
I’m not smug. I just view myself as simply lucky, not entitled, to have been reproductively successful. I have one brother who is not able to have kids with his wife, another brother who has suffered through a miscarriage and a sister-in-law who went through the ringer with trying to have a baby and eventually adopted (intersting tidbit. The girl they adopted is the biological daughter of a well-known NFL football player. Not a superstar, but a name that would be recognizable to most football fans).
Thanks everybody for your answers. I wasn’t trying to hurt anybody’s feelings, and I shouldn’t have started the thread. Apologies to anyone I offended.
I’m going to go watch the election results through my fingers now.
Does that improve the vision in your left eye?
Not one bit.
Here’s where we part company.
I know whenever this subject comes up you come across as knowing absolutely nothing about it and being horribly disdainful to those who do. Why the hell does it bother you if people express pain when confronted with infertility? Why are you so smugly dismissive of their real understandable sense of loss and hurt?
Infertility is most often not just I want a baby and I can’t have one. Infertility is about I want a baby and I can’t have one because. I can’t have one because I have endometriosis. I can’t have one because I have PCOS or premature ovarian failure or fibroids or anyone of dozens of other medical conditions.
No, they aren’t cancer. Well mostly as some people really are infertile because they’ve had cancer. But to pretend oh it’s no biggie and you’re a whiner to even bring it up is simply cruel. I doubt you would feel the same way if you had not been able to have three healthy children without fuss even when your wife is in her forties.
IRL would you be such a jerk to someone who told you they had multiple surgeries for endo? To someone who went through early menopause at 34? To someone struggling to lose weight because of a propensity to gain pounds as a result of a medical condition?
If you wouldn’t why is it okay to do so on the internet?
No it isn’t. It’s a defintion, not the definition. From dictionary.com
You are simpy wrong about this. Admit it. Or don’t. Your error is obvious and clear.
This is completely off-topic, but as another person with a vision impairment I thought you might appreciate this story. Several years ago, one of Mr. Whatsit’s family members found one of those “Magic Eye” books and thought he would just love it, because it seemed like the type of cool, quirky thing he would appreciate. (The “Magic Eye” pictures are those ones where you stare at the picture and let your eyes unfocus and after a minute or two, you are looking at a 3-dimensional picture.)
This person even knew about his eye injury, but I guess she didn’t think through its implications. He thanked her graciously for the book anyway. He likes to bring this up whenever the topic of conversation turns to “bad Christmas gifts you have received.”
Anyway. Carry on.
That’s because failing to have orgies with supermodels does not rob you of one of life’s most important aspects. Reproduction is a fundamental part of human life. Not reproducing, whether because one chose not to, because one is a loser, or because one is infertile, is often a source of emotional pain for people.
Should we think of blindness or terminal illness as not being tragic too? How about we compare wanting to have vision to wanting an orgy with supermodels. Suggesting that it is selfish to want to be able to see is no less ridiculous than saying it is selfish to want to have children.
Moderator note.
Dio, MUST you post OP’s like this one? You must know that the ability to have children is dearly important to a great many if not most people. What do you expect from an OP that says basically, “WTF is with all this bizarre sympathy that goes out to the infertile?”
MPB this is not an excuse for you to spew insults outside the Pit. Expect a warning, yet again, in due course.
Warning recieved and understood, though I stand by every word I wrote.
I will have to learn to practice what I preach and ignore those who only seek to inflame and stir controversy…
In **Dio’s **defense, the bizarre sympathy for people who are infertile was a mystery to a lot of us. Surprisingly, this thread helped explain it. Especially the analogy to sex 
Seriously, I hate, loathe, and despise the general Dio Show, but he’s on the money with this one.
ETA - well, not so much after the first few pages. But the general sentiment is not assholish.
As a person who has simply never experienced a desire either to procreate or to parent, I appreciate that someone asked the question directly, rather than as a side question in an unrelated thread.