A couple days ago, a friend from a forum interrogated me like this: how many people have you slept with?

This question didn’t strike me as sudden or strange at all. Once two naive minds reach a certain stage of development, the “innocent” one always ends up asking this kind of question. It’s a bit like certain eras in our country’s past, when the Party told the people to speak freely, only to settle accounts after autumn once the bold criticism had been voiced. Heh, that’s exactly the kind of “interesting” this is.

Some people say they won’t be foolish enough to use their youth to test for some “one true love for life” nonsense, preferring instead to search for a “favorite” within a large statistical sample. I don’t know what age, gender, occupation, star sign, blood type, or nationality their “favorite” is supposed to have… but I think one human life, one tiny insignificant life, really can’t withstand so many bizarre experiments. Some people have hastily tried a few, dozens, even hundreds of partners, and still end up knowing nothing at all. It does absolutely nothing to help resolve this messy, chaotic question.

For me, this somewhat symbol-driven exercise holds zero interest. And yet there are always people oddly fixated on this fabricated “experimental history” of mine, as if hoping I’d submit a detailed lab report, laying out the purpose, method, and conclusion of every single “experiment.” Some people are especially interested in the details — particularly the bedroom matters.

I really can’t figure out what these people are thinking. Hearing about parts of my sexual history — is that like watching porn for them? Even more amusing: when you ask back, “Do you really care that much?” they’ll casually say, “Not really, just curious.” But I can tell quite clearly — they’re not actually interested in who I’ve been with, they’re asking, “How many people have you slept with?”

Heh, sex and love are both, in the end, draped over humanity’s self-styled superior rationality. I think it’s best to just quietly go about my own business, and let other people keep asking — maybe that way I can feel a little more at ease, a little more comfortable.