I try to tell my closest friends, or friends that I hope will become close friends. Even the ones that are really well-intentional and care about me deeply have a hard time understanding, especially the profound effects PFS have on motivation, ambition, self-esteem, mood, etc. People, because they are human, simply cannot imagine what’s it like to be non-human, as libido is so fundamental to what makes one human that its absence renders one almost a different species - both physiologically and psychologically.
This of course is true for any serious problem one has - people generally lack the ability to experience deep empathy, as that is predicated on the cognitively-taxing process of imagining things beyond one’s personal experience.
I am particularly annoyed, even insulted, when a friend whom I have told in detail about my PFS asks me about new romantic developments - as if my PFS could be overcome if I simply tried hard enough or, alternatively, stopped thinking about it.
Recently, someone I regarded as a very close friend, told me – upon hearing my PFS story – that I had made “an incredibly poor decision” starting Propecia (rather than blame Merck for the fraudulent research and marketing or the drug approval process in general), even though I started the drug long before there were any official warnings about long-term side effects, or any research on PFS.