*grin* Sorry, it's been one of THOSE days. Grr. You know what I mean?
I can't tell you whether or not any immortal vampires exist. I wouldn't rule the possibility out. On the other hand, in my experience most of the people on those lists are a bunch of people who wish they were Lestat. Mostly teenagers (not to insult the teenagers on this list, just pointing out that there seem to be few middle-aged people who are desperate to get people to believe that they are powerful immortal vampires, although I did mention that my ex-lover E. was part of a clique in her college, that got involved with a dodgy middle aged woman who had them all convinced that she could change them into vampires if they just let her drain them of energy, drink their blood, and have her inject them with her powerful "changed" blood - which E. found in the refrigerator and after tasting it, discovered it to be grenadine syrup. There are some sickos out there...)
So, am I qualified to say I am a dhampir, or just a confused soul?? I do not wish to be a vampire hunter, instead I wish to feel completely whole as a vampire - now my faith is shaken pretty hard again.
You are whatever you WILL yourself to be - your spirit will not allow you to be anything else!
You know my opinion of the dhampir legends. There might be some truth in them, but then again, they're about as safe to take literally as ANY legend. Too much social-hierarchy patriarchist bullshit in them, if you ask me (Eastern European dhampiri are male, at least near the Balkans).
All on that vampirism list do not think that psi-vampires and mortal blood drinkers and the types on our list are real. Just as Tiamat didn't --- are these people real? Is there a circle or society that does live as traditional vampires? How do they slip past human justice?? Or are all these people living in a terrible odd state of dillussion??
We live in a very demythologized age. To many people, God is dead, and so is the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas, the tooth fairy, mystery, faith, hope, and wonder. Many people are desperate for myth of some sort or other, so they identify with godlike or magical beings in order to embody myth, bring a little magic and mystery into their lives, and make their inner soul feel as though it were alive and well when it is, in fact, crippled by not being given enough room to breathe. Our world is sick.
We vampires are probably more sensitive than many other people to this malaise of being, because we are so hyperaware of energy around us and dependent on other people's life for our sustenance. We can pick up that craving for mystery, and amplify it a hundredfold due to our own desire for magic, our empathy, our emotional need to be Somebody Big since many of us were pariahs as children and adolescents and weirdos as adults; plus there's that stupid need implanted in us by society to be powerful, young, beautiful, and immortal, because that's what we see in adverts and in the media all around us. not only are we susceptible to stress ailments, eating disorders, low self esteem, and all the other problems found in modern society, but we're susceptible to megalomania too. I'm not surprised that a lot of vampires convince themselves that they are immortal, or pretend to be immortal so that they can feed off the adulation and trust and admiration of others. It's quite a temptation. I think the only reason I never succumbed to that temptation (with my ego the sixe of Russia, and so on) is that I am too much of a skeptic and I don't fall for anything that I consider to be utter bullshit.