Well, they are the remnants of a society, were you could still trade in your works worth for "love" or at least a "dont break the chain" genetic future in the shape of a "family". And now this contract is up, they want to burn the whole thing down.
what has changed is the percentage of ppl living in big metropolitan regions where competition is higher and interactions plentiful and hence shallow making it more difficult to bond.
> was for the whole history of small-town, shop-owner, working sunup to sundown, what have manchilds todo with that?
Small-town shop owner working sunup to sundown isn't a manchild, they're a hard-working professional. To my impression, this doesn't describe incels. Take their personality a few centuries back and you have the decent-looking but insufferable child whose parents can't merely be somewhat wealthy to overcome his misgivings.
Part of the problem is "the 1960s," a cultural waypoint for America, "were an exceptional period with respect to marriage behavior" [1]. In fact, between 1870 and 1960, we were at much higher fractions of the 45 to 54 age bracket of men who had never been married. Selection pressure was higher a century ago, not lower.
Jane Austen's men were rich bachelors, often coming to the country from London, often written as charming for being open to women of a lower (upper class) standing. They were the opposite of incels.
>Jane Austen's men were rich bachelors, often coming to the country from London, often written as charming
Yes and often not rich and often not charming. One of the key points of her writing was to contrast these characters in a context where women had very high stakes (not marrying did not end well for most women, including her) and limited options.
Overestimating how much attractiveness matters to the answers people give in surveys or overestimating how much attractiveness matters factors in to behavior on dating apps?
When you're on dating apps, you're competing with million of other men. Before dating apps, you're competing with maybe only a pool of a few hundred.
Also, your dating profile is completely impersonal. It list your hobbies, your like, dislike, etc. All these pale in comparison to just meeting people in person and maybe making social connections.
That's kind of my point. Dating apps are A) how the majority of people meet these days and B) are explicitly geared towards making people filter partners by attractiveness above all other qualities.
Ergo I think A) incels are partly or mostly a creation of the way swipe based dating apps has changed mate selection behavior and B) efforts by psychologists to emphasize that looks don't matter to women as much as incels think they do based upon surveys are badly missing the point.
“Incels (and non-incel single men) significantly overestimated the importance of physical attractiveness and financial prospects to women, and underestimated the importance of intelligence, kindness, and humor.”
Sounds like single men, incel or not, share the same feelings.
Incels are low on extraversion, high on neuroticism, not open to experience, low on agreeableness, low on conscientiousness.
If you had those traits during a winter in 10,000 BC, from the moment you started complaining about the cold, and being pessimistic about the upcoming mammoth hunt, and such... the tribe would not be as tolerant as our modern society.
Or they are just Man who never had friends or family telling them when they did something weird, and instead of starting to selfreflect, they got frustrated and angry and are now stuck in a circle.
Or they have borderline personality disorder and don't realise they're manipulating and hurting people :/
EDIT: So just to clarify since I think there's a disconnect between what I was saying and what people are hearing, I was talking about myself here. And I am a dude. People are complicated and our brains can go into a tailspin for lots of reasons. Like k8s only less complex and with less YAML.
It would be interesting to learn more about what type of people become incels
I do belive that most are 'just' normal humans who haven't gotten the proper feedback system in their lives which also implies that the incel crisis is not necessarily a mental health issue but a social issue.
It doesnt' make it easier of course if people with borderline personality disorder and others are also affected and potentially also take over those type of groups in a form or push them in particular directions.
> I do belive that most are 'just' normal humans who haven't gotten the proper feedback system in their lives which also implies that the incel crisis is not necessarily a mental health issue but a social issue.
probably both plus a bit of overrepresentation due to (social) media economics
Agree with the first paragraph. The second paragraph does not follow at all. Traits that are no successful today might be very well received 12,000 years ago.
For example people with ADHD would probably be better hunter-gatherers than they are programmers. Neuroticism might be useful if you live in constant life-threatening situations.
It's also a meaningless tautology. By definition, all of your ancestors reproduced successfully. However, it's also the case that every generation has a large number of individuals who don't reproduce. This is often a successful strategy for a species. It's not at all the case that one person is a failure because their ancestors reproduced and they didn't.
It gets into nature vs nurture. My aunt and uncle couldn’t have kids, but they adopted a boy. He has their values, general kindness, and their sense of humor. For some value of reproduction, I think they’ve done so successfully.
why does this place turn so cruel and kick their fellow men when they're down? if this was an issue that affected the other gender, the tone here would be a lot different.
Highlighting errors and mistakes in other men's thinking in order to try and reduce the suffering they inflict on themselves is one of the greatest gifts that a fellow man can give. Sure, it's a kick and therefore it hurts, but it's a kick in the right direction.
> Highlighting errors and mistakes in other men's thinking in order to try and reduce the suffering they inflict on themselves is one of the greatest gifts that a fellow man can give.
No, it's not. If you applied this logic, you would just go around telling fat people that they're fat. Do you think that's actually helpful and "the greatest gift" you can give to a fellow man?
Honestly, what a delusional and out of touch response. I pity you if that's what your childhood role models taught you.
> No, it's not. If you applied this logic, you would just go around telling fat people that they're fat.
This isn't pointing out an error in thinking, this is stating a fact. A fat person most likely already knows that they're fat, so doing this again is redundant; a statement like "you're fat" is also usually emotionally loaded, turning this into a weapon of verbal aggression.
Are you sure that I am the one being delusional here?
For most people, sympathy and empathy for other humans ends when those humans themselves show no sympathy or empathy for a group of other humans.
To give an example: capital punishment.
In practice this is an interesting problem to tackle though. One can completely denounce and shame people for their actions or ideologies, while at the same time showing some sympathy/empathy in wanting to address the root causes of why those people are like they are.
Yes. I would say it's more to do with a societal restructuring and changing things have been around for 1000s of years and expecting the past 50 years to just fundamentally alter humanity and for there to be no negative outcomes. And the assumption that everything prior to 50 years ago in how society was structured was bad because it was traditional. And then acting surprised when it doesn't translate into even replacement birthrates.
I prefer population reduction by misogynists not getting laid, over mass starvation, climate change, plagues, pandemics, warfare, nuclear winter, and radioactive fallout.
Women who choose to not have sex with men who choose to hate them are doing humanity a service.
Nah, he's right. In my opinions, men staying online too much think women standards are high, but really they're not. Don't be annoying, frightening, and be nice, you'll get a date. Even when I was obese I had dates and relationships (less than before/after my obesity).
I was lucky when I was young and spent time with basically 'hippies anarchists' who completely destroyed my false ideas about women, sex, and my own worth. I could have ended as an incel too.
Misogynists choose to be misogynists and can stop at any time they choose. Not paraplegics. Or do you disagree because you have personal first hand experience being a misogynist who is incapable of changing?
There's a history behind it... but they aren't just helpless people in the path of forces that they can't resist. They still have agency. They may have been dealt a lousy hand, but they're still responsible for how they respond to it.
Note well: I am not denying that "there's a history behind it". I am not denying that they were dealt a bad hand. What I am saying is that your post goes too far the other way. It denies incels their agency. They are still responsible what they choose to do with the hand they were dealt.
One can sympathize with them for the bad hand they were dealt, and still not give them a free pass for misogyny.
As dagw pointed out, you're missing the point that I said "voluntary misogynists" when you quoted me out of context by omitting the important word "misogynists" after the word "voluntary". You obviously did that on purpose.
It's possible to choose to not hate women, you know. Nobody forced you to, and you don't have to get somebody else's consent to not be a misogynist. And as you know, the term "incel" does not just exist in a vacuum and literally mean the combination of the words "involuntary" and "celibate", it refers to a particular well defined subculture:
>The subculture is often characterized by deep resentment, hatred, hostility, sexual objectification, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity and self-loathing, racism, a sense of entitlement to sex, blaming of women and the sexually successful for their situation (which is often seen as predetermined due to biological determinism, evolutionary genetics or a rigged game), a sense of futility and nihilism, rape culture, and the endorsement of sexual and nonsexual violence against women and sexually active people.[9][24] Incel communities have been increasingly criticized by scholars, government officials, and others for their misogyny, the endorsement and encouragement of violence, and extremism.[25] Over time the subculture has become associated with extremism and terrorism, and since 2014 there have been multiple mass killings mostly in North America perpetrated by self-identified incels, as well as other instances of violence or attempted violence.
So no, it's not a bad-faith assumption or projection. Is it a bad faith assumption on my part that you carry the water for incels by intellectually dishonestly quoting me out of context and refusing to post under your own account and real name, because you consider yourself to be an incel? Your incel misogyny is a bad faith assumption about women and a voluntary choice that you make.
Maybe if you stopped putting so much energy into feeling sorry for yourself and trying so hard to play the victim and blaming women for your lack of sex, you'd realize that your voluntary misogyny is getting in the way of you ever getting laid, and it's YOU, not women, who are you own worst enemy.
Most people instinctively respond to hostility with hostility. It is a self-defense instinct. Very few people can overcome that instinct and show sympathy and understanding to people without sympathy and understanding, and those who can tend to burn out in short order and retreat to the company of people like themselves.
Women who hate men, and therefore have limited/no positive romantic experiences with men, also receive a lot of hatred all over the internet (I'm not sure why you think they don't, but it is exceedingly common). And so misandry begets further misandry, just as misogyny begets further misogyny.
Unfortunately, there really is no good solution for it: People are not obligated to like people who hate them or who hate people they care about. And people who are not liked experience depression and loneliness, which anger and hatred are common symptom of. It's a serious Catch 22.
Yeah, the problem is that suddenly everybody started to equate "involuntary celibates" with "involuntary celibates who hate women" who are a vocal part on the Internet. But there are many, many other groups, such as the ones in Dead Bedrooms subreddit. This superficial generalization doesn't help anyone.
"Incels" are not just random people who happen to be involuntarily celibate. It's literally a self-defined hate group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel People in the Dead Bedrooms aren't having sex but by and large they're not "incels".
> Incel (/ˈɪnsɛl/ IN-sel; a portmanteau of "involuntary celibate"[1]) is a term closely associated with an online subculture of people (mostly white,[2] male, and heterosexual[3]) who define themselves as unable to get a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one. [...]
Yeah but the hostility also comes from the fact these people feel rejected, that nobody cares about it or try to help them, and even makes fun of them.
Someone have to break the hostility cycle at some point.
My assumption would be: People here are of the curious kind. The kind that likes to learn, likes to know when they are wrong, likes to put themselves into other perspectives, figure things out etc.
The typical incel is the antithesis to that. Their misery is always someone elses fault, they don't take the perspective of the other side, they over-analyze, but always the others, never themselves.
The HN crowd dislikes that, because this is the worst pitfall somewhat intelligent people can fall in: misleading yourself with clever theories because it feels better than admiting fault. And we all know that pitfall and hate it when we eventually realize we did this to ourselves. The typical behaviour connected to incels is the embodiment of this fault. Being self-critical is hard, but it also benefits you in the long run.
And on the gender disparity: women tend to do this less (or at least without the public-facing self-pity) and most importantly don't tend to not kill people because of it.
Don't get me wrong, I wish every Incel the best. But at least to me this is a case of "I can't help you before you get serious about helping yourself" and that involves searching for your own faults, being self-critical and self-aware. The problem isn't that incels are not shown the door, the problem is they won't walk through it — and they can only walk through it themselves.
> The typical incel is the antithesis to that. Their misery is always someone elses fault, they don't take the perspective of the other side, they over-analyze, but always the others, never themselves.
According to the paper, incels (like non-incel single men) mostly blame internal factors (i.e. their own deficiencies) for their lack of dating success.
> People here are of the curious kind. The kind that likes to learn, likes to know when they are wrong, likes to put themselves into other perspectives, figure things out etc.
That's very charitable. I find this a community of people that think very highly of themselves, and that outside of very narrow technical topics, is prone to speak with a lot of false authority of things they understand very little about.
"Those other people do it wrong. But not us, we do it right".
I did not say that people on here are correct, I said they like to be. And when you judge others you always judge them the hardest when it comes to things with which you have a hard time yourself.
Now you could probably draw many connections between religous and/or poltical movements and the people they are attacking using that thought — but the details are left as an exercise to the reader.
> Don't get me wrong, I wish every Incel the best. But at least to me this is a case of "I can't help you before you get serious about helping yourself" and that involves searching for your own faults, being self-critical and self-aware. The problem isn't that incels are not shown the door, the problem is they won't walk through it — and they can only walk through it themselves.
I think it is a spectrum.
If one only searches for mistakes one has made or is making based on external feedback, it basically means, that one lets others (society, social group of people around the person) decide how one is going to live and behave. Some people just stick to their principles and when these go against what others expect, it does not necessarily mean, that they made a mistake. It just means, that they don't match with those other people. There does not necessarily have to be something wrong. Such principles can also self-exclude people from other groups of people.
For example: lets say one person is a non-smoker. They won't be around smokers much.
Or another one: Don't like dancing? Well, that person will likely not be with a partner, who is into dancing.
Many preferences and principles (or the lack of those) make a person and steer a person to have or not have contact with other groups of people. It can happen, that there are very few persons of other sex around them.
So I guess a balance of listening to external feedback and ones own convictions is probably key to be well liked by fellow human beings and yet not become externally controlled.
Its hard when a utopia dies. Due to a walkout of citizens in reality - and the model society you envisioned implodes, while external forces on which you projected the utopia and who are actually just dystopian empires use the resulting weakness to spread.
Imagine a architect, kicking a machine that will not fly. Add colorful curses.
The last time this happened, was when the people of the sovjiet union rebelled. And the western left leaning intelligentsia has held a grudge against the whole of eastern europe ever since. Chomsky comes to mind.
Most people use the word incel community to mean a specific group of people. It's not "guys who can't get laid", it's an extremist group.
To some guys, maybe it means something different, but most people think of incel as... Yeah.
That community sucks people in and ruins lives.
* Main forum IIRC run by the same people that do a forum for help committing suicide.
* This site has the initials SS, which doesn't seem accidental. Attempting to convince someone not to do it is against the rules there.
* Women are called holes, toilets, roasties(meaning one who's vagina looks like roast beef), fesikhs (apparently a fermented fish product), and a lot of race specific ones.
* Elliot Rodger, a mass murderer, is often respected. To "Go ER" means to do similar abhorrent crimes.
* Religion, especially Judaism, is not well liked, however, hyper authoritarian extremist factions of some faiths often get some respect.
* Hitler is sometimes a crowd favorite.
* An activity known as rotting is a popular activity. It's what it sounds like. Just sitting and doing nothing. It's a miserable place.
* They actively try to spread their worldview, known as the blackpill, which causes such misery.
* Occasionally, you'll see people actively enjoying various means of making normies, especially women, uncomfortable. Including with poor hygiene.
* There is close to zero interesting content.
Some of the problems they face that got them into this are real,
but I think there's got to be better things to do that join those nasty forums.
Because, it comes across entirely as entitlement... Why did these guys assume in the first place that they are entitled to sex?
It doesn't work that way because that always requires two consenting adults. That entitlement is indicative of there being a severe misunderstanding of that.
But it turns out that is not even their main issue. They feel disadvantaged and victimized in every way possible and it all turned into misogyny. But "women" are just the scapegoat, not the actual root of the issues they are having.
At the same time, women have to deal with certain problems and face some adversity that is quite unimaginable to men. Almost all women I have discussed this with have had at least one encounter where a man in their workplace tried to make "advances" unrelated to work, often even by abusing a position of power. If so many men cannot comprehend that this is unprofessional behavior and not the right time and place that is something that should probably be addressed first.
My theory: a logic-driven reading of the problem will not fully understand it, as incel has roots on emotions, and can hardly be understood if taken in logical terms (unless one has considerable insight).
Therefore, from this perspective, the attitude is to interpret those people as (in simplified terms) "people who don't get out".
I sympathize and empathize with incels. Many of my friends have dating struggles, they're all great guys. The reason I don't is because I'm willing to get 1000s of rejections, no matter how painful they are, I don't give a damn. I will learn from each rejection and get better, until I figure out how to attract the woman of my dreams.
Anyway, that was my mindset a decade ago and since then didn't have had any issues. Recently was on the dating market again and the first month I spent 80 hours into going up and talking to women and only got one date. ONE DATE! :')
I was rusty for sure.
Fast forward 2 months and I'm on Tinder, 5 matches per month.
Fast forward another 3 months, and now I'm having 150 matches per month (by thinking like a hacker, ever reverse engineered a binary or played hackthebox? Good! Use that mindset, reverse anything you can get your hands on, make Tinder a white box app - also, stay legal).
Fast forward another 2 months and I was having sex with a different woman once per week. I realized I didn't like it, I'm too much of a romantic. At one date, I met an amazingly cool and beautiful person and we really liked each other and we've been together for about a year now.
It's all skill training. And this was my second skill training loop (first time between 16 and 20). It still took 8 months and in the first months I was still laughably bad again (80 hours just to get one date, omg :') It cracked me up then and it cracks me up now).
It's funny how people think this is attached to your personality and stuff, it really isn't. The skill in dating is going up to people and being able to present yourself well. I was horrible at both. It takes a while to fix (and to refix after 5 years of a long-term relationship) when you're like me.
I do feel very strongly about this. I feel a lot of pain from when I was young. I also feel a lot of love from after I was young and fixed this part in my life.
I can't help but embody both feelings. I normally don't mention it unless this topic is specifically addressed. In general, I feel quite calm. But yea, I can get quite intense.
> The reason I don't is because I'm willing to get 1000s of rejections, no matter how painful they are
Please don't do that, you're making women hate us because all they see is that they must constantly turn down people like you. You're behavior is part of the problem. Make some trusted friends of the opposite gender and seek dates within their peer group instead. (Well, "dating" is an anti-pattern anyway. Rather you should seek some clear-cut romantic interest from them as part of just hanging out, then asking them for a "date" is just a formality.)
Yea, that's what I've noticed too. Not everyone can do what I do. I went on that route and couldn't help some of my friends.
I think the only thing one can say is that people need a strong yearning to figure it out if they have big issues with it. The second thing people need is a course in ethics + science. One needs to be able to evaluate the ethics proposed by whatever advice it is and think it through. And one needs to be able to verify/disprove claims in one way or another.
I disagree. I think men and women should approach much more. We're scared of strangers, we shouldn't be. We also shouldn't accept them with open arms, but the "stranger danger" thing that we have in our society is too simplistic and toxic IMO.
I also approach men, I approach dogs, I approach the world. When people don't like it, I back off. When people like it, I explore the interaction with them.
In terms of dating: many women that reject me tell me that they like my approach. I ask for feedback in many cases. I am respectful too. I hold my distance because I respect people. People say that nice guys finish last. I guess they've never thought about nice guys that have a wild side to them and are more hardcore than most bad boys will ever be. There are ways to be incredibly nice and respectful and still have that edge to you. That edge shines through. I don't even tease women as part of my attraction strategy :')
On being nice:
I think teasing/banter is a bit dysfunctional in many cases and not nice. I know I'm a bit extreme in this and many people think it's okay. I am a bit allergic to it. I'd rather just be playful. Instead of being "dominant" I'd rather be enthusiastic and curious. Instead of being "higher status" I'd rather just be immersed and enthralled by the magic of life and show people that magic that I experience as I want to experience theirs. Experiencing life feels artsy, I like people who enjoy that and that's enough for attraction. Having zest for life means having zest for adventure. It means to have zest for the unknown that people are scared of. Suddenly some women realize that I have much more courage than most people (true or not, that is how it comes across) and are attracted to it.
That's how you can be nice to everyone yet still get the attractive traits of a "bad boy". Be adventurous, be passionate, be imaginative and be playful. The only part I had to cultivate here was the adventurous part. I was already curious but scared. Curiosity + courage = adventure!
Also, my dating strategy has been working for the past 10+ years. Here's a timeline.
16 - 21: getting the skill.
21 - 22: relationship 1
2 month period of approaching women
22 - 27: relationship 2
2 month period of approaching women
27 - 33: relationship 3
8 month period of approaching women & Tinder (I got really rusty)
Now I'm on relationship 4.
Also, the relationships get better and better. One can never be sure, but I believe this relationship is for life.
So all in all, I've been out there for a period of 12 months between relationships and in the past for 5 years as a teenager.
No woman has ever been hitting on me, so when I'm in a relationship, there's nothing going on with other women ever - not even flirting. I like it that way.
Look, it's even simpler than that. Incels hate women, that's their whole schtick. Why would any self-respecting woman want to be with someone who literally hates said woman's gender? Maybe you could "educate" incels on being less hateful, and their romantic prospects might improve.
People have a tendency to irrationally hate what they don’t understand. Modern society as scripted by Disney teaches men all the wrong moves to make with women.
I don't know what Disney scripted. Throw out the dating app and meet people in the real. It doesn't matter if they're dating prospects or not. Rinse, repeat.
It's silly to expanding your potential dating option to million of complete strangers. Start building a network of maybe 300-400 individuals, some of which are potential partners. Some will simply be friends, teammates, etc.
Remember, dating is not an interview or a resume. You are not showing off how good you are with a bunch of impersonal details online like what school you went to, your favorites hobbies etc. Nobody cares about that. Meet people and see how they vibes with you.
do you really think it’s as simple as this? It’s hard to meet people that aren’t attracted to you. If you give your average Incel, this type of advice, send them off to a bar and tell them to go make friends with a girl they’re attracted to, you’re setting them up for a world of Hurt because that is an incredibly naïve advice to give
I was referring more generally to meeting other people (not only online and not only other incels), without the intention of finding a partner - sort of learning to swim first before jumping in at the deep end.
It means that Disney depicts men is having to be this heroic emotional type, which is not what women are looking for. They’re looking for stoic types.
You clearly have never heard the phrase quantity drives quality. You can’t be selective if nobody wants you, so casting a wider net gets you more fish. That’s true in anything whether it would be business, dating, etc. I don’t know why this is mind blowing to you.
This sounds like an extremely dismissive comment without attempting to explore the root causes.
I would argue that the causes are frequently multifactorial, with hating women being a bidirectional causal relationship. That is, failing to find a date, being dumped, or otherwise rejected may come before hating women. Once they start hating women, it becomes ever more difficult to find dates because they refuse to engage in activities for finding dates.
However, we must note that some men are misogynistic while still having a SO that are of the opposite gender, so clearly misogyny isn't a complete barrier against being in a relationship.
When I was between 15 to 20 I felt like I was left out. Then I found websites that helped me change and become a more attractive person. It was super confusing and it took 4 years to change (around 21 the transformation was done). The first 2.5 years were thousands of rejections from women. It seemed that no one wanted me, but my options were "die loveless/without romance at the end of your life" or "keep trying". At some point I started to learn how to weave the most core parts of my personality into something that women appreciated (imaginative playfulness). After that I was fine and this whole thing never became an issue again.
But I'm scared to think what would've happened if I would never have found those websites. I'm scared to think what would've happened if I gave up after 2 years of constant rejection (and I've seen this as a close friend quit, and now we're 14 years further along and he still has dating issues - he's finally fixing them). I'm scared to think if the advice would never land.
In any of these 3 stages, I think incels are coming into existence. And I know how I'd feel, because I remember how I felt when I was 16. I'd feel cheated out of life. I'd feel unheard. I'd feel worthless. I'd feel life is worthless. Maybe I'd feel differently as an adult, but the problem is that by that point you're growing into this form of suffering.
Other than incels, there are many people (men and women - it's not only men) who don't quite feel like that but feel somewhat close to that form of frustration and hopelessness.
---
The yearning for romance is strong. Here are my two cents if you wanna improve your chances:
1. Volume * conversion. My conversion is low (1%), so I need high volume. If I want someone to find me attractive, I need to go up to and talk to 100 women with serious intent.
2. Attraction: use imaginative playfulness. If you love to imagine stuff, answer some serious questions with your imagination instead. Like if someone asks you "what do you do?" you can tell them "I'm the earth's therapist, and let me tell ya, it's not looking good." or "I teach alpaca's Japanese." or "I'm building a rollercoaster out of cheese for mice. It's the most friendly mouse trap known to mankind."
3. Vulnerability: dare to say where you'd like to go with her. Do this after you feel that the atmosphere/vibe between the two of you feels fun. At the end of a first date, if I want to kiss her, I ask. There's a lot of advice on "physical escalation". I've recently found (I was recently single again in a long time) that you don't need to "physically escalate". Two-thirds of the women I was on a date with and wanted to kiss, they wanted to kiss me back.
If you want to have a discussion about it, feel free to email me (in my profile). I've seen quite a few friends that are stuck and they are like me and really don't have to be stuck.
> And I know how I'd feel, because I remember how I felt when I was 16. I'd feel cheated out of life. I'd feel unheard. I'd feel worthless.
But then you didn't hate women - in fact, you managed to be funny and playful with them, in a way that translates quite well to the romance context. See the difference? This is where the incel goes off track.
You have a pretty shallow understanding of human psychology. Are you autistic? Nothing wrong with that, but you should be aware that things out there are a bit more complex and nuanced than you seem to grasp.
I'm not sure what your point is there, do you disagree with what I said above? All I'm saying here is that it does not take more than a "shallow" understanding to avoid the loser inceldom failure mode.
You're right. I never hated women. Logic would prevent me from hating a large group like that. It's like saying I hate Americans :') I don't. The opposite isn't true either. I don't love women (or Americans, despite that one US person is my GF, ha!). I evaluate people on their own individuality. Sometimes I see trends because of a group, I know I have biases. I do my best not to get distracted by that. Individualism is the most useful philosophy for evaluating individuals on their own merits.
But let me pose the problem back to you. Can you imagine how you'd act if you'd feel worthless?
When I feel and think that question through, I'm scared by the answer.
That's the key, it's the only two variables that matters. However, this is also the reason why it's hard for a lot of men to get a mate:
Number of interactions IRL is harder and harder to get with the cultural shift to online apps and the demonization of male appraoch and behavior ("sexual harassment", "male gaze", "toxic masculinity"). And voicing about being single is associated with negative traits such as being misogynistic to the point research paper are published...
Then regarding the conversion rate, when in the low single digit, it's rapidly hard to get motivated after facing dozens or hundreds of rejection.
> Number of interactions IRL is harder and harder to get
It is but it is not as hard as one might think. One needs to double down on being respectful. Also, do note that this is more of a thing in the US than in Europe. It's also a thing in Europe, but the US is simply more extreme. But even in the US women were pretty chill. The biggest thing you need to simultaneously show (alongside attractive traits) is that you're reasonable and respectful.
I agree it's hard to get motivated. I've had the good fortune that I worked on this when I was young. So even when I get rejected a lot if I'd be dating right now (2 years ago was the last time), I'd still carry on.
I think people in general look at rejection the wrong way. Rejection should be observed ("oh this person doesn't want this, alright"), not interpreted ("I knew it, I suck and am unattractive, duh!").
Please stop using that word, no one but the person in question gets to decide if they are celebate or not, it's really disingenuous, and just indicates you don't understand the notion of consent.
They do decide to not be celibate. They also get to decide that it is involuntary, and to identify with the term "involuntary celibate", shortened to "incel". The study explicitly says:
> ...we compared a sample (n = 151) of self-identified male incels...
In layman's terms, "I want to get laid, but I can't" is the definition of involuntary celibate. If someone doesn't want to get laid, they - by definition - aren't an incel.
The decision to not be celibate requires (at least) one more person who agrees with that decision. The decision to be celibate only requires yourself. That's the root of the problem...
But the decision to be misogynistic is independent of the decision to be celibate or not. And voluntary misogyny is the defining characteristic of the term "incel". There are many non-misogynistic non-inceles who want to get laid but can't for other reasons than choosing to hate women.
I don't want to justify much, if any, of the behaviour of the incel/redpill crowd but...
For me several years passed between thinking 'I would like to lose my virginity' and said event happening. Should anybody feel sorry for me? No. But I can empathize with some of the feelings that lead people down that path.
To me, the biggest issue is the hostility of certain crowds that prevents us from discussing and exploring these phenomenons. There is this whole "women don't owe you sex" overreaction that is very quick to silence any discussion.
At the same time sexual satisfaction is strongly correlated with happiness (or depression) and both genders experience very different phenomena here.
The flip side of "women don't owe you sex" is "men don't owe you good sex", or even safe sex for that matter. Many women are sexually unhappy, it's not nearly as easy for them as the typical 'incel' might assume. That's yet another reason why incels do not put any effort into becoming better romantic prospects, they have no idea that they're even supposed to! And dating apps do nothing to address this, either.
There's surprisingly little research on relationship disorders, in particular, in the area of dating.
If Gilmartin (who I think was the first to research the involutary celibate more formally) were more rigorous and/or if psychologists would have have extracted the good points and developed them, today we'd likely have a better (or at least, better prepared) society. Sadly, Gilmartin is partially reponsible for turning to the topic from something taboo-ish into a laughing stock.
It also seems that some people here don't know - modern acception of "incel" is, confusingly, more specific than "involuntary celibates"; it refers to an online, tendentially misogynistic, subculture of involuntary celibates.
If some readers here identify themselves with people with serious relationship disorders, seek a therapist - this disorder can be impossible to heal without professional services.
> If some readers here identify themselves with people with serious relationship disorders, do yourself a favor, and see a therapist. This disorder can be impossible to heal without professional services.
I think this is good advice.
If you feel part of the incel subculture, please take a moment to reflect what attracts you to these people and their explainations. Could it be that they offer you a story within which you don't have to question your own role in your misery? This lack of taking responsibility for ones own way in life is by the way one of the main reasons people tend to look down on incels.
The problem isn't you not finding a relationship. The problem is how you explain away your own responsibility within that. And it is the natural, lazy thing to fall for this: After all it feels more comfortable if you are not at fault, but everybody else. The only problem with this is, that it isn't the truth and it doesn't bring you any closer to finding joy in life.
Many incels may feel that they don't need therapy, because they have their incel peers. But that is really, really problematic. This is why therapy is a good advice. If you are part of such a hermetic group, getting outside help that gets to know you closer is a really good way of finding a way out. But the first step is admiting you have a problem and that the other people with the same problem are only giving you excuses to continue down that path, not solutions to get out of it.
>This lack of taking responsibility for ones own way
I took a look at the community out of curiosity for a while and I noticed that the group is subdivided and lot of them do suggest taking responsibility for "Maxx-ing" (as they call it) while the others (the so called 'black' pilled, whom I think are a smaller subgroup) don't.
On a separate note: I think the western cult of personal responsibility also gets taken a bit too far sometimes and we need to be cognizant of this, because too often it encourages us to ignore real systemic (often highly profitable) issues. In this case, I think it's the toxic effect of swipe based dating apps and extreme market consolidation in the dating app market.
> I think the western cult of personal responsibility also gets taken a bit too far sometimes
I agree totally. This is why I would say a incel needs help. But like with any mental trap, addiction, anxiety, obesity, etc. the first step towards getting better is aknowledging you got a problem and your current way of living does keep you from improving your situation.
And this acceptance can only come from the affected person themselves.
> Incels will overestimate women’s minimum standards for mate-preferences. They will also overemphasize the importance of physical attractiveness and financial prospects and under emphasize the importance of kindness, intelligence, and humor
I feel like this is the most obvious answer and most in line with everyday experience.
There are so many men who are victims of a society that tells them to work hard. With enough hard work any man can look good and make money. "Kindness, intelligence, and humor" are not only not required, but often seen as weakness. There's some merit to thinking that way because when things get tough those traits aren't going to help you very much. The world is extremely favorable towards men that know how to be successful solo. This doesn't necessarily attract women though, especially not good women, so here we are.
Compounding this effect is that the latest generations of women are on the same path valuing the shallow things in life and only knowing how to work, but not live.
I remember a friend in middle school telling me his big discovery: "the way to a girl's heart is making her laugh". While some good taste and subtlety are important here, it's not far from truth!
I feel like this is the most obvious answer
and most in line with everyday experience.
I've interacted with some incels online and their intricate rationalizations are just wild, about how only the top N% of men (in terms of looks and/or sexual prowess and/or money) are monopolizing all the women.
And I'm just like....
Forget all of that. Just step outside and go literally anywhere where families or couples go. Look around. Look at all these men who have partners! Most of these men are not exactly models and/or dripping with cash! Clearly it is possible. (I am one of these people...)
But you can't reason with incels, obviously. It's like trying to reason with somebody who has an eating disorder and thinks they're fat even though they're dangerously underweight. They are in a dark, damaged place and pointing to objective facts is not going to lead them out of that place.
I also don’t think dating apps help the situation at all. You can find enough people obsessed with characteristics like height on them to give you further evidence for your wacky theories, especially if you have a cognitive bias to look for behavior you find unjust. Just go outside once to see all straight men don’t have to be 6’ or above to find a partner. Apps like Tinder have probably caused a lot of harm to mental health for its most frequent users.
Apps like Tinder have probably caused a lot of
harm to mental health for its most frequent users.
Yeah. And there are good reasons why women can be picky on dating apps and such.
Unless you are a female, or you have female friends explaining it to you, you have no idea what it's like to be a woman on a dating site. The deluge of dudes expressing interest is massive. You've got to narrow it down somehow. It's honestly kind of like when companies get hundreds of applicants for a single job. They have to cut down the pool somehow.
Also, what people are looking for on Tinder is not necessarily what they want in a longer term partner. A woman on Tinder looking for a fling might have some pretty specific physical attributes in mind. That is not representative of what that same woman might want to actually partner with. (Same is true for men, obviously)
It's easy to see why an incel, without somebody to explain a woman's perspective to him, could get completely the wrong idea.
My fault for not elaborating much on this point, but there is some blame to be given to the environment around these men. It's not entirely their fault and it's not fair they have to undo a lot of it, but... well they do for themselves at least.
One of the most common environments is poverty. Their parents tell them to work hard and everything else hopefully falls into place. In this environment they grew up never having good examples or knowing the kindness expected from them as adults. They were often surrounded by selfish people and had to look over their shoulder constantly. Their social value was based entirely on their looks, skills, and/or money. Really what else can you expect?
With this I also claim there is some merit to the idea that at least part of modern feminism really is just classist misandry rebranded for a new era.
I want to reiterate that this is beginning to affect women too. Absent any good examples of how to live better they react to the same situation by taking advantage of men with the same or worse self-esteem issues as themselves. These women are not happy. They care more about impressing their peers and the man is just an accessory.
I hope my explanations distinguish my perspective from the usual "red pill" nonsense. There's something here, but I'm just a dude so idk.
I definitely think that a lot of incel- and incel-adjacent behavior comes from a person's environment, and as such is not necessarily the incel's fault.
(As they say, things may not be one's fault but they are one's responsibility...)
These women are not happy. They care more about impressing
their peers and the man is just an accessory.
I've had a decent number of female friends over the years while I know that there are all kinds of toxic people out there, I don't really see women acting this way in general especially as they progress into adulthood. Of course plenty of toxic counterexamples exist, I'm just talking about in general.
There's something here
I think that any time some kind of movement or thought paradigm gets traction, it's because there are some grains of truth there.
I think a lot of men fall through the cracks in society in one way or another, and have trouble finding partners, and often it's not their "fault" per se, and I think those are some of the grains of truth here.
I don't agree with the "red pill" sort of conclusion, but I definitely think there's something there in terms of what they are experiencing.
In addition to this dating is complex. There are a thousand reasons why you get rejected. Some of the will be subliminal. Any geek incel should just use probability theory. A sales incel should think in terms of cold calling / leads. Just talk to as many people as possible. Live somewhere with lots of people.
>> Incels will overestimate women’s minimum standards for mate-preferences. They will also overemphasize the importance of physical attractiveness and financial prospects and under emphasize the importance of kindness, intelligence, and humor
> I feel like this is the most obvious answer and most in line with everyday experience.
People who fall in such far end of the spectrum are highly likely to have suffered abuse in their childhood, and as a consequence, they're not able to bond romantically with the opposite sex; under this model, superficial characteristics (beauty, wealthm etc.) are not the cause, they're just the easiest rationalization that they can find.
> "Kindness, intelligence, and humor" are not only not required, but often seen as weakness. There's some merit to thinking that way because when things get tough those traits aren't going to help you very much.
Actually, those traits will get you much further than brute force and ignorance. Humans are social. Treating your social group well will generally get you a lot further than not. (Other social groups is a debateable issue. But if you want to survive winter then you'll want everyone pulling together and supporting each other.)
There's no such thing as "involuntarily celibate", it's just another BS term in the fanfiction-as-science narrative of the typical hacks. I've seen men on Twitter who are literally married with children get called incels, just for having the wrong political opinions or even criticizing a crappy Marvel movie!
Anyone can get a girlfriend if they lower their standards enough, so in the end it's their choice, so it cannot be involuntary. The only way someone could be an incel is if they got thrown in prison and have no way to actually meet women, or other examples like this
> The only way someone could be an incel is if they got thrown in prison and have no way to actually meet women, or other examples like this
Like spending their formative years in nerd/tech bubbles with no girls around, you mean?
I agree that technically very few people are "involuntarily" celibate, but one does not have to strain hard to imagine a situation where somebody might find it very hard to find a compatible partner.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 208 ms ] threadSomeone needs to brush up on their ho3_m4th
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4aMiAesXjE
The paper’s point is it’s an imagined contract. Being a somewhat-attractive, middlingly-wealthy man child was never a path to reproduction.
what has changed is the percentage of ppl living in big metropolitan regions where competition is higher and interactions plentiful and hence shallow making it more difficult to bond.
Small-town shop owner working sunup to sundown isn't a manchild, they're a hard-working professional. To my impression, this doesn't describe incels. Take their personality a few centuries back and you have the decent-looking but insufferable child whose parents can't merely be somewhat wealthy to overcome his misgivings.
Part of the problem is "the 1960s," a cultural waypoint for America, "were an exceptional period with respect to marriage behavior" [1]. In fact, between 1870 and 1960, we were at much higher fractions of the 45 to 54 age bracket of men who had never been married. Selection pressure was higher a century ago, not lower.
[1] https://users.pop.umn.edu/~ruggl001/Articles/Fitch_and_Ruggl...
Jane Austen's men were rich bachelors, often coming to the country from London, often written as charming for being open to women of a lower (upper class) standing. They were the opposite of incels.
Yes and often not rich and often not charming. One of the key points of her writing was to contrast these characters in a context where women had very high stakes (not marrying did not end well for most women, including her) and limited options.
Also: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-roman...
Also, your dating profile is completely impersonal. It list your hobbies, your like, dislike, etc. All these pale in comparison to just meeting people in person and maybe making social connections.
Ergo I think A) incels are partly or mostly a creation of the way swipe based dating apps has changed mate selection behavior and B) efforts by psychologists to emphasize that looks don't matter to women as much as incels think they do based upon surveys are badly missing the point.
I ma going to read the study to find out :D
If you had those traits during a winter in 10,000 BC, from the moment you started complaining about the cold, and being pessimistic about the upcoming mammoth hunt, and such... the tribe would not be as tolerant as our modern society.
Without being high on neuroticism etc.
And than they became stuck
EDIT: So just to clarify since I think there's a disconnect between what I was saying and what people are hearing, I was talking about myself here. And I am a dude. People are complicated and our brains can go into a tailspin for lots of reasons. Like k8s only less complex and with less YAML.
Do you think there is a difference between men and women in these situations?
I do belive that most are 'just' normal humans who haven't gotten the proper feedback system in their lives which also implies that the incel crisis is not necessarily a mental health issue but a social issue.
It doesnt' make it easier of course if people with borderline personality disorder and others are also affected and potentially also take over those type of groups in a form or push them in particular directions.
probably both plus a bit of overrepresentation due to (social) media economics
For example people with ADHD would probably be better hunter-gatherers than they are programmers. Neuroticism might be useful if you live in constant life-threatening situations.
Classic suifuel in the second sentence already.
In fact I don't think I've ever seen that happen in real life.
It happens on the internet because it's easier for losers to pretend to be virtuous, better, and so on. Which might lead to that perception.
No, it's not. If you applied this logic, you would just go around telling fat people that they're fat. Do you think that's actually helpful and "the greatest gift" you can give to a fellow man?
Honestly, what a delusional and out of touch response. I pity you if that's what your childhood role models taught you.
This isn't pointing out an error in thinking, this is stating a fact. A fat person most likely already knows that they're fat, so doing this again is redundant; a statement like "you're fat" is also usually emotionally loaded, turning this into a weapon of verbal aggression.
Are you sure that I am the one being delusional here?
You don't get a free pass or a nudge and a wink on your misogyny just because you're the same gender as me.
Yes, it's horrible to hate women, but this isn't some random things people decided to just one day do. There's a history behind it.
To give an example: capital punishment.
In practice this is an interesting problem to tackle though. One can completely denounce and shame people for their actions or ideologies, while at the same time showing some sympathy/empathy in wanting to address the root causes of why those people are like they are.
Women who choose to not have sex with men who choose to hate them are doing humanity a service.
NBA teams are NOT denying starter positions to paraplegics "because the paraplegics choose to hate basketball".
I was lucky when I was young and spent time with basically 'hippies anarchists' who completely destroyed my false ideas about women, sex, and my own worth. I could have ended as an incel too.
Note well: I am not denying that "there's a history behind it". I am not denying that they were dealt a bad hand. What I am saying is that your post goes too far the other way. It denies incels their agency. They are still responsible what they choose to do with the hand they were dealt.
One can sympathize with them for the bad hand they were dealt, and still not give them a free pass for misogyny.
One can sympathize with them for the bad hand they were dealt, and still not give them a free pass for misogyny.
I am not giving them a free pass for misogyny.
> the word "incel" is short for involuntary celibate
....
It's possible to choose to not hate women, you know. Nobody forced you to, and you don't have to get somebody else's consent to not be a misogynist. And as you know, the term "incel" does not just exist in a vacuum and literally mean the combination of the words "involuntary" and "celibate", it refers to a particular well defined subculture:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel
>The subculture is often characterized by deep resentment, hatred, hostility, sexual objectification, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity and self-loathing, racism, a sense of entitlement to sex, blaming of women and the sexually successful for their situation (which is often seen as predetermined due to biological determinism, evolutionary genetics or a rigged game), a sense of futility and nihilism, rape culture, and the endorsement of sexual and nonsexual violence against women and sexually active people.[9][24] Incel communities have been increasingly criticized by scholars, government officials, and others for their misogyny, the endorsement and encouragement of violence, and extremism.[25] Over time the subculture has become associated with extremism and terrorism, and since 2014 there have been multiple mass killings mostly in North America perpetrated by self-identified incels, as well as other instances of violence or attempted violence.
So no, it's not a bad-faith assumption or projection. Is it a bad faith assumption on my part that you carry the water for incels by intellectually dishonestly quoting me out of context and refusing to post under your own account and real name, because you consider yourself to be an incel? Your incel misogyny is a bad faith assumption about women and a voluntary choice that you make.
Maybe if you stopped putting so much energy into feeling sorry for yourself and trying so hard to play the victim and blaming women for your lack of sex, you'd realize that your voluntary misogyny is getting in the way of you ever getting laid, and it's YOU, not women, who are you own worst enemy.
Women who hate men, and therefore have limited/no positive romantic experiences with men, also receive a lot of hatred all over the internet (I'm not sure why you think they don't, but it is exceedingly common). And so misandry begets further misandry, just as misogyny begets further misogyny.
Unfortunately, there really is no good solution for it: People are not obligated to like people who hate them or who hate people they care about. And people who are not liked experience depression and loneliness, which anger and hatred are common symptom of. It's a serious Catch 22.
> The subculture is often characterized by [...].
Someone have to break the hostility cycle at some point.
The typical incel is the antithesis to that. Their misery is always someone elses fault, they don't take the perspective of the other side, they over-analyze, but always the others, never themselves.
The HN crowd dislikes that, because this is the worst pitfall somewhat intelligent people can fall in: misleading yourself with clever theories because it feels better than admiting fault. And we all know that pitfall and hate it when we eventually realize we did this to ourselves. The typical behaviour connected to incels is the embodiment of this fault. Being self-critical is hard, but it also benefits you in the long run.
And on the gender disparity: women tend to do this less (or at least without the public-facing self-pity) and most importantly don't tend to not kill people because of it.
Don't get me wrong, I wish every Incel the best. But at least to me this is a case of "I can't help you before you get serious about helping yourself" and that involves searching for your own faults, being self-critical and self-aware. The problem isn't that incels are not shown the door, the problem is they won't walk through it — and they can only walk through it themselves.
According to the paper, incels (like non-incel single men) mostly blame internal factors (i.e. their own deficiencies) for their lack of dating success.
That's very charitable. I find this a community of people that think very highly of themselves, and that outside of very narrow technical topics, is prone to speak with a lot of false authority of things they understand very little about.
"Those other people do it wrong. But not us, we do it right".
Now you could probably draw many connections between religous and/or poltical movements and the people they are attacking using that thought — but the details are left as an exercise to the reader.
I think it is a spectrum.
If one only searches for mistakes one has made or is making based on external feedback, it basically means, that one lets others (society, social group of people around the person) decide how one is going to live and behave. Some people just stick to their principles and when these go against what others expect, it does not necessarily mean, that they made a mistake. It just means, that they don't match with those other people. There does not necessarily have to be something wrong. Such principles can also self-exclude people from other groups of people.
For example: lets say one person is a non-smoker. They won't be around smokers much.
Or another one: Don't like dancing? Well, that person will likely not be with a partner, who is into dancing.
Many preferences and principles (or the lack of those) make a person and steer a person to have or not have contact with other groups of people. It can happen, that there are very few persons of other sex around them.
So I guess a balance of listening to external feedback and ones own convictions is probably key to be well liked by fellow human beings and yet not become externally controlled.
Imagine a architect, kicking a machine that will not fly. Add colorful curses.
The last time this happened, was when the people of the sovjiet union rebelled. And the western left leaning intelligentsia has held a grudge against the whole of eastern europe ever since. Chomsky comes to mind.
To some guys, maybe it means something different, but most people think of incel as... Yeah.
That community sucks people in and ruins lives.
* Main forum IIRC run by the same people that do a forum for help committing suicide.
* This site has the initials SS, which doesn't seem accidental. Attempting to convince someone not to do it is against the rules there.
* Women are called holes, toilets, roasties(meaning one who's vagina looks like roast beef), fesikhs (apparently a fermented fish product), and a lot of race specific ones.
* Elliot Rodger, a mass murderer, is often respected. To "Go ER" means to do similar abhorrent crimes.
* Religion, especially Judaism, is not well liked, however, hyper authoritarian extremist factions of some faiths often get some respect.
* Hitler is sometimes a crowd favorite.
* An activity known as rotting is a popular activity. It's what it sounds like. Just sitting and doing nothing. It's a miserable place.
* They actively try to spread their worldview, known as the blackpill, which causes such misery.
* Occasionally, you'll see people actively enjoying various means of making normies, especially women, uncomfortable. Including with poor hygiene.
* There is close to zero interesting content.
Some of the problems they face that got them into this are real, but I think there's got to be better things to do that join those nasty forums.
It doesn't work that way because that always requires two consenting adults. That entitlement is indicative of there being a severe misunderstanding of that.
But it turns out that is not even their main issue. They feel disadvantaged and victimized in every way possible and it all turned into misogyny. But "women" are just the scapegoat, not the actual root of the issues they are having.
At the same time, women have to deal with certain problems and face some adversity that is quite unimaginable to men. Almost all women I have discussed this with have had at least one encounter where a man in their workplace tried to make "advances" unrelated to work, often even by abusing a position of power. If so many men cannot comprehend that this is unprofessional behavior and not the right time and place that is something that should probably be addressed first.
Therefore, from this perspective, the attitude is to interpret those people as (in simplified terms) "people who don't get out".
Anyway, that was my mindset a decade ago and since then didn't have had any issues. Recently was on the dating market again and the first month I spent 80 hours into going up and talking to women and only got one date. ONE DATE! :')
I was rusty for sure.
Fast forward 2 months and I'm on Tinder, 5 matches per month.
Fast forward another 3 months, and now I'm having 150 matches per month (by thinking like a hacker, ever reverse engineered a binary or played hackthebox? Good! Use that mindset, reverse anything you can get your hands on, make Tinder a white box app - also, stay legal).
Fast forward another 2 months and I was having sex with a different woman once per week. I realized I didn't like it, I'm too much of a romantic. At one date, I met an amazingly cool and beautiful person and we really liked each other and we've been together for about a year now.
It's all skill training. And this was my second skill training loop (first time between 16 and 20). It still took 8 months and in the first months I was still laughably bad again (80 hours just to get one date, omg :') It cracked me up then and it cracks me up now).
It's funny how people think this is attached to your personality and stuff, it really isn't. The skill in dating is going up to people and being able to present yourself well. I was horrible at both. It takes a while to fix (and to refix after 5 years of a long-term relationship) when you're like me.
I think so.
I do feel very strongly about this. I feel a lot of pain from when I was young. I also feel a lot of love from after I was young and fixed this part in my life.
I can't help but embody both feelings. I normally don't mention it unless this topic is specifically addressed. In general, I feel quite calm. But yea, I can get quite intense.
Please don't do that, you're making women hate us because all they see is that they must constantly turn down people like you. You're behavior is part of the problem. Make some trusted friends of the opposite gender and seek dates within their peer group instead. (Well, "dating" is an anti-pattern anyway. Rather you should seek some clear-cut romantic interest from them as part of just hanging out, then asking them for a "date" is just a formality.)
I think the only thing one can say is that people need a strong yearning to figure it out if they have big issues with it. The second thing people need is a course in ethics + science. One needs to be able to evaluate the ethics proposed by whatever advice it is and think it through. And one needs to be able to verify/disprove claims in one way or another.
I also approach men, I approach dogs, I approach the world. When people don't like it, I back off. When people like it, I explore the interaction with them.
In terms of dating: many women that reject me tell me that they like my approach. I ask for feedback in many cases. I am respectful too. I hold my distance because I respect people. People say that nice guys finish last. I guess they've never thought about nice guys that have a wild side to them and are more hardcore than most bad boys will ever be. There are ways to be incredibly nice and respectful and still have that edge to you. That edge shines through. I don't even tease women as part of my attraction strategy :')
On being nice:
I think teasing/banter is a bit dysfunctional in many cases and not nice. I know I'm a bit extreme in this and many people think it's okay. I am a bit allergic to it. I'd rather just be playful. Instead of being "dominant" I'd rather be enthusiastic and curious. Instead of being "higher status" I'd rather just be immersed and enthralled by the magic of life and show people that magic that I experience as I want to experience theirs. Experiencing life feels artsy, I like people who enjoy that and that's enough for attraction. Having zest for life means having zest for adventure. It means to have zest for the unknown that people are scared of. Suddenly some women realize that I have much more courage than most people (true or not, that is how it comes across) and are attracted to it.
That's how you can be nice to everyone yet still get the attractive traits of a "bad boy". Be adventurous, be passionate, be imaginative and be playful. The only part I had to cultivate here was the adventurous part. I was already curious but scared. Curiosity + courage = adventure!
Also, my dating strategy has been working for the past 10+ years. Here's a timeline.
16 - 21: getting the skill.
21 - 22: relationship 1
2 month period of approaching women
22 - 27: relationship 2
2 month period of approaching women
27 - 33: relationship 3
8 month period of approaching women & Tinder (I got really rusty)
Now I'm on relationship 4.
Also, the relationships get better and better. One can never be sure, but I believe this relationship is for life.
So all in all, I've been out there for a period of 12 months between relationships and in the past for 5 years as a teenager.
No woman has ever been hitting on me, so when I'm in a relationship, there's nothing going on with other women ever - not even flirting. I like it that way.
People have long forgotten me by now.
It makes people feel really good about themselves to step over members of the "other" group. We will never overcome our natural tendency to tribalism.
It's silly to expanding your potential dating option to million of complete strangers. Start building a network of maybe 300-400 individuals, some of which are potential partners. Some will simply be friends, teammates, etc.
Remember, dating is not an interview or a resume. You are not showing off how good you are with a bunch of impersonal details online like what school you went to, your favorites hobbies etc. Nobody cares about that. Meet people and see how they vibes with you.
This! In my experience, doing this helps against other phobias (xenophobia, homophobia etc.) as well...
You clearly have never heard the phrase quantity drives quality. You can’t be selective if nobody wants you, so casting a wider net gets you more fish. That’s true in anything whether it would be business, dating, etc. I don’t know why this is mind blowing to you.
I would argue that the causes are frequently multifactorial, with hating women being a bidirectional causal relationship. That is, failing to find a date, being dumped, or otherwise rejected may come before hating women. Once they start hating women, it becomes ever more difficult to find dates because they refuse to engage in activities for finding dates.
However, we must note that some men are misogynistic while still having a SO that are of the opposite gender, so clearly misogyny isn't a complete barrier against being in a relationship.
But I'm scared to think what would've happened if I would never have found those websites. I'm scared to think what would've happened if I gave up after 2 years of constant rejection (and I've seen this as a close friend quit, and now we're 14 years further along and he still has dating issues - he's finally fixing them). I'm scared to think if the advice would never land.
In any of these 3 stages, I think incels are coming into existence. And I know how I'd feel, because I remember how I felt when I was 16. I'd feel cheated out of life. I'd feel unheard. I'd feel worthless. I'd feel life is worthless. Maybe I'd feel differently as an adult, but the problem is that by that point you're growing into this form of suffering.
Other than incels, there are many people (men and women - it's not only men) who don't quite feel like that but feel somewhat close to that form of frustration and hopelessness.
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The yearning for romance is strong. Here are my two cents if you wanna improve your chances:
1. Volume * conversion. My conversion is low (1%), so I need high volume. If I want someone to find me attractive, I need to go up to and talk to 100 women with serious intent.
2. Attraction: use imaginative playfulness. If you love to imagine stuff, answer some serious questions with your imagination instead. Like if someone asks you "what do you do?" you can tell them "I'm the earth's therapist, and let me tell ya, it's not looking good." or "I teach alpaca's Japanese." or "I'm building a rollercoaster out of cheese for mice. It's the most friendly mouse trap known to mankind."
3. Vulnerability: dare to say where you'd like to go with her. Do this after you feel that the atmosphere/vibe between the two of you feels fun. At the end of a first date, if I want to kiss her, I ask. There's a lot of advice on "physical escalation". I've recently found (I was recently single again in a long time) that you don't need to "physically escalate". Two-thirds of the women I was on a date with and wanted to kiss, they wanted to kiss me back.
If you want to have a discussion about it, feel free to email me (in my profile). I've seen quite a few friends that are stuck and they are like me and really don't have to be stuck.
But then you didn't hate women - in fact, you managed to be funny and playful with them, in a way that translates quite well to the romance context. See the difference? This is where the incel goes off track.
But let me pose the problem back to you. Can you imagine how you'd act if you'd feel worthless?
When I feel and think that question through, I'm scared by the answer.
That's the key, it's the only two variables that matters. However, this is also the reason why it's hard for a lot of men to get a mate:
Number of interactions IRL is harder and harder to get with the cultural shift to online apps and the demonization of male appraoch and behavior ("sexual harassment", "male gaze", "toxic masculinity"). And voicing about being single is associated with negative traits such as being misogynistic to the point research paper are published...
Then regarding the conversion rate, when in the low single digit, it's rapidly hard to get motivated after facing dozens or hundreds of rejection.
It is but it is not as hard as one might think. One needs to double down on being respectful. Also, do note that this is more of a thing in the US than in Europe. It's also a thing in Europe, but the US is simply more extreme. But even in the US women were pretty chill. The biggest thing you need to simultaneously show (alongside attractive traits) is that you're reasonable and respectful.
I agree it's hard to get motivated. I've had the good fortune that I worked on this when I was young. So even when I get rejected a lot if I'd be dating right now (2 years ago was the last time), I'd still carry on.
I think people in general look at rejection the wrong way. Rejection should be observed ("oh this person doesn't want this, alright"), not interpreted ("I knew it, I suck and am unattractive, duh!").
> ...we compared a sample (n = 151) of self-identified male incels...
That doesn't make sense, then it's voluntary.
For me several years passed between thinking 'I would like to lose my virginity' and said event happening. Should anybody feel sorry for me? No. But I can empathize with some of the feelings that lead people down that path.
At the same time sexual satisfaction is strongly correlated with happiness (or depression) and both genders experience very different phenomena here.
Who forced you to be this way or did you choose that path?
If Gilmartin (who I think was the first to research the involutary celibate more formally) were more rigorous and/or if psychologists would have have extracted the good points and developed them, today we'd likely have a better (or at least, better prepared) society. Sadly, Gilmartin is partially reponsible for turning to the topic from something taboo-ish into a laughing stock.
It also seems that some people here don't know - modern acception of "incel" is, confusingly, more specific than "involuntary celibates"; it refers to an online, tendentially misogynistic, subculture of involuntary celibates.
If some readers here identify themselves with people with serious relationship disorders, seek a therapist - this disorder can be impossible to heal without professional services.
I think this is good advice.
If you feel part of the incel subculture, please take a moment to reflect what attracts you to these people and their explainations. Could it be that they offer you a story within which you don't have to question your own role in your misery? This lack of taking responsibility for ones own way in life is by the way one of the main reasons people tend to look down on incels.
The problem isn't you not finding a relationship. The problem is how you explain away your own responsibility within that. And it is the natural, lazy thing to fall for this: After all it feels more comfortable if you are not at fault, but everybody else. The only problem with this is, that it isn't the truth and it doesn't bring you any closer to finding joy in life.
Many incels may feel that they don't need therapy, because they have their incel peers. But that is really, really problematic. This is why therapy is a good advice. If you are part of such a hermetic group, getting outside help that gets to know you closer is a really good way of finding a way out. But the first step is admiting you have a problem and that the other people with the same problem are only giving you excuses to continue down that path, not solutions to get out of it.
I took a look at the community out of curiosity for a while and I noticed that the group is subdivided and lot of them do suggest taking responsibility for "Maxx-ing" (as they call it) while the others (the so called 'black' pilled, whom I think are a smaller subgroup) don't.
On a separate note: I think the western cult of personal responsibility also gets taken a bit too far sometimes and we need to be cognizant of this, because too often it encourages us to ignore real systemic (often highly profitable) issues. In this case, I think it's the toxic effect of swipe based dating apps and extreme market consolidation in the dating app market.
I agree totally. This is why I would say a incel needs help. But like with any mental trap, addiction, anxiety, obesity, etc. the first step towards getting better is aknowledging you got a problem and your current way of living does keep you from improving your situation.
And this acceptance can only come from the affected person themselves.
I feel like this is the most obvious answer and most in line with everyday experience.
There are so many men who are victims of a society that tells them to work hard. With enough hard work any man can look good and make money. "Kindness, intelligence, and humor" are not only not required, but often seen as weakness. There's some merit to thinking that way because when things get tough those traits aren't going to help you very much. The world is extremely favorable towards men that know how to be successful solo. This doesn't necessarily attract women though, especially not good women, so here we are.
Compounding this effect is that the latest generations of women are on the same path valuing the shallow things in life and only knowing how to work, but not live.
And I'm just like....
Forget all of that. Just step outside and go literally anywhere where families or couples go. Look around. Look at all these men who have partners! Most of these men are not exactly models and/or dripping with cash! Clearly it is possible. (I am one of these people...)
But you can't reason with incels, obviously. It's like trying to reason with somebody who has an eating disorder and thinks they're fat even though they're dangerously underweight. They are in a dark, damaged place and pointing to objective facts is not going to lead them out of that place.
Unless you are a female, or you have female friends explaining it to you, you have no idea what it's like to be a woman on a dating site. The deluge of dudes expressing interest is massive. You've got to narrow it down somehow. It's honestly kind of like when companies get hundreds of applicants for a single job. They have to cut down the pool somehow.
Also, what people are looking for on Tinder is not necessarily what they want in a longer term partner. A woman on Tinder looking for a fling might have some pretty specific physical attributes in mind. That is not representative of what that same woman might want to actually partner with. (Same is true for men, obviously)
It's easy to see why an incel, without somebody to explain a woman's perspective to him, could get completely the wrong idea.
One of the most common environments is poverty. Their parents tell them to work hard and everything else hopefully falls into place. In this environment they grew up never having good examples or knowing the kindness expected from them as adults. They were often surrounded by selfish people and had to look over their shoulder constantly. Their social value was based entirely on their looks, skills, and/or money. Really what else can you expect?
With this I also claim there is some merit to the idea that at least part of modern feminism really is just classist misandry rebranded for a new era.
I want to reiterate that this is beginning to affect women too. Absent any good examples of how to live better they react to the same situation by taking advantage of men with the same or worse self-esteem issues as themselves. These women are not happy. They care more about impressing their peers and the man is just an accessory.
I hope my explanations distinguish my perspective from the usual "red pill" nonsense. There's something here, but I'm just a dude so idk.
(As they say, things may not be one's fault but they are one's responsibility...)
I've had a decent number of female friends over the years while I know that there are all kinds of toxic people out there, I don't really see women acting this way in general especially as they progress into adulthood. Of course plenty of toxic counterexamples exist, I'm just talking about in general. I think that any time some kind of movement or thought paradigm gets traction, it's because there are some grains of truth there.I think a lot of men fall through the cracks in society in one way or another, and have trouble finding partners, and often it's not their "fault" per se, and I think those are some of the grains of truth here.
I don't agree with the "red pill" sort of conclusion, but I definitely think there's something there in terms of what they are experiencing.
> I feel like this is the most obvious answer and most in line with everyday experience.
People who fall in such far end of the spectrum are highly likely to have suffered abuse in their childhood, and as a consequence, they're not able to bond romantically with the opposite sex; under this model, superficial characteristics (beauty, wealthm etc.) are not the cause, they're just the easiest rationalization that they can find.
Actually, those traits will get you much further than brute force and ignorance. Humans are social. Treating your social group well will generally get you a lot further than not. (Other social groups is a debateable issue. But if you want to survive winter then you'll want everyone pulling together and supporting each other.)
Anyone can get a girlfriend if they lower their standards enough, so in the end it's their choice, so it cannot be involuntary. The only way someone could be an incel is if they got thrown in prison and have no way to actually meet women, or other examples like this
Like spending their formative years in nerd/tech bubbles with no girls around, you mean?
I agree that technically very few people are "involuntarily" celibate, but one does not have to strain hard to imagine a situation where somebody might find it very hard to find a compatible partner.
1. Incels and non-incels have a very similar views about women's preferences.
2. Incels have lower standards than non-incels.
I would like to see a study that measures incel and non-incel attractiveness to see if there is a big difference between populations.