I’m an ex incel myself, but I’ve been seeing a few users here exhibiting the tell tale signs. “I’m not attractive enough”, “I don’t socialize correctly”, “I’ll never find a woman” - all extremely unhealthy attitudes.
Personally I burned through many friendships and ruined a lot of chances with women because I was in the incel community. The community warped my view of women so much that I made it even harder to meet women, I became my own worst enemy. I lost friends because all I could think of was how horrible it was that they had girlfriends.
I have a friend who helped me out of it. She was the one who started calling out my bad behavior for what it was, and I started on the long uphill path out of it. I’m now married and stable for well over a decade, but I still think back to those days, and it depresses me seeing other people causing this themselves and not being aware of it.
So, Lemmy, for those who have clawed out of it, what’s your story?
Men: Stop fixating on the need to “get a woman”. Procreation is not how to win at life. No one virtuous is keeping score like that. All that “alpha/omega” stuff is trash. Stop everything you’re doing, trying and striving for. Spend some time genuinely at rest, not fixating on sex or work or entertainment or fitness, and think about yourself.
Really examine the person that you are. Think about the good that you’ve done. Think about the harm that you’ve caused. Think of how you can nudge yourself towards being a better person; someone who is considerate to others feelings, someone who can help without expecting reciprocation. Start doing that stuff. Your reward for this work is inner peace, not babes and money and success.
Self-reflection leaning towards kindness, forgiveness and genuine curiosity about yourself is the key to being the best you that you can be.
It will take a long time. When you get frustrated, ask yourself what kind of reward you’re expecting. If that reward is anything besides “being a happier, more satisfied me”, work on refocusing yourself.
Living like this will catch people’s attention. A word of warning: some will be emotional vampires who want to take advantage of you, and you’ll unfortunately have to live through a few relationships with those before you recognize them. But other people, more well-adjusted folks, will notice as well. Those are the kinds of people who can become life-long friends. And, in my experience, that’s where loving relationships start.
Who knows? You might uncover some really important things about yourself along the way that you never realized were there before.
Well said, thank you.
Self reflection can be a hard road. It’s not easy to admit that you aren’t the person you think you are, or worse that people think of you differently than you think they should - but if you embrace that and tackle it head on, truly wanting to be better, you can end up in a much better place.
A pithy way to say this is: “chase girls and they’ll run away. Chase your dreams and the girls will chase you.”
Some people like just negated into that way of thinking. I’m anti social and aware that I’m not a good person. That doesn’t mean that I wanna change. There’s a lot of way more awful and disgusting people out there getting laid, why not me?
The fact of life is that some people are just cursed to be alone.