My qualm with “working on yourself” advise is that it is too broad and non-specific, which I think makes a person even more confused. There are so many little details that a person may miss in relation to themselves. It requires a lot of introspection. But even then, even if the person does a lot of thinking, the conclusion may be wrong. For example, the guy does work out and believes he will attract girls; but if he doesn’t realise he’s got bad breath and got turned down for it, it could lead to the wrong conclusion for him that women in general are just mean, or whatever other wrong conclusion that the guy could draw from.
I’ve seen guys struggle with dating, even good looking ones, but most of the time it is because they struggle to figure out the finer details. However, the problem is that it is hard to broach the topic because it may offend the person. Each individuals are unique and as much as we are all unique in our own good way, it also applies that we are all uniquely flawed. We have to figure out the latter and rectify it without putting ourselves down. But even the process of rectifying one’s own self can be challenging, because introspection could lead to unhealthy conclusions and behaviours if not done in healthy manner.
I don’t know if it makes sense, but that’s just my two cents based from my personal experience and what I observed about others. I think many men are struggling because they don’t get specific enough advise. There is no “one size fits all” advise for men in dating and relationships (if there is, unfortunately the broad “one size fits all advise” are easily used for exploitation by those who could influence, as we saw with Andrew Tate and others). But as I mentioned, providing specific advise to individuals is a hard thing to broach.
Incels probably need industrial strength therapy, not grooming. The mindset that they world owes them a woman, and that it’s somehow women’s fault that they’re celibate, is deeply toxic
There are people with a similar woman-hating mindset who are successful at attracting women, which might make them happier, but not better.
Yep. “Work on yourself” sounds right but where’s the rest? Nobody has an answer except the far right who use that as an opening to groom them into the incel politics/culture war army. Usually the answer from everyone else is “figure it out yourself”. Because you’re supposed to be a big man. And men just figure shit out.
That’s a traditionalism that is still being upheld. Especially by left leaning. It’s not very progressive to uphold traditional gender stereotypes is it. These are guys that need help. And you tell them “work on yourself” in other words just figure it out bro. Oh, they figure alright. Figure right into the very thing you all hate so much.
As you said these topics are hard to broach. Why then does “clean your room” and “take a shower” come so easily from a certain type of person.
I think it’s important to consider who is on the other side of that conversation. If a woman rejects a guy, she does not owe him an explanation. She does not owe him “constructive criticism” and actionable things to work on because that is a monumental amount of emotional labor that is wholly unreasonable to demand of someone. This isn’t even getting into the issue that many women feel unsafe about rejecting certain types of guys because there’s a very reasonable fear that her “no” will just be ignored and she will become the target of assault or stalking.
Yes, someone needs to have serious, in-depth conversations with these young men, but the quiet part no one is saying is that that nebulous “someone” is implied to be the women that reject them. It is frankly disgusting to expect that emotional labor from someone who is explicitly trying to extract themselves from that relationship/interaction.
I concur. It’s also not helping that men don’t really get a lot of compliments, so they don’t know what they’re doing right. Plus certain people, like the creators of dating site or those awful PUA sites, trying to make a business from other people’s suffering. I mean, the general idea of getting neckbeards out of their comfort zones is laudable, but those parasites then took it way too far and turned to full-on exploitation and misogyny, cementing the status quo.
I used to know this pretty normal, likeable guy who used to be a real ladies’ man until his early 30s. Wondering what happened, he swallowed this whole PUA BS hook line and sinker, but things didn’t improve. What has changed about him, though, was that he had gotten a career and, while being quite successful and hoarding money big time, his free time was gone. He just wasn’t fun anymore. Also, he just didn’t look healthy anymore. And then we lost contact.
Social media is terrible for this too. Spend any time on tiktok or youtube and it will at least try to serve you some light “men today have it so hard and it’s women’s fault” content. I imagine that if you bite, the algorithm will ramp it up.
Disclaimer: I was never an Incel. I held no ill will against women, I always had many female friends. I’m politically active and call myself a feminist. Still, I didn’t ever have a romantic partnership and I suffered from it.
I am 29 years old. This year I started treating my chronic depression I never admitted I had and oh wonder I found a wonderful partner in a matter of months. Incel ideology is so fucked up. These guys seriously need help and support structures but they reject all that and hate half of humanity instead.
Well, noone ever showed them differently. And then, thanks to the internet, they get sucked into some circle-jerk of, at first, involuntaries, and then they get hyped against women. At least it isn’t their own fault anymore but the women’s. They feel better, and the circle did a fullturn and starts to drag them deeper.
It’s understandable. But ultimately makes it harder and harder for them to ever crawl out of that pit and work on the real issues.
Clearly you’re the one who lacks reading skills if you didn’t see that 1). The involuntary celibacy project was started by a woman, and 2). It was initially meant for lonely people struggling to find love. Any other meaning attached to the term is a matter of stereotype.
This is like saying feminism = misandrist because a lot of people that identify with the term hate men. Cmon man, do better.
Exactly. It’s funny how weird and distanced from reality the posts on 4chan are. As if 6 inches of height would make or break a relationship. My gf is ~5 inch taller than me and lifts more and guess what? She’s still devoted to me.
4chan proving it’s incel ground zero, those unfuckable virgins are a bane on society.
Maybe work on yourself and stop hating the world for your own problems.
My qualm with “working on yourself” advise is that it is too broad and non-specific, which I think makes a person even more confused. There are so many little details that a person may miss in relation to themselves. It requires a lot of introspection. But even then, even if the person does a lot of thinking, the conclusion may be wrong. For example, the guy does work out and believes he will attract girls; but if he doesn’t realise he’s got bad breath and got turned down for it, it could lead to the wrong conclusion for him that women in general are just mean, or whatever other wrong conclusion that the guy could draw from.
I’ve seen guys struggle with dating, even good looking ones, but most of the time it is because they struggle to figure out the finer details. However, the problem is that it is hard to broach the topic because it may offend the person. Each individuals are unique and as much as we are all unique in our own good way, it also applies that we are all uniquely flawed. We have to figure out the latter and rectify it without putting ourselves down. But even the process of rectifying one’s own self can be challenging, because introspection could lead to unhealthy conclusions and behaviours if not done in healthy manner.
I don’t know if it makes sense, but that’s just my two cents based from my personal experience and what I observed about others. I think many men are struggling because they don’t get specific enough advise. There is no “one size fits all” advise for men in dating and relationships (if there is, unfortunately the broad “one size fits all advise” are easily used for exploitation by those who could influence, as we saw with Andrew Tate and others). But as I mentioned, providing specific advise to individuals is a hard thing to broach.
Incels probably need industrial strength therapy, not grooming. The mindset that they world owes them a woman, and that it’s somehow women’s fault that they’re celibate, is deeply toxic
There are people with a similar woman-hating mindset who are successful at attracting women, which might make them happier, but not better.
I always took “work on yourself” to mean “go to therapy”. That’s always a good start.
Yep. “Work on yourself” sounds right but where’s the rest? Nobody has an answer except the far right who use that as an opening to groom them into the incel politics/culture war army. Usually the answer from everyone else is “figure it out yourself”. Because you’re supposed to be a big man. And men just figure shit out.
That’s a traditionalism that is still being upheld. Especially by left leaning. It’s not very progressive to uphold traditional gender stereotypes is it. These are guys that need help. And you tell them “work on yourself” in other words just figure it out bro. Oh, they figure alright. Figure right into the very thing you all hate so much.
As you said these topics are hard to broach. Why then does “clean your room” and “take a shower” come so easily from a certain type of person.
I think it’s important to consider who is on the other side of that conversation. If a woman rejects a guy, she does not owe him an explanation. She does not owe him “constructive criticism” and actionable things to work on because that is a monumental amount of emotional labor that is wholly unreasonable to demand of someone. This isn’t even getting into the issue that many women feel unsafe about rejecting certain types of guys because there’s a very reasonable fear that her “no” will just be ignored and she will become the target of assault or stalking.
Yes, someone needs to have serious, in-depth conversations with these young men, but the quiet part no one is saying is that that nebulous “someone” is implied to be the women that reject them. It is frankly disgusting to expect that emotional labor from someone who is explicitly trying to extract themselves from that relationship/interaction.
I concur. It’s also not helping that men don’t really get a lot of compliments, so they don’t know what they’re doing right. Plus certain people, like the creators of dating site or those awful PUA sites, trying to make a business from other people’s suffering. I mean, the general idea of getting neckbeards out of their comfort zones is laudable, but those parasites then took it way too far and turned to full-on exploitation and misogyny, cementing the status quo.
I used to know this pretty normal, likeable guy who used to be a real ladies’ man until his early 30s. Wondering what happened, he swallowed this whole PUA BS hook line and sinker, but things didn’t improve. What has changed about him, though, was that he had gotten a career and, while being quite successful and hoarding money big time, his free time was gone. He just wasn’t fun anymore. Also, he just didn’t look healthy anymore. And then we lost contact.
Social media is terrible for this too. Spend any time on tiktok or youtube and it will at least try to serve you some light “men today have it so hard and it’s women’s fault” content. I imagine that if you bite, the algorithm will ramp it up.
Disclaimer: I was never an Incel. I held no ill will against women, I always had many female friends. I’m politically active and call myself a feminist. Still, I didn’t ever have a romantic partnership and I suffered from it.
I am 29 years old. This year I started treating my chronic depression I never admitted I had and oh wonder I found a wonderful partner in a matter of months. Incel ideology is so fucked up. These guys seriously need help and support structures but they reject all that and hate half of humanity instead.
Well, noone ever showed them differently. And then, thanks to the internet, they get sucked into some circle-jerk of, at first, involuntaries, and then they get hyped against women. At least it isn’t their own fault anymore but the women’s. They feel better, and the circle did a fullturn and starts to drag them deeper.
It’s understandable. But ultimately makes it harder and harder for them to ever crawl out of that pit and work on the real issues.
Incel ≠ misogynist. Incel means involuntary celibate. We need more people to learn about this and stop equating those two terms
Incel refers to guys that turned misogynist because they’re involuntarily celibate.
No, but ok
Yes. You don’t get to redefine a word just because you don’t like it. Incel does and always did mean that.
Oh please. Using Wikipedia as a source while knowing entries are provided by individuals. Here’s all of Wiktionary’s definitions of the word:
A member of an online subculture of people (mostly men) who define themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one.
(rare) An individual who is not sexually active despite having such a desire.
(uncountable, seduction community, informal) “Involuntary celibacy”: the state of being not sexually active despite wishing to be.
Incel is not a gendered word. Even females can be incels.
Did you somehow miss the 239 references saying you’re wrong?
Clearly you’re the one who lacks reading skills if you didn’t see that 1). The involuntary celibacy project was started by a woman, and 2). It was initially meant for lonely people struggling to find love. Any other meaning attached to the term is a matter of stereotype.
This is like saying feminism = misandrist because a lot of people that identify with the term hate men. Cmon man, do better.
Exactly. It’s funny how weird and distanced from reality the posts on 4chan are. As if 6 inches of height would make or break a relationship. My gf is ~5 inch taller than me and lifts more and guess what? She’s still devoted to me.