this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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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?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I was like that for a long time. I think I solved my problem by mostly thinking about my situation and the reasons for it and managed to separate fact from fiction. Something that also played a role was to - for a while - literally giving up. For a while I thought I would stay alone forever. For a while I was able to relax a little and not be that desparate, stressed guy who thought his time was running out. Who had to always think about opportunities to meet someone. I could just be myself. Desparation isn't a very attractive trait. I realized that there actually where quite a few women who seemed to show interest in me, but I never was able to see it, because I felt so beneath them. Them showing interest in me was unbelievable. In times where I didn't try to desparately meet women or get them to be interested in me I was much better at talking and being interested.

I think I was lucky in having a rather rational way of thinking about problems. That's how i was able to understand myself and find a way out of this whole. What were the things that (I think) got me out of it:

  • I was able to think of women as just other humans.
  • They are not automatically miles above me and i would have to hope to get their attention out of luck
  • They sometimes are as desparate or unsure of themselves as I was. They were actually pretty glad if I was showing interest in them (previously I never dared to talk to them just for the sake of it, because I feared they would be annoyed as they would always be talked to by idiots like me).
  • I remembered something someone said to me as a teenager: " You will make 10 times as many friends in the time you try to get people to be interested in you If you instead show interest in other people". I realized that for a long while I had the mindset of "please pick me!" when i thought about women. I was the low being who would have to hope to be chosen. I was thinking about wearing interesting shirts, or doing interesting things so that someone of the "upper class" would find me worthy enough and talk to me. Only late in life I realized that other people - especially women - weren't some higher level being - some mythical alien creatures. They were a lot like myself, yearning to be recognized by other human beings. And that I wasn't that low as well and a lot of other people - especially ( again:) women - were quite happy if I showed interest in them. So for anyone reading this: It might be strange to ask other people their name or from where they are, what they do, what they like. what problems they have. But after a while your thinking changes. Then you might actually genuinely be interested in them. And a lot of them greatly appreaciates it. So: try to be for other people what you want them to be to you. And don't only talk to people who you want to get into bed. Just expand your perspective. talk to people.

It's mostly just the mindset. If you're thinking your worthless and other people are unreachable, then your behavior will mirror this thinking.

Another thing: I am quite glad that when I had this phase in my life "incel" culture wasn't a thing. At least there were no dark corners in the Internet offering me easy explanations for my problems. I came from a strange place, believing that women where heavenly creatures miles above my sorry existence, so maybe not that typical incel-vibe, but I am still not 100% sure that these women-hating incel-idiots would have turned me against 50% of the population.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I met practically a femcel who's very sweet and we were very respectful with each other and clicked with one another which changed my view on women.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

How are people who hate each other based on their gender end up meeting & being respectful to each other?

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[–] BugleFingers 8 points 4 months ago

Not an Incel, usually I have great interactions with women IRL and it more often than not lead to dates and relationships. What I absolutely suck at is meeting people.

I'm currently desperately trying to figure out how to meet more people kinda in general. I have a solid friend group a mix of married, single, and in-relationship people but all our hobbies usually aren't conducive to meeting people. I've recently joined a 20s & 30s meet up group for random activities to hopefully meet some people and I've been trying to casually read or stuff in local places like Barnes and Nobel. It just feels hard to interact with strangers nowadays if there's no medium to start the conversation.

I've looked into volunteering but all the opportunities are during my work hours so that's out unfortunately. I'm an introvert so usually bars and the like are out of the question for me. Kinda just stuck. My life otherwise is actually in a pretty decent spot overall

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Not exactly answering the question here but I am wondering about whether or not this counts as inceldom.

So here's the deal with me. I am an ugly person who is only attracted to attractive women. I have tried dating women who were, for a lack of better term, "looks-matched". But even though we actually connected really well I just couldn't develop any romantic feelings for them because of their looks.

Now this has left me in a situation where I am certain I will never get a girlfriend. My beauty standards are just too high. But I do not blame women for this. It's perfectly reasonable for attractive people to want attractive partners. Hell, that's pretty much my standard as well when it comes to dating (except I'm not physically attractive). So whadaya gonna do?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

One thing you could try, if you haven't, is dating someone you connect with, and have a fun time with, even without "romantic spark". Attraction can be important in a relationship, but in a long term relationship spark often doesn't last anyway, and it's other things that actually keep people together. Getting along well, working well together, handling stress in complementary ways, etc, are all more valuable long term.

So just as an experiment you could try dating someone for something "long", but not actually that long in the grand scheme of things. Maybe 3 months, roughly one season. Even if you're not physically attracted to them, try dating them anyway. If it doesn't work, you haven't actually lost anything. Just a bit of time. And you will have officially "had a girlfriend", and gained some amount of relationship experience, even if it wasn't the best.

And if it just so happens that you're just not an "early term" guy, buf you're actually a pretty good "mid-term" guy, then that's great! Keep going! You haven't got a lot to lose, in a sense, so you're available for experimentation.

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[–] EuroNutellaMan 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Well I would say for a start that while you say you're ugly someone will think you're pretty. The thing is one of those people should be you. Anyways, I wouldn't call it inceldom, if anything just a mild lack of self-esteem, that's fixable, how depends on you tbh, I personally recommend going to the gym because it worked for me, even without much gains it helps a lot with confidence, especially if you compare yourseld only with your past self and not others. Of course it may or may not work for you. Once you figure out why you feel ugly and work through it, giving yourself time to adjust and not being too harsh on yourself while trying to still maintain some discipline, you will probably realize you aren't as ugly as you think you are and maybe one day find someone you like. Or not, well at least not for a while, but at least you'll be happy even if single

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

Unhealthy, sure. But those are really not incel signs at all, but rather those of people with little to no self-esteem or other issues like depression and / or anxiety, or some other more niche issues & views.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I think they're closely linked, one feeds the other. However incels never see these as solvable problems or things they should seek help on, but rather argue that there's no way they can solve them. This becomes a vicious cycle because by believing they can't change only makes things worse, making it even harder to pull themselves out

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

No. Incels don't really see themselves as the issue, but rather women. They shove the blame completely away from themselves.

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