When you spend the bulk of your time socializing online, it is to be expected that over time you will find yourself in your own echo chamber. It’s natural to prefer talking to people who agree with you. I’m certainly guilty of that. I’d much rather talk to people who share my interests as well as my politics and/or spiritual beliefs.
It’s very important to lift your head up and look about you every once in a while, though. Get a fresh perspective. See what’s really happening around you. Replace rumors with life experience. Without that occasional reset, those echoes can get so loud after a while that you can’t even hear that little voice inside your head that is in charge of critical thinking.
Conspiracy theories seem credible when all the people around you are parroting them. It’s easy to buy into these crazy concepts because we are taught in this country to believe that majority rules. From within your comfortable, isolated echo chamber, you fail to realize that the “majority” in question is just a minor tassel on the lunatic fringe that only seems like the status quo to you because they’re the only people you talk to anymore.
I believe that the group most vulnerable to extreme beliefs are young, isolated men. (And at my age I consider men under 35 to be young. ) Many of them feel that they are outcasts. They have lost hope. And if they manage to survive while unemployed, it’s even worse because they have even more time on their hands to echo away. The kind of loneliness and depression they are experiencing is akin to physical pain, so they can’t be blamed for seeking relief anywhere they can find it.
Unfortunately, if they lack social skills, the only groups that appear to welcome them are those who are in desperate need of bodies or more voices to make echoes in their chambers of hate.
If not for these desperate young men, there would be no way for white supremacists or vigilante groups to sustain themselves. There would be no fresh blood for gangs, no cannon fodder for wars, and a complete lack of suicide bombers and mass shooters. As they sink ever deeper into cyberspace, they drift further and further away from reality. I pity these young men who are so clearly in pain, but they also terrify and confuse me.
So, when I came across a self-described incel, I couldn’t resist asking questions and offering up some of my seemingly endless supply of opinions. For those who haven’t encountered incels, the Oxford English Dictionary describes them as follows:
“A member of an online community of young men who consider themselves unable to attract women sexually, typically associated with views that are hostile towards women and men who are sexually active.”
I knew that I wasn’t going to change this guy’s mind, but I was hoping to gain a little insight. In the process, maybe I could plant a seed of rationality. Perhaps that would wake up his critical thinking just a tiny bit.
And yes, I stumbled across him online. I can’t imagine that anyone would have the courage to spout these beliefs straight to any woman’s face. In fact, even online, he chose to remain anonymous. That gives me hope that on some level he knows his thinking is wrong. I hope he gets older and wiser at some point, but we’ll never know.
What follows are key excerpts from our conversation. I’ve changed a few things to allow him to continue being anonymous. I also couldn’t resist cleaning up some of his grammar and spelling. Be advised, though, that some of this discussion may be triggering. Proceed with caution.
Incel: “Is it wrong that I still feel like an incel, and will forever feel like one for the rest of my life, because I didn’t have a girlfriend until later than normal? I didn’t really have a breakthrough in my dating life until I was 29, that was when I finally got into a relationship, which only lasted a couple of months. My first long-term relationship was at 33.
“Because of my late start, I feel forever depressed and sad, bitter and angry, resentful because of my wasted youth. I feel like I’m 10 to 15 years behind the average typical person when it comes to dating, relationships, and sexual experience.
“It causes me to envy and feel very jealous and resentful towards couples that are younger than I am. I’m sure I share this mindset with a lot of guys, men out there who had a late start. They feel that if they were born as women, they more than likely would not have been single that long. Many men feel that women have an easier time than men do getting into a relationship, since men have always been expected to do the pursuing and be the initiators, make the first move, court women, approach them, etc.
“I get angry and upset whenever people say there is no age cap on love or dating. They say that when it comes to relationships it’s never too late. But some things in life are meant to be more fun, more enjoyable, when you are younger.”
Me: “If your assumptions about women having an easier time of it are true, though, it’s probably because, in my experience, men are more focused on getting laid, whereas women are looking for substantive relationships. One night stands are rarely conducive to bonding and forming relationships.
“Sure, there’s always going to be some man that’s willing to be with a woman, but that doesn’t mean that they’re going to love her or treat her well. It’s not a competition or a race. And it isn’t reflective of your manhood in any way. Loneliness is just the human condition, and if you think that everyone in a relationship is happy and content you’re mistaken. I’ve been more lonely inside of relationships than I’ve ever been outside of them.
“If you do want to improve your odds though, focus on becoming the best version of yourself, because if you’re presenting all this bitterness, resentment, and anger at the world, and trying to find someone to blame for something they have no control over either, then no offense, but you’re not going to be the most sought after partner. Life is too short to be around anger and hatred. You wouldn’t want that in a partner, would you? Would you want to be with somebody that demonstrably already resents you without even having met you?
“Don’t give up on yourself. I’m not giving up on you. But try to be the kind of person that you would enjoy being around. And once you’ve mastered that, then go to the places where you’ll find the kind of people that you want to be around, and say, ‘Here I am.’ Not everyone is going to like you, but you have to make an effort to find people that do.
I hope things turn around for you. I know this is really important for you, or you wouldn’t be so frustrated. We’re all caught in a screwed up system. Looking for blame isn’t going to help you in that. And stay away from those incel groups. All they’ll do is make you angry and more hate-filled. After commiserating with incels, do you walk away feeling like a happier and better person? I suspect the answer is no, or you wouldn’t feel the need to be posting anonymously that you’re an incel. You’re better than that. I wish you well, I really do.
Incel: “I assume you had boyfriends, like, 30 years earlier.”
Me: “Define boyfriend. There were plenty of people that were willing to use my body if I let them, but not people that cared about me as a person. But I’m assuming based on your response that you are only focused on a body part. That overlooks the fact that being used is not very fulfilling and it’s not like being used was some sort of privilege that I was afforded.
“My whole point is that if you’re looking for an emotional connection, you can’t come at people with hate and resentment. But if all you’re looking for is a hookup, then I don’t blame people for not being interested in that. You can always pay for it if that’s all you want. Who’s going to want to be intimate with somebody who clearly doesn’t like them in the first place?
“This will sound harsh, but it sounds like you think you were punished and deprived of something that you deserved to get, when in fact you have to put in the work to have intimacy be something that someone is happy to share with you. I don’t know where this attitude comes from where you think that you are entitled to somebody else’s body part, and that you have a right to be pissed off at someone who doesn’t hand it over to you.”
Incel: “I feel like it’s a permanent wound or scar, not having gotten to date or not having gotten to experience being in love while very young.
Me: “Actually, that is something I can understand. I wanted to be in love when I was young, too. I think we all did. Very few of us wound up with a high school sweetheart. Unfortunately, if you take your disappointment to the extreme of being an incel, the disconnect begins when you get into that echo chamber of thinking that girls who were “with” someone are a) automatically happy, b) always being loved and treated well instead of just being used, c) are therefore in an enviable position, and d) that somehow means that all women are to be resented for not having included you in this fantasy romantic world that you assume you’re entitled to.
“Trust me, that world doesn’t exist. And if you want to seek love as (I hope) a more rational, reasonable adult, then I’m telling you, set aside the anger, hate, and resentment, because none of us are in control. No one is going to be able to love someone who resents them for something they did not personally do to them. Women aren’t walking around purposefully withholding the keys to the kingdom from you out of some sense of conspiratorial spite.”
Incel: “You, as a woman, have the luxury of not being expected to be the confident, assertive one.”
Me: “And you, as a man, can be fairly certain you aren’t going to be used for your body and then cast off like an old shoe. So I’m thinking we’re even. And even if this messed up social construct that we find ourselves in is all but impossible to navigate, it’s no excuse to hate an entire gender. We are all trapped in the same system.”
_______________
And that’s where the conversation ended. Am I crazy, dear reader? Or did this incel actually resent the fact that no one was offering up their genitals on a silver platter simply because he existed? Sheesh.
Feeling sad when you get rejected is understandable. But feeling angry because you feel deprived of what you think should be rightfully yours is something else again. It enters the realm of toxic entitlement and mental illness. Especially when you direct that anger at 51 percent of the population, most of whom you will never even encounter.
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