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| She’s so smug, that Mona Lisa! |
Reading Love-shy.com, a forum for self-described incels (that is, the “involuntarily celibate”) and other “love-shy” guys, is a depressing experience. On the one hand, there are a lot of guys there who are genuinely hurting due to social awkwardness, depression, and other serious maladies that would be better treated by a psychiatrist and/or a good therapist than by talking to other equally miserable guys on an online forum.
And on the other hand, there is so much seething resentment among the regulars, not only of those women who have rejected them but women in general. The complaint is always the same: women only like “bad boys” and thugs, and refuse to date “nice guys.” That is, guys like those who post on Love-Shy.com.
In one recent, fairly typical, thread, an unhappy “nice guy” reports that a girl he had a crush on (and who, a year ago, had turned him down) is now pregnant:
And she lists herself as single [on Facebook], which means that she was knocked up by some loser. That could have been MY kid; instead, I’m left here wondering why she followed the stereotype, when I thought she was so different.
I swear, all women are the same. They ALL follow the same patterns. Even someone who considers themselves an outcast or eccentric themselves, they ALL follow the same patterns. Her boyfriends were always extremely good looking, too.
This is another example of a woman who is nerdy/geeky, and doesn’t like the nice guys. Pathetic, really pathetic.
So her crime is that … she is attracted to guys that she thinks are, er, attractive? Instead of a self-described “nice guy” who seems to think she has a duty to be attracted to him, and who is obsessive enough to still be nursing a grudge about her rejection of him a year earlier?
Others pipe up with their support:
This should be of no surprise to you. She clearly is a quasi-eugenicist that deemed your genes unworthy of propagation. She subsequently mated with another guy who had desirable genes so that she could have the best possible offspring. Classic eugenics, classic female hypergamy.
Yep. Women who are attracted to the attractive are “eugenicists,” essentially little Hitlers at heart. “Classic female hypergamy,” by the way, is basically a fancy way of suggesting that all women are essentially gold-diggers and/or alpha-dog seekers, going for men who are older and richer than they are or otherwise at the top of the heap. Get used to the term: MRAs, MGTOWs, and Incels use it constantly. (I should probably add it to my post on the lingo of the “manosphere.”)
Another commenter picks up on the “women are eugenicists” theme:
If a woman is ever talking to you and the words “nice” or “sweet” comes out of her mouth, you then know that she would rather see you hanging dead from a rope before dating/sleeping with you. She wouldn’t give you 2 dollars to save your life.
Women are not just turned off by nice, sweet guys. Women hate and despise them. They want them dead, they cannot stand undesirable genes.
A third puts it equally bluntly:
If you’re ugly, women want you to die of a horribly painful death, and she would LOVE to torture you so that you suffer as much as possible.
Still another pipes up with a story of being similarly “victimized” by his “oneitis” — that is, the girl he’s completely obsessed with:
She always says I’m a lovely sweet guy. We also have loads in common, in terms of values, interests, etc. Now I know these are all the kiss of death. Girls don’t really want these things (sweetness, kindness, loveliness). They want to spread the alpha male genes. … I am the victim of classic female hypergamy too. She’s with a doctor!
Meanwhile, another suggests that the OP is probably better off on his own, given that most women are lying, cheating whores:
you are used for attention whoring when the bad boy did all the fucking. Just get over asap man, can you imagine what would happen if she were your wife? More than likely she will cheat. Todays sad reality is if you are a shy, introverted guy you will always feel the threat of cheating even with your wife every fucking day of your life.
The only healthy thing in the whole thread? The OP reports that he’s deleted the pregnant ex-crush from his Facebook friends list.
You know what? Life is unfair. Love is tough. Some people are better looking than other people. How many guys want to be Don Draper, minus, perhaps, the constant boozing and fairly regular assholism? Probably every man who watches Mad Men, and then some. How many look like Don Draper? A tiny fraction of a percent of the former group. There’s a hilarious eposide of Between Two Ferns, Zach Galifianakis’ fake chat show, in which Zach confronts Jon Hamm, the actor who plays Don Draper, with the fact of his astounding handsomeness:
Zach: “Does it make you sick when you look in the mirror to see how handsome you are and to know that people are disfigured? And don’t you think you should think that?”
Jon: “I … I’ve really never thought of it that way.”
Zach: “You never thought, hey, uh, why is Jesus so cruel?”
Jon: “Well, I’ve thought that.”
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| How Incels see the world. |
So, yeah, some people have advantages in the world of love and sex. Attractive, outgoing, happy people generally fare better than unattractive, shy and unhappy people. (And it’s not like the guys on Love-shy.com are all unattractive — or that they have any great sympathy for women who aren’t hotties.) But even the beautiful people get their hearts broken sometimes. No one can simply have whoever they want. No one is entitled to have another person fall in love with them, or even just into bed. That is up to the other person.
Yes, there’s a difference between being rejected once in a while and being rejected all the time, or being simply so terrified by rejection you never even try to approach anyone. If you’re depressed, desperate, awkward and needy, as many of the “love-shy” seem to be, you’re going to repel most if not all of those you’re attracted to. This fucking sucks. But it’s life. The solution? Get some help, and get your shit together. Get your depression treated. (I’ve been on antidepressants for years; it’s changed my fucking life.) Get your social anxiety treated. Talk to therapists abut your issues. Get lots of exercise. See a sex surrogate if necessary. I’m not saying any of these things to be insulting. I’m saying them because they will actually help.
Some things you shouldn’t do? Embrace your (hopefully temporary) datelessness as a fucking IDENTITY. Spend all your time on a message board with others who’ve done the same thing. Cultivate your resentment of women for rejecting you, and receive validation from other guys for doing this. (Guess what? Just as most women can sniff out your desperation, they can also sniff out your resentment, and it’s not an attractive quality.)
Or, finally, to assume that things are oh-so-easy for women seeking love and sex. If you’re not aware of the problems women face in the world of dating, you’re just not paying attention. Are there women who are always (whether they like it or not) followed by a small herd of lovesick men? Yes. Are there women who are 30-year-old virgins? Yes to that as well. Love is tough, but demonizing the opposite sex isn’t good for anyone: you’re creating a perpetual resentment machine.
And it won’t get you laid.
Why is it that asshole incels are always people who are like “I couldn’t find a physically attractive girlfriend”? Why is *that* the hill you’ll die on re: standards– not kindness, intelligence, shared interests…?
Also, atheist blogs usually talk about anti-atheist bigotry and freedom of religion and science and finding meaning in a life without God and so on. I mean. It’s not like they sit around going “still don’t believe in God?” “Nope. You?” “Not a twinge.” “Steve, believe in God yet?” “Yes! Haha, just fooling.”
Don’t worry about the formatting. I don’t even know where to begin with that stuff.
Hmm. No, looking at my post as a whole, I don’t see the problem you are trying to highlight. Would it have made more sense to you if the portion you quoted had instead said:
“However, women TO WHOM, IN TURN, I FEEL ATTRACTION, weren’t and aren’t interested in me because of my looks/height […] I couldn’t do anything about the looks, the height, the apparently boring personality. I look the way I do.”
(addition in ALL CAPS) That’s what I meant. I thought the post, taken as a whole, made that pretty clear. My apologies if it did not.
i think the issue is we see too many assholes whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiining about how women don’t want to fuck them because women have these high standards and are hypergamous etc etc etc. they usually refer to some physical attribute that turns women off which is totes unfair. Women should see through that and love them for them.
Then they say, yeah but i want to fuck conventionally attractive and thin women. sorry, what was that about loving them for them? Nah i want them conventionally attractive and thin.
that was the point Cliff and i both took from your original post.
“kindness, intelligence, shared interests”
I have that with friends and family, male and female. I just didn’t want to have sex with them, however. (And I’m sure the feeling is mutual!)
I’m am atheist too, btw. (Or agnostic? I don’t know where they are drawing the line these days and don’t care to learn.) Speaking strictly for myself, it just seems awfully silly to go on and on about it.
Your lack of relationships is too boring to put on your blog…so you came over here and put it on our blog instead?
If you already knew it was boring, which it was, why did you think we would care? Because we don’t.
And are they voiced by the Beatles?
(Not that the vultures were, but they should have been.)
Let me put it this way: if you say “I only want to date women who look a certain way, and since I haven’t found any of those attracted to me, I don’t date,” that’s your choice. It’s your prerogative to turn people down for any reason you want.
But when you start sounding angry or resentful about this, when you start talking like you should have had a particular sort of woman attracted to you–that’s entitlement. Women have the same “can say no for any reason” rights as you do.
Most “incel” guys seem to have a biiiig hypocrisy problem with arguing women should love them just as they are, but setting all sorts of conditions before they’ll love a woman.
@BigMomma
Ah! I see the disconnect, I think. With regards to your first paragraph, maybe that is a problem at large, but not with me specifically. I could look in the mirror and in my billfold and see why women (to whom I’m attracted!) weren’t interested in me. Am I an asshole? Well, that’s a difficult one to answer. Assholes often don’t think they are assholes. That said, I don’t think I’m one. I have a kind and caring (and a little kooky) family and several longtime friends. My dogs like me. (Go me!) So…who knows.
As to your second paragraph, what can I say? When it comes to sex, men are attracted to conventionally attractive and thin women. Just the way it goes. “Loving them for them” is just fine and I’m all for it; friendships based on “loving them for them” are wonderful…but for it to enter the physical realm, for it to pass from “friendship” to “relationship,” then conventionally attractive is the way to go.
Bed!
Am I an asshole?
Hmm, let me think…
When it comes to sex, men are attracted to conventionally attractive and thin women.
…Yes. You’re an asshole.
Doo dee doot, leaving this here. Jumbofish and I made it. it’s INCEL BINGO!!!
http://imgur.com/nNX1d
How many did you get, jlw??
katz, i was laughing too hard to type after i read that last post from jlw. there was this gem too
the key phrase being in my billfold
I wish just once, just once, the “I’ll settle for any woman… unless she’s ugly or fat” routine would be “I’ll settle for any woman… unless she’s mean or ignorant.”
If all you care about is appearance, dude, you just need a picture of a woman. I can sell you some?
the key phrase being in my billfold
That’s where he keeps his mirror, you see.
Or maybe where he keeps the last woman he dated XD
or maybe it’s like the suitcase from Pulp Fiction?
i also have the theme tune from the Adamm’s Family going round in my head…”they’re creepy and they’re kooky”
Technically, this statement is true. It would, however, be more accurate if you followed it up with, “Men are also attracted to unconventionally attractive women, and overweight women, and morbidly obese women, and disabled women, and tall women, and short women, and old women, and young women, and women with no eyebrows, and women with false teeth, and, y’know, other men. And genderqueer people. And, for that matter, sheep, manatees, cartoon characters, buildings, and anthropomorphic lizards with boobs. There are billions of men in the world, who experience billions of varieties of attractions, which sure does make it stupid when one man tries to declare that his personal tastes apply to all men everywhere!”
Some of the best sex I’ve ever had has been with people who weren’t “conventionally attractive” – indeed, who weren’t even able-bodied. Hell, only a few hours ago I had mindblowing sex with someone very obviously overweight.
Not all of us have blinkers surgically glued to the sides of our heads.
I’m attracted to witty and highly intelligent women: what they look like is very much a secondary consideration. Not least because once I fall for them seriously, they invariably look gorgeous to me regardless of whether they’re unlikely to get a Vogue cover.
I dunno, I think that “men are attracted to kind, intelligent, happy people who share their interests and are passionate about what they love” is a better generalization. I mean, haven’t most people had the experience of meeting someone unattractive and then you discover, like, that they climbed Mount Everest and make witty jokes about Mars Curiosity and will hug you when you’re sad, and suddenly they’re the hottest shit around?
Also, dude, *someone* needs to explain all the fat women who read this very blog and still have happy relationships with men.
ozy, i totally agree with you on every single point.
i was telling Mr BigMomma about this and he was in stitches at the notion of conventionally attractive.
I look around all my friends who are in relationships and the unifying characteristics? it isn’t their looks and their weight…i think it’s respect, trust and genuinely fucking LIKING the other person.
Absolutely. For me, when it comes to genuine attraction, physical characteristics are some way down the list and often completely irrelevant. If I genuinely like someone, and sense that the feeling is mutual, I can’t imagine any physical issue that would get in the way.
I’ve had a girlfriend so thin that you could clearly make out the outline of her ribcage, and one with a BMI well into the 30s. I’ve had a lover whose obsessive workout regime had given her the well-toned body of someone a decade younger, but her successor was visibly disabled. In my twenties my serious girlfriends were aged 21, 35 and 42 when I met them, and we’re also talking multiple nationalities.
What they all had in common was a keen intelligence, a keener wit, and a personality that meant that I actually enjoyed their company all the time, not just when I was imagining what they looked like naked.
This has nothing to do with lowering one’s standards, just adopting more sensible and realistic ones – and that’s “realistic” not just in the sense of achieving short-term sexual goals but long-term relationship ones. Other than desperation and/or self-loathing, I genuinely can’t fathom why people have sex with people they don’t even like, let alone respect.
Holy cow! A barrage! I’ll have to go into shotgun mode:
Katz: “Your lack of relationships is too boring to put on your blog…so you came over here and put it on our blog instead? If you already knew it was boring, which it was, why did you think we would care? Because we don’t.”
Maybe, the confusion here stems from the definition of “blog.” I understand a blog to be a series of articles over a period of time, like a regular newspaper column. In contrast, a “one-off” is one article. So, typically, one doesn’t set up a blog to only have one post.
Also, as for “boring” – well, it seems to be anything but, judging by the freakish number of responses to a one-off on a post over a year-and-ahalf old. Several from you, I notice. This is suggestive that, just maybe, you care a bit. Tell you what: once this little thread plays out, you’ll never hear from me again.
Finally, here’s something I do that maybe will help: when I’m reading something that bores or upsets me, and it doesn’t have any offsetting benefit (like a math or Russian textbook I’m learning from), I stop reading.
Katz: “Yes. You’re an asshole.” (in response to my obervation that “When it comes to sex, men are attracted to conventionally attractive and thin women.”)
Guilty as charged, apparently! (*chuckle*) But…I’ll stand by my statement and believe it is self-evident.
Cliff: “But when you start sounding angry or resentful about this, when you start talking like you should have had a particular sort of woman attracted to you–that’s entitlement. Women have the same “can say no for any reason” rights as you do. Most “incel” guys seem to have a biiiig hypocrisy problem with arguing women should love them just as they are, but setting all sorts of conditions before they’ll love a woman.”
I agree with every word of this. I am absolutely, 100% not entitled to a conventionally attractive and thin women. Not now, not ever. Dave does a wonderful job blowing the doors off this awful, misogynistic entitlement mentality which poisons the minds of many in the so-called “manosphere.” That’s why this article by Dave really caught my eye. It’s just kind of straight talk my life didn’t have enough of at one point.
Kladle: (incel bingo link)
I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. Thanks. As for my card, I kind of suck at it. I only got (maybe) got: (1) “but I’m a nice guy” – I can understand that in my original post, my description of my life as a fairly productive, non-wacko may have come off as “I’m a nice guy” whining. Hopefully, the subsequent back-a-forth has cast a more realistic light. (2) “I just want any woman at all…wait, no uggos or fatties.” Compare that with “when it comes to a physical romantic relationship, I can only have one with a woman to which I am physically attracted and who is relatively kind, intelligent and has some shared interests with me. This would be a woman that is not unattractive or obese.
These statements, admittedly, sort of pair up w/r/t the physically attraction portion. (Hopefully mine is a bit less crude as it does not contain such slurs as “uggos” or “fatties.”).
The other barrel:
Cliff: “I wish just once, just once, the “I’ll settle for any woman… unless she’s ugly or fat” routine would be “I’ll settle for any woman… unless she’s mean or ignorant.” If all you care about is appearance, dude, you just need a picture of a woman. I can sell you some?
Well, that’s not all I care about. As mentioned, a measure of kindness, intelligence and shared interests is required. A relationship with only looks and not these is not a relationship, it’s either a ONS or a acquiantance-with-benefits arrangement. However, kindness, intelligence and shared interests without the physical attactive is a strictly-platonic friendship.
Katz: “the key phrase being in my billfold”
When I said “I could look…in my billfold and see why women…weren’t interested in me” I meant that I’m not rich, you randy thing you. 🙂 Seriously, my bad for being hard to follow. My point was that rich people, however unattractive they may be in other areas of life, always attract the (often very attractive) flies.
Polliwog: Here’s a puzzler. Take a 100 straight men (or women). Give them the option of having a physical relationship with any one of the following:
(a) An attractive and trim woman (man)
(b) An overweight woman (man)
(c) An obese woman (man)
(d) A disabled woman (man)
(e) An elderly woman (man)
(f) A cartoon
(g) A genderqueer person (I have no idea what that is, but, hey, toss it in there!)
(h) A sheep
Which option would you think would be most popular and why? While you ponder that, here’s an interesting article: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/ten-fake-profiles-one-okcupid-experiment-okcupid-on-trial/1405
Wetherby, Ozamandias42, BidMomma: (various comments about being attracted to, and finding happiness with, people not “conventionally attractive”)
In a word: awesome. I’m very happy for you. A cynic might say that’s assortive mating based on sexual market value plus ex post facto rationalization. But that’s just the cynics…
OK, back to work!
In which case the cynics are deluded idiots. Mind you, if they use phrases like “sexual market value”, that’s pretty much a given.
Do you really not see that endless rationalisation, post facto or otherwise, is part of the problem? I’m too busy actively enjoying my relationships to worry overmuch about whether they conform to someone else’s bullshit yardstick.