By David Futrelle
A polar vortex has descended across much of North America, meaning that many of the readers of this blog — and also me — have been feeling pretty chilly lately. So I thought I would brighten your day, and mine, by sharing some reflections on cross-gender friendships.
Oh sorry, I should add that these reflections all come from Reddit’s main incel subreddit, r/Braincels, so they may not actually brighten anyone’s day at all.
Here’s a dude who thinks all guys with female friends have some sort of cuckold fetish.
Here’s a guy who can’t tell the difference between a (cis) woman and a hole in the ground. (Well, a woman and a hole in a woman, anyway.)
No one tell this dude that men have holes, too.
Here’s a guy who says he doesn’t want any female friends because … Chad allegedly has sex with every woman he ever says “hi” to?
This guy reworks the famous line from “When Harry Met Sally” and manages to invent a brand new word in the process:
This dude, meanwhile, eschews female friends to protect himself from hearing endless talk about Chad’s sex life, somehow not realizing that anyone who hangs out on an incel forum hears more discussion of Chad’s (alleged) sex life than the friends of a woman simultaneously dating three guys literally named Chad.
And finally, there’s this guy, who warns his fellow incels that friendship with a woman is the equivalent of having a diet consisting of nothing but soy lattes:
Once again, I am stunned that these guys have trouble finding girlfriends.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies entirely on readers like you for its survival. If you appreciate our work, please send a few bucks our way! Thanks!
Conversely, if “dick” is not only all you have to offer but a summary of your identity, there’s your problem.
The most disturbing part of this is the idea of an independent and his cis male friend discussing philosophy.
Can you imagine being a fly in the wall? Sounds like the most painful experience of all time.
I don’t think these guys have any friends, from any gender identities.
So I don’t care much for gender stereotypes but I do find that my friendships with guys are really different from friendships with other women. Those friendships have helped me experience a different way of relating, and have made me a better and more complete person.
You may be right, Lainy. They obviously don’t have any female friends, and can they really trust that any guy is actually a friend? He may be Chad in disguise.
Here’s a Chinese T-shirt design that would be just perfect for these a-holes:
Incels having friends that discuss hobbies and philosophy doesn’t sound realistic though either. All they talk about is how women aren’t having sex with them but everyone else. But I guess that is their hobby
Also braincels is the new incel subreddit right? Has that been monitored at all? I’d assume reddit would have been more cautious to have anything related to incels on their site after the original one was gone
“Proud of being a cuck for a whore”?
Dude…do you even FRIEND, bro? I mean, WITH bros? Because if you do, are you a cuck for THEM, as well? Are they all gigolos because they have girlfriends, boyfriends, or just friend-friends, besides you? Because actually, being friends with a woman is no different from being friends with a man.
Unless, of course, you’re an incel, in which case any kind of relationship with any kind of person is a tangled mess of ass-pulled ideas impeding any kind of relationship at all.
Incel “logic” never ceases to befuddle me.
This is so not true. Every female attracted guy I’ve ever met that has a lot of partners does have lots of female friends. People tend to have sex with people that they find pleasant to be around. In general, people who are successful dating/sex wise tend to be personable and well liked, including well liked by people who just like them as friends.
I think the refusal to be friendly with women in a platonic way is the number one reason why some men have trouble finding girlfriends or sex partners. You meet a lot more potential partners if you hang out with groups of people that include the gender/s you’re attracted to. This seems just really obvious to me.
So, I guess *completely* out of the question would be, like, the concept of a man having women comrades-in-arms (I mean in the literal sense, as in men and women serving in the armed forces together in the same unit)….
hmmm….
I guess we here in Pavlov’s House live in another dimension or something? Like take the existence of Sister Pavlov for example. Sister Pavlov is not actually my biological sister but we served together many years ago and what started as a comrade-in-arms relationship became a very close friendship before we realized that basically the universe had essentially meant us to be brother and sister. Then when Ms. Pavlov’s House came along Sister Pavlov made Ms. Pavlov’s House her sister too.
So in incel-ese am I some specialized kind of cuck or something?
(And actually there are two Sisters Pavlov; the one above is younger Sister Pavlov. So with two man-woman friend relationships that became like family relationships it’s actually far worse. Am I man-ing wrong?)
@Susan
That’s really beautifully stated. Sometimes it’s just nice to reflect that all our friends in one way or another enrich our lives and be thankful.
On the silly side:
Reading this blog, and getting to know this incel (/other mysoginist) obsession with “Chad”, had led to the fact that, when I read a headline some time ago criticizing Netanyahu for being all chummy with Chad (which is… not a great place for democracy), my almost-immediate thought was “Oh sure, of course he’s hanging out with Chad!”.
I just wanted to share that.
Internations?
But what if I just like hanging out with her? You know, because she’s my friend and I enjoy her company.
Honestly, if the only thing women brought to the table was sex, I actually would go my own way. Why bother, if that’s all I’m getting out of it? If all I wanted was a piece of meat to rub up against, I could handle that myself.
I love that “what can a female friend offer that a male friend can’t?” line, as if this guy has either. I’ll do you one better, what can a male friend offer that a female friend can’t? What exactly do you think friends do, incel boy? Exactly what skills and services do you demand of them? All incels do is unintentionally reveal how sad and empty their lives are and why they are solely to blame. More than anything though, I think this reveals that they realize they can’t make pathetic excuses like “bone structure” for why they can’t get female friends, like they do with girlfriends, so they project about how they don’t want them anyway. If I was a repulsive entitled cretin like them who scared off half of the population of the world from being potential friends, I also wouldn’t have any friends right now and I’d also still be a virgin.
I love being told what my female friends talk to me about by people who have yet to talk to a woman.
Incels usually say that women are powerful pirahanas, taking what they like (and never wanting to take anything from incels, boo-hoo).
But this incel says that to be feminine is to be meek.
Which is it?
Oh wait, I’m asking incels to be consistent in their arguments. Not gonna happen, not ever.
Something. I’m betting that’s what incels discuss. It’s not philosophy because their only philosophy is Women bad. It’s not hobbies because their only hobby is Women bad. So it’s something.
Uh-oh. I just realized that something is Women bad.
@Lainy
My thoughts exactly…
And the self-enforced social isolation does not appear to be doing them any good at all.
@Kat, ambassador of the feminist government in exile:
From one ‘something’ to another, your comment made me smile.
Thank you, ambassador.
That will be all.
So, according to incels, a woman is just a blow up doll that can talk.
Yeah.
And incels talking about philosophy? You need education for that. And I’m pretty sure incels scoff at studying the humanities.
And the talking is considered a bug.
@jone (social justice cleric)
Aww, thanks.
When I was growing up, “getting your hole” was common Dublin slang for hooking up (you can hear it being used in the 90s film The Snapper, if you’ve ever seen it)
I went to an all-male secondary school, studied in a traditionally male-dominated discipline at third level (electronic engineering), and work in an industry (IT) whose track record on diversity has become a worldwide scandal. Add to that the fact that I’m a rather introverted person anyway who doesn’t do well in social situations, is overweight and so self-conscious about it that I’m paranoid about looming over people or giving off a creepy vibe and, well, you get the picture: I don’t have very many RL women friends. But the ones I do have, I appreciate the more. I want to wish on these assholes the very worst, but I can’t really do better than the miserable path to which they’ve already committed themselves. Enjoy your journey, fucknuggets. ?????
Yeah, the whole “discussing philosophy” thing is almost always bullshit; whenever I hear some fuckstain mention that they like to talk about philosophy, I read it as intelligence signaling…which is something that people who are actually intelligent don’t usually do. Also, smart people tend to understand the difference between intelligence and education.
…folks with a philosophy degree are exempted from this description, of course.
Not always, they aren’t. A not insignificant percentage got the degree solely in order to be even more insufferably pretentious.