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?
Thank you for your honesty and your story. I can agree that’s one of the ways I got into it, I viewed myself as a catch and women had been conditioned to not want me, such a good person. The whole thing too, it’s their fault for not realizing that it should be a good person instead of a hot person.
Of course it never crossed my mind back then that they were with good people, and maybe I wasn’t as great as I thought I was. I’m still pudgy and I still am bit too sarcastic, but that doesn’t matter, my horrid views on women and myself did enough damage back then.
Also all great advice. “Nice” isn’t a personality. Nice is the bare minimum. You need to be a person, hobbies and geeky things are great. My wife and I started chatting because I talked about music I liked and lord of the rings lore. You are expected to be nice, it’s a personality trait, one part of your personality.