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?
Oh god you’re talking about me aren’t you
I feel like I always had that “I don’t socialize correctly” vibes, always feeling like I’m out of context and weird and not cool.
But then I realized something.
Cool people are literally the same. They don’t do some special “cool” things, they just better fit the given community with their traits. I can be cool too, I just need a room of nerds!..and apparently YES, that’s all it took. Now I am cool in my circle, respected by my friends and they actually invite me to spend time with them and are happy when I can turn up. And I also have a girlfriend who adores me and is happy to spend every bit of time with me, too!
Also, all the culture, all the behaviors are all interconnected. You can absolutely have someone into national dances or writing books suddenly turn to hard rock and be completely integral with it! Behaviors, art forms, forms of expression constantly reappear in society, and a lot of what we see today we’ve seen centuries or millennia ago.
So whichever way you socialize, you are not doing it wrong. You are not weird or out of place - society always had people like you, society has them now, and your best bet is to find your people. You are not outdated or ahead of time - modern culture is not fundamentally different from anything that has been before or will be after. You are a real integral part of society, in whatever form you exist, and you create and form it.
If this helps: I’ve been married for decades and still feel like I’m not attractive and don’t socialize correctly.
I’ve recently lost a ton of weight (not for good reasons) and everyone I know is telling me how great I look and I still feel like I’m not attractive.
I think that’s just a common human thing, not necessarily an incel thing.