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?
Having good female friends can absolutely make a huge difference. I thought women were these nebulous things that I didn’t know how to talk to. Turns out they’re the exact same. There are some that like sports, there are others that like nerdy things. You can’t just put people into boxes and say “you are a woman so you are like X”. They’re just like men, with different traits, and you can be best friends with women even if there is no intention to ever sleep with them.
Hell some of my best friends were women, and after they uturned me about being an incel they started going to bat to help me out. “Hey we invited ____ along, we talked you up to them!”