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?
It seems like incels, or at least Tate-holes, treat every conversation as a challenge with the reward being sex.
Just be friends with people. Who fucking cares if you end up in a romantic relationship, allow yourself to form close intimate friendships that aren’t physical.
Awesome! I scored 6 conversation points, I can redeem my punch card for sex now!
Oh you didn’t hear about the pricing update… Sex costs 15 now, but you can redeem 6 for a hug if you ask nicely.
Perfect way to put it - this is how I’ve felt about Tate, etc, but couldn’t describe it. This is so spot on.
What if you don’t want to be friends with people though?
Any sexual relationship will rely on a foundation of some amount of friendship. A human connection, if you will. There’s a reason the terms are “fuckbuddy” and “friends with benefits” and not just “sex toy”
If you want a sex toy just go buy a sex toy from the shop
What about hookups though? I’d say there isn’t much human connection there, and certainly not friendship.
Realistically, in order to hook up you need the social skills that come from forming and maintaining human connections in order to not immediately make your perspective partner run for the hills the moment you open your mouth. Sure one might be able to get lucky in spite of a lack of any social experience, but that’s about as likely as winning it big in lottery
I thought you meant friendship with the sexual partner, not as a skill / attitude with anyone. Nevermind then
I mean, I kinda meant both. Because you have to be not-offputting to have a second hookup with someone, and by that point you’re already pretty much in a relationship of sorts. But to not be offputting you need some amount of social skills to begin with, so really its both.
But really I worded it the way I did because I can’t tell if the person I was responding to is trolling or not
Yea, really not wanting friends would be unusual but I figure out if that’s what you want, hookups are the only solution. If you have good looks enough and are not socially offputting.
Also, prostitutes. For this, you just need to not be socially offputting, and to have money.
Sorry I’m stuck overanalyzing solutions for a likely troll.
My father and mother weren’t friends.
Mine weren’t either. Unbearably miserable for everyone until they got divorced, then it was just regular miserable. Would not recommend.
A good relationship is founded on friendship in one way or another.
Can’t tell if trolling, quipping, or honestly asking…
I feel like some people who don’t want friends are often people with low self esteem who have decided their hypothetical future friends will abandon them, or not like them, or whatever, and so they convince themselves that they “don’t want that anyway” as a way of protecting themselves from future pain or embarrassment. In those cases, dating aside, the person should work on their self esteem.
If it’s not that, one could try casual hookup apps. These rely on a certain amount of work, and there’s no guarantee, especially if one lives in a less populated area, but it’s possible.
And the third option for someone who doesn’t want anything social and just wants sex, is sex work. This is exactly what it can be for! The only trouble is that in most places it’s illegal, which pushes it underground, making it both difficult to find and potentially dangerous… but this is the niche it’s meant to occupy.
But honestly… at least consider that it may be the first case, and see if you can search your feelings to figure out “why”.