If the incel’s dating strategy is to act disinterested and to only consider behaving like an actual human being after getting obvious signs from the other side, and if his ideal type is someone as introverted and passive as him, he’s got another thing coming. All signs point to what the people around him have been trying to convince him of the entire time - not just standing there but rather doing something.
But what are the inner mechanisms at work? That is, after all, the whole point of this series. What would a first-hand Socratic interview with a flesh-and-blood incel look like?
Why don’t you ask someone out?
I can’t think of any reason somebody would say yes.
Why wouldn’t they say yes?
I haven’t put any effort into making friends or establishing any social relevance.
Why do you think social relevance is important?
I’m not inherently attractive, so I have to make more of an effort to get on peoples’ good side and assert my case that I’m not a creep. Girls don’t date creeps.
Why would people think you’re a creep?
I’m a textbook loner. I don’t talk to people unless spoken to and avoid eye contact. Evolutionarily speaking, people are naturally skeptical of outliers and might associate them with violent, sociopathic tendencies; it makes sense to avoid these people.
Why don’t you try speaking to people and making eye contact?
I don’t have much practice, so I’ll be making a lot of mistakes in the process that might counter-intuitively push away people. Granted, those people weren’t going to connect with me from the get go, but apathy is better than disgust. Particularly with eye contact, I’ve noticed that a good 75% of people avert their gaze, so there must be something wrong with my natural face; maybe my stare is too intense? Granted, most people aren’t looking for a genuine human connection from someone they’ll never see again, but I’d chalk up 50% at most to this fact.
Why do you care about making mistakes and what other people think of you?
People already has a lot on their plate without having some weirdo flopping around like a newborn deer. The time for figuring out social skills has long past, and I’m not quite sure I can ever fully shake off these growing pains and assemble into society. Context is also important. Most of the people I see on a daily basis are students or coworkers whom I respect in some professional capacity, so any social blunder I make will make the rounds and tarnish my image. I never know when I’ll need someone’s help, so it’s in my best interest to maintain a good (or at least neutral) image. If there was a place I could go with people dedicated to finding dates, I’d probably give myself more permission to take risks.
Why don’t you seek out these places you talked about for finding dates?
In terms of online dating, I’m afraid I’ll be another one of the countless Reddit cases where sane, healthy, intelligent young men don’t match with anyone for a multitude of reasons unrelated to intrinsic merit but nevertheless have their egos plummet to the ground. In my current state, I don’t think I could stomach the idea of perpetual rejection and failure. In addition, only one out of his entire group of friends (which, granted, isn’t many) has had anything meaningful come out of online dating, with the other friends being further disillusioned. In general, the whole concept of speed dating which has become the standard in this age seems vapid and shallow. The romance narrative the liberal media pushes is that good friends with compatible personalities eventually become lovers, and that’s the only narrative I’ve bothered to entertain.
Why don’t you try blind dating?
While my brain acknowledges that I am not special and have a lot in common with everyone walking the streets, I do not feel this in my heart and instead feel like I’d waste people’s time that they could put into talking to someone that would actually support them in their life mission. I constantly feel like an alien with no hope of connecting to anyone around me.
Why do you think you know what people want?
I don’t, really, but I can make an educated guess based on observation. From what I’ve seen, everyone in a relationship at least loosely fits a character archetype of some mixture of emotional intelligence, humor, and attractiveness that I have always found unattainable or just plain undesirable.
Why do you compare yourself to others?
I try to avoid doing so professionally and socially, but the competitive aspect of dating virtually requires this mindset. Statistically speaking, there are so many people in the world, there’s several hundred at any given moment that would be happy in a relationship with you, which might sound like a positive, until you realize that the gift of choosing was evolutionarily given to the female (one ejaculation vs 9 months of gestation) and they have an incentive to box above their weight class and seek the best candidate they can get away with. You might dismiss this as textbook incel jargon, but the difference here is the lack of entitlement; women are completely in the right for seeking happiness and the onus of the battle falls on men to present their case, as it has been, is, and always will be.
Why wouldn’t you make anyone happy?
I’m struggling with basic human abilities - mainly showing affection - while a whopping majority of the competition isn’t. The kind of person that would consciously go for such a deficient man for any number of reasons (fixing them, saving them, making oneself feel better by putting them down and bolstering oneself up) is neither the kind of partner I want nor the kind of relationship that would be sustainable and fulfilling for both parties. Now that I think of it, this last point is quite ironic; I myself would totally date someone in hopes of fixing them, but the destructiveness of this basis is more clear when stated the other way around.
Why don’t you consider your physical attractiveness an asset?
While I’m grateful I don’t have any asymmetrical deformities or handicaps, I have to acquiesce to the fact that my current body doesn’t fit any archetype of attractiveness that is bolstered in the media - archetypes in the collective unconscious of women. I have no muscle, so that gets rid of the tank and cut aesthetic, and I have fat in all the wrong places, getting rid of the teddy bear or hiker aesthetic. Strength training is a must for me, then. There is no use in complaining about it; I just have to do it lol. Also, thanks to being a minority in the melting pot of America, I am perfectly average height for my race but below average for those around me. The only fix for that is moving to a place I become the majority in, or in lieu of that, focusing my efforts on these pockets of people that look like me. Ethnocentric of me, I know, but the numbers get a nice boost by being tastefully racist.
… et cetera, ad nauseum. Lucky for you, we don’t have to imagine a response:
You know what, you’re right. You will never find anybody. You will be alone for the rest of your life. I have never heard anybody with as many excuses as you, nor anyone more willing to die on a cross than you. One after the other, for every situation… You’ve very clearly thought this through, but take a step back for a second. What good has this done you? We’re at the same place we began two years ago. We’re going in circles; I know exactly what you’re going to say every session, and I know you’re not going to do a damn thing about it when I turn off my camera. I don’t know what to tell you.