The incel is convinced that taking stimulant medication while seeing someone would give him tunnel vision and make him get in his own way. That alone is giving him good reason to stay off his meds - peace of mind. In actuality, when he thinks about his state of mind when off his medication, he is amazed at how little he thinks about women. Sure, he has his favorites, but they don’t occupy as much brain time as women (or one or two in particular) do. His time in college is pretty uneventful in that aspect as well, with no one going down in the books as “the feared one” like in grade school.
Obsession isn’t fun for anyone involved. The idea of looking over at someone and “domination” being the first word to come to mind makes the incel sick. Nobody deserves to be mentally demeaned like that. His therapist likes to remind him that the incel can’t read minds, but the incel is certain that this kind of dynamic isn’t sustainable or healthy. Therefore, he must be doing the world good in suppressing his delusions and not entertaining them. But he has to be careful about how he frames this; never being good enough for anyone is devastating, but simply not being in the right head space at the present time is more forgivable. There’s still judgment in the term “right” so if he wants to be completely unbiased, he could say that he is perfectly fine but that he does not trust his social intuition to bridge the gap and build a meaningful relationship with the opposite sex. He isn’t broken; he just hasn’t built mannerisms conducive to having people confide in him.
Taking a step back, the incel doesn’t need to be perfect; he just needs to be better than the competition, and he gets to choose the game. Sometimes, like volunteer positions, there is no competition. But any time there is, there is always the desire to compare himself to the others. Sometimes, like for applying for a minimum wage job, all you need is a pulse. However, he doesn’t lose anything by shooting his shot at the higher paying gigs. Worst case scenario, he wastes the recruiter’s time and never hears from them again. Life goes on. But for some reason, he has convinced himself that intimate relationships are different, and that he has more to lose than to gain by boxing in a higher weight class (sometimes literally).
The incel remembers his severely autistic classmates and recalls vividly the cringe he feels watching those classmates reach out and try to connect, only to be shot down and launched back to square one. Granted, they don’t lose anything by trying, but they don’t get any better either after all that time. The incel however, as an outsider, sees the futility of his classmate’s actions and the nuisance they create for everyone around them. How does he know that he is not the same as them, or even worse? How ought someone find the extent of his boundaries while inflicting the least inconvenience possible? So far, he has had great success in reciprocating what people give to him and pushing boundaries with just the guys (completely cohesive with machismo culture, strangely enough), but taking that leap out of just being pleasant and seizing the chance with women seems so far away.
“Just strike up a conversation,” the incel settles on and adds to the bucket list. One step at a time.