The incel doesn’t think he has the emotional intelligence or ability to convince someone that he would be a good partner. He keeps assessing his current relationships with people for possible leads to follow, but never finds them, or for that matter, any indication that his situation will change any time soon. But of course, he can’t expect everyone around him to change in his favor; as long as he keep on being the same person and keeping the same thoughts, nothing will change.
For one, it’s dangerously easy to fall under the radar and never make a name for oneself in the grand dating map. That’s the incel’s default, and as long as he keep going back to his base instincts, he will never appear on the map.
What map is this? One of the incel’s close friends was once called out candidly (that is, having asked for advice) for not having an ounce of sexual desire anywhere in his face or body when he talked to girls. Since then, this friend has come a long way and definitely exudes what zoomers call “big dick energy”. But that’s just one person; what would a gradient look like? Well, the girls whom the incel unconsciously labels as unattainable or not worth the hassle to pursue (sour grapes much?) usually have a special aura around them, whereas those whom he thinks are accessible and within his rank (usually due to having the same deficits in appearance and/or personality as him) usually lack this little sparkle to them and visibly want nothing to do with dating or even relationships. There are exceptions to this trend, but in general, this means that anyone can adopt this title of “attractive”; it’s more of a state of being than a God-given asset. In any case, he loses either way; there’s a reason the worthwhile ones are out of his grasp and the… what’s a nice term… “not-for-him” ones are, funny enough, not looking for him in the first place (would you look at that). That begs the question, though: Which came first, the aura or the appearance?
At this point, the incel usually grumbles something about how annoying this all is.