It’s often observed that there’s a pipeline for a certain kind of lonely young man to find some right-wing personality who tells them that their lack of connection to other people and lack of romantic relationships isn’t their fault – it’s the fault of e.g. feminism, liberalism, leftism, postmodern neomarxism, whatever series of words they want – and then give them “pick up artist”-type advice on how to talk to women, usually in a very manipulative way that dehumanizes women.
I never participated in those communities because of the overt sexism, racism, homophobia, general right-wing beliefs, etc. But I do sometimes look at the people in those communities and think “There, but for the grace of god, go I.” On paper, I have a lot in common with “incels”, in that I’m 29 years old and have never had sex with another person, or been in a relationship, or even been on a capital-D Date.
(I’m going to be ranting a bit about myself here, and I realize that it’s generally boring to read men complaining about how lonely they are. Leaving aside for the moment the question of why this is so common that it’s become boring, I’ll try to avoid being too self-pitying and stick to information and questions I think will be interesting or relatable to other people besides myself.)
I think a lot of people make all their dating mistakes in high school, so that by the time they’re in their 20s, they’ve learned the basic dating scripts. I never learned that. I never even really got comfortable talking about sex and relationships – my parents didn’t talk to me about sex or dating, I never talked about it with my friends in high school, and I can’t think of anyone in my life who I would be comfortable contacting to say “I have a crush on <person>, what should I do?” I don’t have the vocabulary for it. I literally don’t know what to do when I am attracted to someone. I know a bunch of things NOT to do – e.g. obvious things like don’t harass them, don’t stalk them, don’t abuse or manipulate them. In other words, don’t be an asshole. Which is true enough as far as it goes, but those are just good rules on how I should treat EVERYONE, not specifically people I’m romantically interested in.
As far as positive actions I can take, the most I can figure is:
- Try to spend more time with that person, going on small outings at first (e.g. walks, coffee) to get to know them better.
- In general, take care of myself and my own life, on the reasoning that people are attracted to someone who has their life together. (Oh, and also because I’m a person who matters and my own health and happiness are important for their own sake, but whatever.)
- Put some more effort into my appearance – improving my clothing style, having some kind of skin care routine, and maybe getting a better haircut seem like good low-hanging fruit.
Okay, but this is still just generally good life advice outside of dating. It still seems like there are a lot of steps between “take basic care of myself and spend time with other humans” and actually getting into a relationship with someone. I’m fortunate enough to know lots of happy couples, but it’s like, I’ve never “watched” two people fall in love, you know? I have lots of models in my life of people who are good partners in an existing relationship, but that tells me nothing about the initial process of attracting someone. I don’t know what the process is supposed to be like. And I don’t want to rely too much on the fictional examples I’ve seen – it’s become a cliche to point out that movies and TV show very unrealistic depictions of how relationships develop. So that leaves me without any narratives to inform me. (Although, if anyone knows of any fictional examples of a developing relationship that they see as being healthy models, please let me know.)
I believe that my experiences are a bit unusual, but not that uncommon among men my age (and especially among men my age who use the internet a lot). It might be reasonable to ask why this is. And an online right-wing asshole would give an explanation that involves the top 10% of alpha males taking the top 50% of women for themselves, leaving omegas like me with nothing. Which is silly, but I wonder if this is one of the many cases where right-wingers have (a) correctly noticed that there is a problem that center-liberals have ignored, but (b) completely misdiagnosed it so they could put forward their own racist, sexist, just generally awful ideology.
So, with all that in mind, what I would really love to see is resources for dating advice that:
- Acknowledges that all people involved are humans deserving of respect. I really hate “seduction” advice, for any gender, that treats the person you’re attracted to as a “mark” or a “victim” or someone you need to manipulate or deceive. If I thought that were a necessary part of starting a relationship, I’d rather die alone than deliberately abuse another person for my own gain. But – as evidenced by the fact that I have friends who are in relationships and aren’t assholes – I don’t think it should have to come to that.
- Acknowledges that dating and attraction are complicated, non-obvious things that warrant explicit explanations. It’s a cliche that “Just be yourself” is bad advice, but alternatives like “Just spend time around other people and don’t be an asshole and eventually someone will fuck you” aren’t much better. I’m not sure if I would describe myself as autistic, but I have found that it is very helpful for me to have certain supposedly “common-sense” things about interacting with other people explicitly explained to me.
- Is specific to men, especially in a North American context. I’m sure there is some dating advice that applies to everyone, but the fact is, gender is (currently) something that has real effects on people’s experiences, so it would surprise me if, for something as intrinsically gender-related as dating and attraction, there’s not some good advice that’s specific to men who are attracted to women.
How come no one is talking about inflating your neck frill and hissing? It’s practically a silver bullet.
Might get a bit of heat for this one, but take the PUA/redpill advice but shave the misogyny off. The vast majority of it is just basic people skills, justified through a weird evo-psych perspective. I guarantee you you can rewrite the vast majority of PUA advice from a socialist/feminist lens.
Get in shape, get hobbies, and care about yourself? Yeah, decent advice. You don’t need a partner to complete you.
Put yourself out there, ask women out, and don’t take rejection too harshly? Good call. Women are people too, but regrettably societal roles dictate men do much of the approaching, so roll with it.
Don’t put any one woman on a pedestal? Sure. Women are only human, and no one likes an obsessive.
Clean your room? But of course. She’s not your mum.
Keep things light hearted and tease the other person every so often? Yup, that’s good shit. Everyone’s so fucked with the malaise of capitalism that no one wants difficulty in a relationship.
Be reliable and emotionally stable? Sounds good to me. Don’t make her responsible for your emotional well-being—all too often women are forced to perform emotional labour for their partners.
Don’t stick around in the friend zone expecting her to fuck you? Well duh. If you want to be friends with a woman, do so for it’s own sake, and if something more comes of it, that’s just a bonus. You’re not entitled to sex just because you give her the time of day.
Obviously there are some profoundly shitty takes and profoundly shitty advice within PUA, the evo-psych basis is flimsy as hell, and it’s all wrapped in a thin grime of misogyny. The reason it gets traction is that, on the whole, it provides semi-decent advice for confused young men.
P.S. I realize a lot of what I’ve talked about has been about starting a relationship. But I won’t lie, I wouldn’t be opposed to advice on initiating casual sex – don’t want to knock it 'til I’ve tried it, and again, this is an area where a lot of the advice I find seems very dehumanizing to the people involved.
Had a whole thing written out but thought better. In the same boat as you but a year younger. While it’s admirable you came to this comm it might be best to ask women directly on how to court or date.
Sometimes asking the women in your life can help, learned from my sister that if I like lady I shouldn’t be quiet around them because they will think I hate them. Or from my mom that if a lady likes me the date doesn’t have to be expensive just something to bond over would be good. For more advance like sex I usually read what women have to say on this. For as wild as the horny threads got I’m happy that I had the idea to ask our comrades here what they liked about x or y. This had to be the best thing from those threads, the empathy building in realizing women are also sexual. I know it’s basic but important in humanizing women, they aren’t from another planet but horny comrades in arms.
Point is if women say something then listen. This is what distinguishes us from the right, we realize we don’t know stuff and try to learn from those that do. Admittedly this is why I secretly wanted more horny threads because it gave me a chance to read and interact with comrades that were open to talk about this. Still know they are not a good idea since we have younger comrades here and the phrase the children are watching kills the mood hard. A sex comm might be good for asking questions kind of like that radio show loveline if you heard of it, except no mega lib or mega chud hosts.
The best advice I heard for casual sex in our situation is to head to fetlife and find women into taking virgins, read this advice from some dom ladies on a subreddit years ago. Another comrade hereinrobothell gave me the advice to try online munchies so as to learn how to vibe there. Also remember to set boundaries and go at your own pace, talk and communicate.
Sorry if mess but kept writing and rewriting. Good luck comrade.
I think you’re probably right that I need feedback from women specifically, and I can see how my original post makes it sound like I’m talking about women like they’re a separate species, as much as I may have tried to avoid it. I do interact with people, so of course there are women in my life (e.g. friends, classmates, coworkers, family members) that I’m capable of having conversations with about other topics. I’ve just never really had an honest discussion about my dating life or my sexuality with anyone in my life of any gender (well, maybe once with a therapist) and people don’t usually ask me about it.
It would probably be a good idea for me to cultivate friendships with the women I already know (partly to “humanize” them, but also because, frankly, it would be a good idea for me to cultivate any of my friendships at all) and to read stuff written by women about love and attraction and sex.
Didn’t mean to call you out or anything but glad I could help in some way. For me I guess this is the phrase of knowing something vs understanding something. Like we know women are human but to understand it takes work. Not our fault I’d say because of how alienating living under capitalism is but still something we have to work through. As long as we have our minds open, discard any preconceived notions, listen and learn we gonna be fine. I wish you luck and hope you wish me luck too comrade. Thank you for talking about this and reaching out, it can be scary being vulnerable but growth doesn’t come easy.
I mean im not tryna be antagonistic but i sorta disagree with most of it, especially the fetlife thing. One, that woman is hard to find if she even exists and two shes probably swarmed with dudes. and three, lets face it, shes probably not that much of a catch herself.
And the advice your sister gave to you is great but for the most part getting dating advice from straight women isnt gonna help much, aside from telling you the already obvious. wouldnt ask a fish how to teach you to catch a fish and all that (for lack of a better expression)
You’ve written a lot of good stuff here, and I feel very much the same way about modern relationships. Though being in a similar situation as you I don’t have much advice lol. I can to say that “Just spend time around other people and don’t be an asshole and eventually someone will fuck you” does actually seem to have some promise. I haven’t fucked anyone yet due to what I’ll call “extenuating circumstances” (specific social/mental situations) but I’ve still noticed some women are attracted to that sort of “paternal vibe”. Not really sure how to describe it not like patronizing but just genuinely supportive and caring of others. It’s just a hit or miss chemistry thing that develops over time though, not really a “technique” I’d say.
right-wingers have correctly noticed that there is a problem that center-liberals have ignored
This is something I’ve been thinking about lot, I don’t believe there is any other period of human history that has so many chroniclly lonely people. “Incel” is a popular term now, people use it on the street. It’s a modern cultural phenomenon in whole western world, I’d hazard there’s millions of young “incels” in North America/Europe alone. Until recently it wasn’t possible for so many people to be condemned to extended social isolation, before capitalism invented suburban hellscapes most people had to sleep 5 to a room and live with the same few hundred people your whole life. Without electricity or internet for entertainment fucking was probably just unavoidable and you also had arranged marriages and such that forced people together whether they like it or not.
But capitalism has been steadily corroding all social bonds. Now I notice a significant amount of dating advice, the toxic shit in particular, is all about making yourself look like you’re some capitalist hustler: own expensive shit, be “alpha”, not just believing you are better than other people but proving it. That’s not how all people get into relationships of course, but that’s how popular dating is supposed to go I guess. Everyone is supposed to be flexing. Women too, they just gave different ways they are supposed to flex.
Not everyone can or wants to act like that, and now, especially with corona, that may mean people may not ever talk to another in weeks, months…hell even years. Having a romantic partner is ingrained in western capitalist society at so many levels, but more and more people do not ever find one. It puts such mental strain on a person, especially a young person with a fragile mind. You know East Asia has a similar “incel” phenomenon, especially Japan, one of the most hypercapitalist societies in history.
There are young men in Japan who literally lock themselves in their rooms and never come out again to talk to anyone, not even their own family, because they feel like they have failed in life by failing to get married, a promotion, etc… and they feel to ashamed to ever come out. It’s so sad that so many people around the world feel not just lonely and isolated but hated by the rest of world, by the “chads and staceys” or whatever. There’s a common theme here that I think points to capitalism just again rotting away the sanctity of human life and interpersonal relationships. Marketizing romance with apps and media and trends and on and so forth.
I don’t know if that made any sense it’s still just an idea I had floating around in my head but maybe you will find it helpful.
