One other post from me as was listening to some podcasts about this. Going to speak about the subject from my own perspective / journey as I feel like I've been on this incel journey, albeit, back in my day, it wasn't a thing, it was just normal.
I don't think this is a "new" phenomenon as for example, I do know a few people back in my days of being at university and into the twenties that fit this description. People who hadn't had girlfriends, been in relationships, had sex etc. Seeing I didn't have sex for the first time until my late twenties I think I also strictly fit into this definition. Back then though, this whole thing hadn't been turned into some commodity / internet phenomenon. Once when I was at uni I remembered watching a TV Show hosted by Jimmy Carr (British comedian) and in it he was joking that he hadn't had sex for the first time until he was in his late twenties. So in my mind I was like, wow, so even someone famous and funny struggled with this? At the time, the notion that women were to blame for any of these didn't even cross my mind or any of the guys that I knew who were in the same boat.
It was not a big secret why there were young guys who could not get into relationships. All you had to do was look at the guys - we had a lot of work to do on ourselves!! Speaking for myself, I spent most of my teenage years either playing video games or football with other lads. Rarely if ever did I speak to girls. Coming into Uni, it dawned on me quite quickly that I hadn't built enough social skill to be able to effectively interact with women from that sort of perspective. I could see the guys who were good at this, and that wasn't me. At the time, I also didn't fully appreciate that I personally had quite a lot of growing up to do from a psychological perspective.
For me personally, I also had other issues that in today's world will likely be considered mental health (e.g. anxiety from having spent most of my childhood playing video games and therefore didn't know how to interact with the outside world, overly sensitive to rejection etc). Looking back, all the stuff that I had mentally that could be classed as an illness nowadays all simply represented the ground I needed to cover from a developmental perspective. These were all symptoms of me having neglected psychological growth.
One thing that helped around that time when I was at university was getting acquainted with the fourth way. This put the responsibility back at you as an individual. Also became acquainted with the work of Dabrowski which firmly planted in my head that stuff like anxiety isn't an illness but a challenge to growth.
Anyways I soon graduated from university, still firmly a virgin but I wasn't the only one. I knew other guys - we all knew we were this way because we just didn't know how to interact with girls. It wasn't a big secret, it wasn't that there was something wrong with girls - that their demands were high or anything! Some of us during Uni took to trying to do something about it e.g. whenever we went out, to try and speak to girls. Man, I have fond memories of those rejections. It became a bit of a game between me and a friend, basically how many rejections can we collect in one night out. We weren't rude or anything, if anything, we were too innocent
... rejections were as simple as walking over to a girl in a student bar, tapping on her shoulder, saying hi to immediately have her look at you and simply turn away as if you did not exist Lol. Getting acquainted with "in your face" rejection started to build something. Something else also happened on the few times you did not get immediately rejected - you realised you didn't actually know what to do to sustain an interaction and after a while it became kind of awkward as the guy is meant to lead but you have no idea what the hell to do. These all fits into the definition of "incel" minus the blaming of women.
Anyways, post graduation the game continued of trying to get better at this but it kind of expanded. For me, I realised that to overcome this mountain, I needed to seek out situations that made me most anxious - nothing like reckless e.g. thrill seeking
but more from a psychological point of view. I came at this from all directions, maintained going out with the express purpose of being rejected, decided to stand up to some bullies in my life (some guys who I was living with who were making my life hell), I had an absolute terrorist of a boss in my first job to also keep things interesting. Also I linked up with a guy from Uni who was on a similar journey and we incorporated travel into our journey plan e.g. travelling together, staying in hostels, trying to be social etc.
By this time, around mid-twenties, online dating apps became a thing and got into that. Nice thing with the online dating apps is that they actually resulted in opportunities to go into 1-2-1 dating - it was interesting you know, not that any of these ever resulted in anything, not for a while!
The thing though, looking back, it was never about blaming the world, it was all about trying to figure out the world. We knew there were demands placed on us that we needed to meet if the world was to give us what we wanted. From a relationship perspective, we knew that we needed to make sure we looked good from a physical perspective, like we cared about ourselves, took care of ourselves, we knew that we needed to try and get some kind of financial security, that we needed to build some decent level of social skill. We knew that we also needed to be "in the world", carve up some interesting experiences for ourselves that we can then share in conversation, stuff like travelling to different places, interacting with other cultures etc. In the background, I had also maintained contact with fourth way, the material from this forum, the situation in the world etc. So I was kind of like living both sides of life.
One thing I knew about me though is that I was kind of average, there wasn't anything special, no special purpose, the world wasn't going to swoop in and reveal something grand about my destiny lol. I was working a normal job that wasn't going anywhere unless I finally did something about it, made just enough to maintain myself, other than hanging out with guys it wasn't like I was carving out anything for myself socially (I was more playing a support role in other people's stories). Still an incel at this point in the journey btw, but again, nothing about blaming women. This was the time in my life where I realised I was normal, not special, normal - by that, I mean that before this time I thought the world owed me something, there was a plan, a destiny that would reveal itself etc but actually, after much stalking and observation, I was like huh, I'm normal. I wasn't going to be a millionaire, famous, stand out, or have some kind of cosmic destiny etc lol.
With the passing of time and with persistently challenging myself to face my fears, to seek out anxiety inducing situations, to be comfortable with rejection, things started to happen slowly but surely. Again, it's one of those things where it's not one thing that happens but a few small things accumulate to result in changes across many spheres in your life.
I made tactical shifts in my job situation, building upon prior experience especially experience of dealing with tyrannical managers. I also came to know what it is I most wanted from a job. From the women side, I had gone on enough first dates to start to figure out the dance and at this stage, looking back, it wasn't really about seeking companionship, it was about figuring something out, it was about overcoming a huddle. In any case, during this period in the late twenties, amongst all these activity, sex for the first time happened. No longer an incel. But alas, that's not the end of the journey.
Sex and a relationship are two different things. Shifting from going on random dates to having a relationship are two different skill-sets. In any case, it's all the dance of life - there's no final destination, there is just the journey.
In all these, what I have learnt is to embrace "the fight". My number one message to the incels out there is learn to embrace "the fight", not with regards coming to have sex, but with regards learning how to live and cultivate something in your own life. There's no blaming others, just look at yourself, the options you have, the tools you have or you can develop in your character/ personality and get to work. If you are expecting the world to do something for you, defeat will visit you and in this world, no matter how low you sink, you can always sink even lower so you better learn to "embrace the fight".
In my own journey, the thirties were a different story to the twenties, all the hard work done during the twenties started to bear fruit in my thirties and I'm now a good old regular joe - dug myself out of the gutter into a regular Joe status. Got a mrs that's constantly on my back (I'd worry if she wasn't), a mortgage to pay and i weaved myself out of the dead-end jobs I was stuck in during the twenties. In all these time, whilst there's no grand cosmic destiny that will meet me individually, I've kept close tabs of the information sphere to not fall victim of the mainstream narratives and to at least know there might be more in this world and life than meets the eye. Certainly there are some crazy elites looking to turn us into some kind of God-knows-what
, human drones perhaps that they can programme and control at will, that much I do know.
In all these time, one thing remains true, life never stops coming at you and you can't really embody the mindset of blaming others. Psychologically, you always have to remain "fighting fit", in tip-top condition otherwise this world will eat you up and throw you out, it's merciless like that. Whilst I realise on the physical side not everyone is on the same condition (e.g. some people have chronic illnesses etc), but this is a side that you should also keep on top of - basically, you need to be fighting fit physically and psychologically to be at an optimum condition to face the challenges of this life.
To conclude, I'd say that the basic notion that some people are involuntarily celibate is a normal part or stage of some people's lives but the whole mythology and story being built up around this at the cultural level is a product of the mechanical forces that operate in life under the general law. As an individual, you have the choice to be swept up by these mechanical forces and be an automaton (swept up by the prevailing forces of the day) or you can work on building a magnetic center and progress through life through a different path.
. That's a new level of tyranny.
