The Incel Thing

Have you noticed that articles about incels seem to be written by extremely angry members of all sexes? This spewing of raging resentment, combined with a complete unwillingness to acknowledge the other side at all has become tedious, and frankly embarrassing, to the concept of human intelligence.

I’m a woman. A feminist. I also adore my goofy-ass husband of 25 years. I’ve met lots of crappy men out there. I’ve also met some highly unhinged women. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve met both men and women who are wise, emotionally mature and overall incredible humans. So, let’s start by acknowledging that members of any sex can be entitled, honorable, lazy, hardworking, rude, thoughtful, intelligent, or ignorant.

With that in mind, here’s how I see it:

I see this in terms of Tiers of Sexual Desirability and their evolution between what I’ll call (for the purposes of this article) relationship Trad Years (1950’s — 80’s) and now.

Tier 1: Superstars

Tier 2: High Performers

Tier 3: Average Js (Joes or Josephines)

Tier 4: Effort Required (ERs)

Tier 5: Bates

Tier 1: The Superstars

These people (both men and women) have it all. They are physically appealing, and intellectually, socially and emotionally intelligent. To top it off, they are kind.

The superstars have always been, and will always be desirable. It goes for both men and women. Superstar women have no issues meeting men, just as Superstar men have never had, and still don’t have, troubles meeting women. Both men and women will always be attracted to someone who is that perfect combo of intelligent, kind and attractive.

We often say the Superstars won the genetic lottery. But, I don’t believe that is true. They often have a genetic head-start, but part of their attraction is that they care, and so, they try. They take pride in their appearance and to that effect they lead active lives and put effort into themselves. They are kind because they have been raised to, and have chosen to be. And, they are intelligent in all areas, because they work at it. They are people with a potential genetic advantage who put in the work to maintain that advantage.

Tier 2: High Performers

The high performers are still highly desirable, but, they don’t have it all.

Here’s where the issues begin. Our definition of high performers has changed. In the Trad Years high performing men were the muscular jocks and the sportscar-CEO’s. Watch any high school movie from the 80’s and you get the drift. But, somewhere in the 1990’s things began to shift.

As women became less financially dependent on men, they began to look for relationships that were based on friendship and equality. Women realized that the hot jocks and the hot CEOs are neither good friends, nor will they ever treat us as equals. So, the hot jocks, and the sexy assholes driving that sportscar have all fallen from their almost-God status down the ranks, generally to Tier 3 and Tier 4.

The high performers are now men who are emotionally intelligent. Men we can hang with. Men we can talk to. Whether they are genetically blessed with good looks doesn’t matter as much as whether they put in the effort — because making an effort is a part of emotional intelligence and women find it attractive. It means that they pick out a nice shirt to wear because they want to look nice for their partner. It means that they try and live an active life because they want to be healthy. These are often the chess-team guys. The guys that read. The honor roll students. These are the guys that used to be Tier 4.

Tier 3: Average Js

In high school coolness ranks these guys blend. They are neither with the cool kids nor the outcasts. You can blame genetics. But, it’s often in combination with a lack of trying. It’s where some of the ex-cool-jocks are at now. This may be that hot and pleasant jock who lacks even the desire for intellectual or emotional growth. Women will chat with him for a day, become bored and move on. This may also be the guy who is highly academically intelligent but takes little effort socially or physically.

Tier 4: Effort Required (ERs — also known as needing Emergency room services)

As mentioned, in the Trad Years these used to be the chess nerds, the book worms and the overall dorky guys. They used to try, try, and try, and often get taunted for it. Until now, that is. Now, they’re in Tier 2: The High Performers. Why? Because they try.

The guys currently part of the ERs are quite similar to the Average Js — simply more extreme in their lack of trying. It’s the guy who sits at dinner and expects the woman to carry the entire conversation. It’s the guy who has been in the basement playing video games for a week straight and wonders why women aren’t attracted to his vampirically, pallid exterior plus lack of anything to say that isn’t related to a game station. It’s the guy who thinks his good looks give him permission to take zero accountability for his abominable behaviour.

Tier 5: The Bates

Here sits the guy who used to rip wings off of butterflies and laugh at the age of five. The men in this group usually have something a little psychologically frightening about them.

Unfortunately, this group contains some brilliantly demented, serial killer types who have top tier chameleon skills and thus slide into the Superstar or High Performer tiers on occasion.

The rest of Tier 5s, lacking the necessary chameleon skills, have always been, and will always be avoided by the female kind. I call them Bates because you can envision them running the Bates motel.

As I pointed out, Tier classifications have slightly, but importantly, changed between the Trad Years and now. The other thing that has changed alongside the classifications is women’s perception of marriage.

It has always been acceptable for men to ponder whether they would marry or not. Sure, they would be considered quirky by society if they remained an old bachelor, but society always made excuses for them: he simply gave all his passion to his work and the ladies couldn’t’ understand that. He’s just a gentle, quiet soul that likes his solitude and he didn’t find a woman who respects that. He hasn’t found the right woman to appreciate his adorable quirkiness etc….

On the other hand, in the Trad Years a woman had little value if she didn’t marry — she was not only better off financially if she married, she was also much more acceptable in society’s eyes. If she couldn’t find a match, society didn’t make excuses for her. It questioned her: Is she socially inept? Is she weird? Is she unattractive? Society told women that it’s their responsibility to try harder to be attractive to men. If you can’t get a boyfriend, you should learn to dress better. Try to be wittier. Educate yourself more. It was a woman’s responsibility to work on herself and to improve herself in order to be desirable. From the Superstar females all the way down to the Bates, women were taught to work on their self-presentation.

So, here’s the current issue.

In the Trad Years women were taught that their attractiveness to a potential partner is their responsibility. On the other hand, men were taught that it is the woman’s responsibility to attract them. In the Trad Years, all men, between Tier 1–3 were able to have their choice of women without working on themselves because it was a woman’s responsibility to work in order to convince the man that he wanted to settle down with her. Only the ERs had to put work into themselves in order to compete with the higher ranks. And the Bates…well, they’ve always been the Bates.

Now, just like men, women are deciding if marriage is the right thing for them. Due to this, women now believe that just as a man expects her to convince him that it’s in his best interest to settle down with her, it’s just as much a man’s responsibility to convince the woman that it’s also in her best interest to settle down with him. But, this is something that the Average J’s and the current ERs don’t know how to do, because they’ve never been taught to.

I strongly believe that one of the things that makes a man a Tier 1 Superstar is that he is intrinsically drawn to self-improvement, whether told to do it or not. Tier 2 High Performers are also now filled with nicer guys who work hard and who often have dads who were the chess nerd ERs of the Trad Years, therefore, they modeled the concept of social effort for their sons.

But, the Tier 3 Average Js and the T4 ERs are the guys that have little concept of social self-improvement due to neither being naturally drawn to it nor being taught through their upbringing. These guys are the ones being left out in the cold.

Their fathers were often either Average J’s or hot jocks and never had to try in the Trad Years, so they didn’t teach their sons to. But, let’s not blame just the dads though. The mothers often contributed just as much to the issue. I’ve met far too many women, who, while complaining about the lack of emotional self-awareness and effort their husbands display, simultaneously raise their sons to be precisely like their husbands. It’s what created the mother-in-law stereotype: that mommy-dearest who sees absolutely no fault in her baby-boy. No girl is ever good enough for him and if he has trouble finding a girl then it is never due to anything from his end — it is because the girls somehow fail to see to see how perfect he is.

And, here’s where it goes from bad to worse. I vaguely remember watching the movie The 40-Year-Old-Virgin. Between the stupid humour what came through was the fact the the virgin’s friends realized his issues and all decided to help him get better at meeting women. But, where are the friends of today’s incel virgin? Today’s unwilling virgin goes online, and rather than meeting higher functioning men who will tell him “Hey dude, you gotta up your game,” he meets the Tier 5 Bates, who have jumped on the incel bandwagon, as if it’s a new phenomenon, though Bates have been incels long before the term existed. But, the incel bandwagon is convenient for the Bates. It allows them to finally be able to victimize themselves aloud and shed all accountability.

These dysfunctional Bates’ groups mask as support groups while in fact being toxic cults propagating a cycle of anger and blame that does nothing to actually assist the Everage Js or ERs. The Average J’s and ERs therefore become less functional rather than more, leading to women responding more and more negatively to them, which in turn propagates their belief that women are evil soul crushers. The end result is that men who have potential don’t learn how to use it, and rather than slowly improving and meeting a partner, these men become more lonely, confused, discouraged and often angry.

So, who can do what?

1. Lonely men need to realize that there have been lonely women since time immemorial, but no one bothered to make a special title for them — incels. They simply called lonely, single women…single and lonely. Society didn’t wonder why a woman couldn’t find a partner even though she wanted to. They placed the responsibility of improving herself in order to be attractive to a partner on HER. Additionally, lonely women did not attack men for the fact that they were lonely. They accepted the responsibility of self-improvement.

Society is changing. Sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. So, as a man, if you want to find a partner in an ever-changing society, just as women are responsible for working on themselves in order to be attractive to you, you, the man, are responsible for improving yourself in order to be attractive to women. Perhaps you need to work on yourself physically, but perhaps you need to improve your social skills, intellectual abilities or emotional self-awareness.

2. You, the non-lonely, highly functional Superstars and Top Performers, need to be those pals from The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Go beyond the line “Yeah dude, that sucks” and be friends, advisors, and role models to the incels. They need you because their families obviously failed them. Many of these guys truly do have potential. Don’t just blow them off.

3. You, the women. I know you are screaming that this isn’t your problem. But, here’s the thing. Paulo Freire, a famous educator discussed the concept of the Oppressed turning into the Oppressors. He discussed this concept in terms of large scale politics however, it is relevant for all unequal relationships. When, in a relationship, one side oppresses the other, the oppressed side often has no example of what a healthy relationship is. Therefore, when the oppressed finally escape their oppression, all they see is that if they want to protect themselves from being oppressed again they must be the stronger side. In effect, they then begin to act just like the oppressor used to.

Yes, women have been oppressed by men. But, vile anger towards men does not make us any better than men used to be towards us. Take a step in a better direction. Be kinder to men who aren’t doing it ‘quite right’. Stop cancelling men when they use an un-pc term or make a borderline joke out of ignorance rather than meanness. Be a friend. Be as open minded to men as you would have wanted them to be towards your great-grandmother. It’s the only positive way forward.

4. And mothers, please stop raising your sons to be unaccountable ignoramuses. When we teach our daughters emotional awareness, we also teach them to be aware of the emotions of others. Not only that, but we instill in our daughters the knowledge that just because you ‘feel’ does not mean you ‘get’.

On the other hand, many moms, in their quest to teach their sons to be more emotionally expressive than their male predecessors, stop at the concept of expression. They reward their sons for expressing their emotions, however, do not instill in them the knowledge that they must also acknowledge and respect the emotions of others. Not only that, when one is constantly rewarded for expressing any and all feelings, one grows to believe that as soon as they pout or express dissatisfaction, all their desires must be met. Thus one becomes nothing but entitled and self-centered. The person then turns to anger, self-victimization and blame when their every wish is not granted. So, just as you taught your daughters, teach your sons to be self-reflective about potential self-improvement in the face of a particular situation.

You may agree or disagree with me on the incel thing. That’s your call to make. But, acknowledge that, just as humans are not one-sided and flat, neither are situations. See more than your personal resentment.