I’m an ex incel myself, but I’ve been seeing a few users here exhibiting the tell tale signs. “I’m not attractive enough”, “I don’t socialize correctly”, “I’ll never find a woman” - all extremely unhealthy attitudes.

Personally I burned through many friendships and ruined a lot of chances with women because I was in the incel community. The community warped my view of women so much that I made it even harder to meet women, I became my own worst enemy. I lost friends because all I could think of was how horrible it was that they had girlfriends.

I have a friend who helped me out of it. She was the one who started calling out my bad behavior for what it was, and I started on the long uphill path out of it. I’m now married and stable for well over a decade, but I still think back to those days, and it depresses me seeing other people causing this themselves and not being aware of it.

So, Lemmy, for those who have clawed out of it, what’s your story?

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
    0·
    5 months ago

    I made a goal for myself to never start a conversation with “Hey” or something similar - I went through every profile I found and picked something specific to talk about.

    This is a good strategy. It’s surprising how many people (of all genders) match on dating apps and think “hey” is a strong opener.

    Also surprising is how many people think a longer message they send to every match (eg: “what do you think defines art?”) is a good move.

    Asking people about their profile stuff is the way to go. People like talking about themselves. People are (hopefully) putting things on their profile their way to talk about.