Well tbh it's exploded into hundreds of comments because I've replied to almost everyone lol
And yes, with all my conversations with friends that are women, and personally myself when observing guys, the number one turn off is desperation. It's almost as if you can smell it in the air when someone is desperate. The lack of self respect is very obvious.
With regards to desperation and lack of self respect, there's a reason why "simping" and "white knighting" (god I really hate those words) are looked down upon online by lots of guys, even if it's for all the wrong reasons. They've figured out that it's generally poor behaviour and a turn off in terms of relationships with women, but express it in some misogynistic way towards the women people are "simping" for, instead of introspection.
Being so anxious to get into a relationship or with someone to the point you neglect yourself is a recipe for disaster for you and the person you're with for sure. I've seen it so many times, and you're always the bad guy if you try intervene and tell someone they're not ready for that yet.
A. Learn to enjoy one-night stands
B. Redirect your frustration into reactionary anger.
B1. Write a manifesto on the great replacement
C. Become a sex pest.
C1. Attain machiavellian levels of narcissism and fakery
C2. Master pick-up artistry and still have the same success rate as Option A
D. Revel in porn addiction.
E. Give your money to sex workers
F. Hopelessly simp for e-girls and vtubers
G. Get weirdly into nazi femboys
The "just stop wanting a relationship" thing is not a plea for allosexuals to become mendicant volcels. It's about deferment of personal desire for the health of a group dynamic. This deferral is what signals movement away from exchange relationships (the status quo for alienating capitalist relations, in which debts and services are tabulated), into communal relationships in which aid, service, and availability are given freely for the good of the whole. The immediacy and consumptive desire of sexually frustrated incel-adjacent people is really unattractive because it signals anti-sociality. Deferral, on the other hand, signals pro-sociality, which people tend to consider pretty attractive. If you ignore this basic, universal, and anti-capitalist conception of relationships, you are just going to keep spinning your wheels forever.
It's fine. I'm not upset. Just sad because I empathize with you to a degree. I was an unhappy person for a really long time and it took a lot of self-crit to figure my life out.
So, this comment is a week old, and I've been thinking about it for that long, but it's been somewhat difficult to articulate exactly what I think my main disagreement with it is. Now though, I believe that I have something that I can work with.
So, look the problem here is that it doesn't really matter what you think you're asking from "sexually frustrated incel-adjacent guys"; the Capitalist order in general, and our particular moment of the contraction of the futures of most people specifically, already asks the people living under it to defer nearly every possible form of personal expression or enjoyment for the sake of it's own social order. The functionality of that very social order is itself predicated upon & requires pathological self-denial as a matter of course. In essence, they (and I to be frank, I'm pretty sure I've already well-expounded upon my own life situation) will be made to be mendicant ascetics regardless of what your ostensible desire for them to live as is.
Now with that said, you can see here, why I don't really see your values, or way of thinking about the way people ought to relate to one another are actually in meaningful conflict with those of capitalist society.
At the very least, you have to admit that the kind of person you're trying to address here really doesn't have very much to look forward to by working with you, tbh. So it's not that surprising that they usually shut down.
In the end, this all boils down to consent. And what you're not seeing is that your point effectively says "the consent of others is authoritarian." You only care about the situation insofar as you get what you want.
In the end, this all boils down to consent. And what you’re not seeing is that your point effectively says “the consent of others is authoritarian.”
It don't boil down to consent, that can be given, or rescinded at any time. It boils down to standards, and expectations, and people aren't willing to change theirs.
You only care about the situation insofar as you get what you want.
I don't know what other way I'm supposed to care about it, if there's no chance for my situation to improve whether I co-operate or not, tbh.
I think we're arguing two different points. You would like to argue against discrimination, which is fair and valid. Disabled people should be integrated into the greater society and capitalism absolutely supports this disparity in power.
But being disabled doesn't make you inherently ideologically incellish. Agreeing with incels makes you ideologically incellish (and I'm bringing this up because whenever people talk about incels you take it personally). This is the framework I'm arguing against, not against anti-discrimination. To most people incel-type ideologies are a huge red flag that you might not be a good person, and it's an unfortunate reality that I've known several women who've learned to be mistrustful to these types of people due to abuse and sexual assault.
I acknowledge that disabled or neurodivergent people can self-identify as incels due to the conditions of our abusive society, but that doesn't mean this belief system should be supported. I don't think it's healthy to identify with incels or integrate their views about themselves into your self image, regardless whether you fully buy in or not. I don't think it's healthy to conflate being disabled or neurodivergent and being an incel as the same thing, and it can be even more harmful to your mental health in the long term than the status quo alone.
I don’t think it’s healthy to identify with incels or integrate their views about themselves into your self image, regardless whether you fully buy in or not. I don’t think it’s healthy to conflate being disabled or neurodivergent and being an incel as the same thing, and it can be even more harmful to your mental health in the long term than the status quo alone.
spoiler
IDK, I suppose you are right, but I don't know that there's much difference to be made on way or the other, as to what I do, any longer.
Right now, at this point in my life, I don't think that I have any real place in the world no matter who's in charge of it. Five years ago, or so, I was chronically unemployed, nearly 400lbs, and almost never left my room for fear of other people. Listening Bernie in his original presidential campaign made me feel for the first time in my life like something could maybe actually change for the better, that with help from others, I might actually be able to live a life worth living. That wasn't what got me to change myself though, funnily enough, it was watching people fighting for that vision of the world getting the shit kicked out of them trying to fight people who I know from experience seek my demise.
I did work hard to change a lot about myself. I got a factory job that pays reasonably (even if the hours aren't), and when I'm healthy I exercise frequently enough & try to look after myself well enough, that most people I meet seem to take note of it; and I feel like, once my knee heals, tryin to reach 180lbs again is a reasonable goal. None of any of that though has gotten me anywhere to where I feel I have a stable life, nor financial independence; and especially not social connection, inclusion, or (I guess most importantly for me) companionship.
I suppose what I'm saying is that I no longer believe that my lack of any of those things has anything at all to do with my own actions, at least none that I can actually change; but rather is it simply a fact of what I am, that I am, which is it's cause. I know I cannot contribute positively to the world so long as I cannot maintain myself, or build bonds with others, and I cannot actually do either of those things on my own. I don't know what I am supposed to feel, other than resentment, towards people who say they want my condition to improve & want a world in which I can contribute positively, but are utterly unwilling to do anything on their own part to enable that to happen.
.
I guess, if you don't want to read all that, what I'm saying is. It may well be that what you're saying is true. I just don't believe that I've got a future, or that what I do matters anymore.
I was in a similar spot before. Alone/isolated/alienated and getting paid peanuts to do the dirtiest job I'd ever done in my life, and having nothing to look forward to but microwave meals and depression spirals before bed. In an unfortunately bootstrappy chain of events, I had to move to a larger city, and used apps and such to find people who could deal with being around me. In this part of finding your niche (finding people who want to do something despite the pressures of liberalism to do nothing), there's a bit of statistics, unfortunately. If you're in a place with very few people, odds are that the subgroup within that population consisting of people open to being proactive in the way you're talking about is fairly small. I personally couldn't handle small town life and saved every dollar I could for moving expenses. It's not really fair and is even a bit ghoulish to expect people to give up a significant portion of their comfort and immediate health in order to seek out a less alienating environment, but that part is definitely a result of capitalist exploitation.
I am happy that you put in the effort to care for yourself and hope you continue to do so. Despite everything going on externally, you do still have your self, and while that feels like little consolation, you are a thinking being and you seem to have a lot on your mind that would be worth sharing if given the opportunity.
I appreciate the patience & concern which you are showing to me in this conversation, that I know that you don't actually have to. It is genuinely difficult to see a way out of my current living situation, given that I have failed to do so; either by circumstance or by my own... lack of capacities; so many times already. I often really don't know what to do with myself anymore, because I don't seem to be able to do what I need to in order to grow.
I'm not really sure, myself, given I don't really know you. Each person has different things they need and different things they can give. Like I can't tell you to just join a ttrpg group or try out the furry fandom because it's a bit personal. Though it is a bit difficult to form these random agglomerations of people without some shared cultural goal or activity. Even hexbear has something to keep everyone's focus directed. I think my only real advice is that you're not too old to experiment.
Well, yes, wanting a relationship in the abstract isn't an issue.
The issue is a lot of people raised masc come in to flirting with a sense of "I want a relationship with anyone hot enough who'll have me" and that is a massive turn off. We're not fucking interchangeable, flirt with us because you like us.
Because you think our hair or our music or our clothes or the way we hold ourselves is cool
Don't "want a relationship". Be "ready for a relationship" and "want a relationship with that specific person, over there, who you have preferably talked to casually a couple of times and it went well."
There's also the idea that most relationships start online or while clubbing. They don't, they start by meeting aquaintances at house gatherings or bored at conferences or in hobbies (want to meet leftist lgbt friendly people in a setting which heightens emotions? Join your amateur theatre club)
This feeds into the general idea, you need to find a place with a lot of people unfamiliar enough that you can display interest, but familiar enough that you can regularly talk to them and ask friends to hit you up for info.
I see. Well, that does make things harder for you and I'm really sympathetic to the difficulties that non-alloromantic people have.
But if you find someone really interesting for non romantic reasons, and they are romantically attracted to you, then you can have the experience of a romantic relationship without having to feel deep alloromantic attraction for them.
But there's no shortcut to that, so I think my advice still applies.
Well tbh it's exploded into hundreds of comments because I've replied to almost everyone lol
And yes, with all my conversations with friends that are women, and personally myself when observing guys, the number one turn off is desperation. It's almost as if you can smell it in the air when someone is desperate. The lack of self respect is very obvious.
No shade, I have seen this happen multiple times in the past 6 months, let alone the past year. Though it gets slightly better each time.
Yeah, I was considering going full lesbian because of things like that. But hexbear has given me a bit of hope in bisexuality. :gator-bi:
With regards to desperation and lack of self respect, there's a reason why "simping" and "white knighting" (god I really hate those words) are looked down upon online by lots of guys, even if it's for all the wrong reasons. They've figured out that it's generally poor behaviour and a turn off in terms of relationships with women, but express it in some misogynistic way towards the women people are "simping" for, instead of introspection.
Being so anxious to get into a relationship or with someone to the point you neglect yourself is a recipe for disaster for you and the person you're with for sure. I've seen it so many times, and you're always the bad guy if you try intervene and tell someone they're not ready for that yet.
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Well let's consider the alternatives. You can:
A. Learn to enjoy one-night stands
B. Redirect your frustration into reactionary anger.
B1. Write a manifesto on the great replacement
C. Become a sex pest.
C1. Attain machiavellian levels of narcissism and fakery
C2. Master pick-up artistry and still have the same success rate as Option A
D. Revel in porn addiction.
E. Give your money to sex workers
F. Hopelessly simp for e-girls and vtubers
G. Get weirdly into nazi femboys
The "just stop wanting a relationship" thing is not a plea for allosexuals to become mendicant volcels. It's about deferment of personal desire for the health of a group dynamic. This deferral is what signals movement away from exchange relationships (the status quo for alienating capitalist relations, in which debts and services are tabulated), into communal relationships in which aid, service, and availability are given freely for the good of the whole. The immediacy and consumptive desire of sexually frustrated incel-adjacent people is really unattractive because it signals anti-sociality. Deferral, on the other hand, signals pro-sociality, which people tend to consider pretty attractive. If you ignore this basic, universal, and anti-capitalist conception of relationships, you are just going to keep spinning your wheels forever.
deleted by creator
K. Well good luck with whatever your plan is.
deleted by creator
It's fine. I'm not upset. Just sad because I empathize with you to a degree. I was an unhappy person for a really long time and it took a lot of self-crit to figure my life out.
deleted by creator
So, this comment is a week old, and I've been thinking about it for that long, but it's been somewhat difficult to articulate exactly what I think my main disagreement with it is. Now though, I believe that I have something that I can work with.
So, look the problem here is that it doesn't really matter what you think you're asking from "sexually frustrated incel-adjacent guys"; the Capitalist order in general, and our particular moment of the contraction of the futures of most people specifically, already asks the people living under it to defer nearly every possible form of personal expression or enjoyment for the sake of it's own social order. The functionality of that very social order is itself predicated upon & requires pathological self-denial as a matter of course. In essence, they (and I to be frank, I'm pretty sure I've already well-expounded upon my own life situation) will be made to be mendicant ascetics regardless of what your ostensible desire for them to live as is.
Now with that said, you can see here, why I don't really see your values, or way of thinking about the way people ought to relate to one another are actually in meaningful conflict with those of capitalist society.
At the very least, you have to admit that the kind of person you're trying to address here really doesn't have very much to look forward to by working with you, tbh. So it's not that surprising that they usually shut down.
In the end, this all boils down to consent. And what you're not seeing is that your point effectively says "the consent of others is authoritarian." You only care about the situation insofar as you get what you want.
It don't boil down to consent, that can be given, or rescinded at any time. It boils down to standards, and expectations, and people aren't willing to change theirs.
I don't know what other way I'm supposed to care about it, if there's no chance for my situation to improve whether I co-operate or not, tbh.
I think we're arguing two different points. You would like to argue against discrimination, which is fair and valid. Disabled people should be integrated into the greater society and capitalism absolutely supports this disparity in power.
But being disabled doesn't make you inherently ideologically incellish. Agreeing with incels makes you ideologically incellish (and I'm bringing this up because whenever people talk about incels you take it personally). This is the framework I'm arguing against, not against anti-discrimination. To most people incel-type ideologies are a huge red flag that you might not be a good person, and it's an unfortunate reality that I've known several women who've learned to be mistrustful to these types of people due to abuse and sexual assault.
I acknowledge that disabled or neurodivergent people can self-identify as incels due to the conditions of our abusive society, but that doesn't mean this belief system should be supported. I don't think it's healthy to identify with incels or integrate their views about themselves into your self image, regardless whether you fully buy in or not. I don't think it's healthy to conflate being disabled or neurodivergent and being an incel as the same thing, and it can be even more harmful to your mental health in the long term than the status quo alone.
spoiler
IDK, I suppose you are right, but I don't know that there's much difference to be made on way or the other, as to what I do, any longer.
Right now, at this point in my life, I don't think that I have any real place in the world no matter who's in charge of it. Five years ago, or so, I was chronically unemployed, nearly 400lbs, and almost never left my room for fear of other people. Listening Bernie in his original presidential campaign made me feel for the first time in my life like something could maybe actually change for the better, that with help from others, I might actually be able to live a life worth living. That wasn't what got me to change myself though, funnily enough, it was watching people fighting for that vision of the world getting the shit kicked out of them trying to fight people who I know from experience seek my demise.
I did work hard to change a lot about myself. I got a factory job that pays reasonably (even if the hours aren't), and when I'm healthy I exercise frequently enough & try to look after myself well enough, that most people I meet seem to take note of it; and I feel like, once my knee heals, tryin to reach 180lbs again is a reasonable goal. None of any of that though has gotten me anywhere to where I feel I have a stable life, nor financial independence; and especially not social connection, inclusion, or (I guess most importantly for me) companionship.
I suppose what I'm saying is that I no longer believe that my lack of any of those things has anything at all to do with my own actions, at least none that I can actually change; but rather is it simply a fact of what I am, that I am, which is it's cause. I know I cannot contribute positively to the world so long as I cannot maintain myself, or build bonds with others, and I cannot actually do either of those things on my own. I don't know what I am supposed to feel, other than resentment, towards people who say they want my condition to improve & want a world in which I can contribute positively, but are utterly unwilling to do anything on their own part to enable that to happen.
.
I guess, if you don't want to read all that, what I'm saying is. It may well be that what you're saying is true. I just don't believe that I've got a future, or that what I do matters anymore.
I was in a similar spot before. Alone/isolated/alienated and getting paid peanuts to do the dirtiest job I'd ever done in my life, and having nothing to look forward to but microwave meals and depression spirals before bed. In an unfortunately bootstrappy chain of events, I had to move to a larger city, and used apps and such to find people who could deal with being around me. In this part of finding your niche (finding people who want to do something despite the pressures of liberalism to do nothing), there's a bit of statistics, unfortunately. If you're in a place with very few people, odds are that the subgroup within that population consisting of people open to being proactive in the way you're talking about is fairly small. I personally couldn't handle small town life and saved every dollar I could for moving expenses. It's not really fair and is even a bit ghoulish to expect people to give up a significant portion of their comfort and immediate health in order to seek out a less alienating environment, but that part is definitely a result of capitalist exploitation.
I am happy that you put in the effort to care for yourself and hope you continue to do so. Despite everything going on externally, you do still have your self, and while that feels like little consolation, you are a thinking being and you seem to have a lot on your mind that would be worth sharing if given the opportunity.
I appreciate the patience & concern which you are showing to me in this conversation, that I know that you don't actually have to. It is genuinely difficult to see a way out of my current living situation, given that I have failed to do so; either by circumstance or by my own... lack of capacities; so many times already. I often really don't know what to do with myself anymore, because I don't seem to be able to do what I need to in order to grow.
I'm not really sure, myself, given I don't really know you. Each person has different things they need and different things they can give. Like I can't tell you to just join a ttrpg group or try out the furry fandom because it's a bit personal. Though it is a bit difficult to form these random agglomerations of people without some shared cultural goal or activity. Even hexbear has something to keep everyone's focus directed. I think my only real advice is that you're not too old to experiment.
I'm already runnin one of those rn, actually.
Well, yes, wanting a relationship in the abstract isn't an issue.
The issue is a lot of people raised masc come in to flirting with a sense of "I want a relationship with anyone hot enough who'll have me" and that is a massive turn off. We're not fucking interchangeable, flirt with us because you like us.
Because you think our hair or our music or our clothes or the way we hold ourselves is cool
Don't "want a relationship". Be "ready for a relationship" and "want a relationship with that specific person, over there, who you have preferably talked to casually a couple of times and it went well."
There's also the idea that most relationships start online or while clubbing. They don't, they start by meeting aquaintances at house gatherings or bored at conferences or in hobbies (want to meet leftist lgbt friendly people in a setting which heightens emotions? Join your amateur theatre club)
This feeds into the general idea, you need to find a place with a lot of people unfamiliar enough that you can display interest, but familiar enough that you can regularly talk to them and ask friends to hit you up for info.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
I see. Well, that does make things harder for you and I'm really sympathetic to the difficulties that non-alloromantic people have.
But if you find someone really interesting for non romantic reasons, and they are romantically attracted to you, then you can have the experience of a romantic relationship without having to feel deep alloromantic attraction for them.
But there's no shortcut to that, so I think my advice still applies.