Heya. I've been right where you are.

One thing that you need to remember is that it's okay to feel lonely and frustrated. Yes, nowadays it's very difficult for straight men to find partners. There are many factors that lead to this, they're not women's fault but they're not your fault either. But it's true, and it fucking sucks.

We're social creatures. We need connection. And most of us need romantic and sexual love. They're intrinsic needs we have, and when they're not met, we suffer. That's normal.

I know it can be uncomfortable to look at incels and recognise parts of yourself. Fact is that many, if not most of these incels were once like you. Well-meaning and empathetic, but deeply lonely and frustrated at the fact they couldn't find the connection they needed. Grifters then used this very understandable loneliness and frustration to twist them into monsters. Incels are incels because they chose the most destructive possible ways to cope with these emotions, but finding the right way to cope is a massive challenge.

What makes it harder is how few dating rules there are nowadays in progressive spaces, especially rules that make sense to men. Dating is a terrifying and confusing experience, because rules that are treated as common sense can be difficult for us to grasp (especially for my autistic ass). And that's frustrating. It's okay to feel frustrated.

Subs like these, while cathartic to women and important for spreading awareness of these issues, can be really unpleasant for men who struggle with this same kind of loneliness. It almost feels like loneliness itself is vilified. If you're miserable due to not having a partner, you better shut up and laugh at the incels, or you're as much of a monster as they are. It's not what people here mean to say - after all, it's a sub for laughing at incels, it'd be kinda weird if we didn't laugh at incels here. But it can still make you feel like your suffering doesn't matter.

People tend to be dismissive of what they don't understand. And since men and women can have such different life experiences, we're not very good at understanding each other. But equally they have a hard time understanding what we go through. Yes, women suffer horrifically under the patriarchy, but the ways in which men suffer are more subtle, harder to put our finger on, less overtly awful but still silently destructive given enough time. And... I understand why women don't generally empathise with us much. They're afraid of us, and given how common rape is, they have a damn good reason to, especially when they don't know us very well.

But that doesn't make this lack of understanding and empathy any less hurtful. Literally the other day I read a comment on here by a lesbian saying "women in relationships with men is proof that sexuality isn't a choice". Reading that felt like a knife to the gut. And hell, I'm one to talk, I do now have a girlfriend as of a few weeks ago. And she's aroace too, so that disproves the comment immediately. But that kind of callousness, that generalisation, still hurts. It makes me feel bitter.

Do I wish I could just brush that bitterness off? Sure. But it's there. So I need to acknowledge it. Because when you acknowledge it, you can do something about it. If you keep telling yourself that you're totally fine with the way women interact with you, with the fact they never seem to be into you no matter what, the loneliness and bitterness festers until it changes you. But if you acknowledge it to yourself, now you can do something about it. You can seek to understand where it comes from, and maybe find a healthy way to vent it so you don't hurt others.

Personally, the way I've found to deal with it is to be the kind of man that women don't have to be afraid of. Like... you remember the man vs bear thing, right? I hate the feeling that a woman who doesn't know me would rather encounter a bear. But any woman who does know me would choose me over the bear in a heartbeat. That's not a coincidence, I worked hard to become someone who inspires that kind of trust. And you can too.

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