Something that I see happen quite often is this normalization of mocking guys who really struggle to talk to girls, interact with them, ask them out, get into relationships, or even have sex with them.
We call them incels in society and incels seem to be the butt of most jokes. If a guy struggles with the dating part of his life, we often see him as less masculine, like he’s missing a core important piece of what it means to be a man.
Why is that? why do we view guys in such a narrow light and is this potentially dangerous? Short answer, yes.
I made a video in the past about incels, how they struggled to find love, and what they can do about it and one of the comments on that video really stuck out to me.
We can all agree that no one is owed sex. It has to be a consensual process between two people that want to engage in that action together.
But then incels are still left in this position where they are struggling to accomplish that and are being made fun of because of it which deeply ties into the concept of toxic masculinity. And all that simply means is that there are socially constructed attitudes and beliefs that create this harmful and rigid standard of what it means to be a man.
Men need to live up to them or they are falling and lacking in that area of their life. Often at times, this means prioritizing certain characteristics like dominance, aggression, and stoicism over vulnerability, empathy, and emotional expression.
Boys and men in our society are then pushed to always try to be “ladies men”. That this should be a primary focus and goal of their lives. They should always be flirting, always be asking girls out, and always be trying to get laid. And if they aren’t doing those things then they aren’t “real men” and this leads to lots of negative outcomes.
Outcome #1: Incredibly harsh resentment towards women.
If men are constantly in this pursuit of sex then women just become another notch on their belt, they’re just sex objects at that point. Plus, it also reinforces a lot of negative stereotypes about what some people call “female nature”. Where men start to believe that women only think and act a certain way, reducing their humanity entirely.
Outcome #2: Self-harm, low self-esteem, stress, and anxiety.
Men already struggle with opening up and sharing their feelings. It’s hard to be vulnerable. So if you’re struggling with this dating area of your life, you’re not going to want to talk to other people about it because they may make fun of you. So you bottle it in, you internalize those emotions and you beat yourself up every single time you fail or don’t succeed in what you want.
Outcome #3: Going down the rabbit hole and following tons of negative role models and influences.
If you’re struggling with dating you’re going to seek out that help privately so you’ll discover one of these random red pill channels and think, “oh they have some good advice”. You start to like that creator and start to take all their opinions and say “Well that’s not so bad. If they think this, then maybe that’s true too”.
That’s how people fall susceptible to people like Andrew Tate or Fresh and Fit. They have a few good ideas and a few good nuggets of wisdom, but they end up taking the whole of what they say and they adopt a full scale of really bad and harmful beliefs.
Outcome #4: Violence.
Anger seems to be one of those emotions that people are okay with men expressing. So, if you’re someone that’s struggling with dating for years on end and you don’t really know how to process your feelings, you’re going to resort to anger as the natural way to express yourself. And that tends to be coupled with violence in some way. Violence towards women, violence towards family members, and violence towards random people in some cases.
So what exactly can we do about this?
Well, there are two sides to look at here. One is the side of the incel. The person that is actively struggling with dating. If that is you there are things you can do.
I would recommend seeking out some kind of support. That may mean speaking to a therapist or counselor to help you process the different emotions and experiences that you’ve had centered around dating.
I’ve worked with BetterHelp in the past. I think they’re a wonderful service and can offer a great aid to most people so I would recommend checking them out here.
You may also want to try to find a positive community. This is going to include people who have similar stories to you. A place where you can be vulnerable and open up about your feelings and have other people do the same. You guys can share with each other.
We have built exactly that on The Josh Speaks Discord server. I’d love to have you as a member. We have some great people in there that are just cool and fun people to talk to.
Lastly what I would recommend is to prioritize your personal development. That means taking a little bit more control over those areas of your life that you know you can succeed in. That might mean healthy eating, exercising, pursuing your passion, or learning something new.
If you can kind of really focus your attention and time on those things you’re going to recognize that dating is one quadrant of that but not the only quadrant or certainly not the most important one.
And if you’re not an incel, there is still a major action step that you can take here and that is breaking down the stereotypes that we uphold for men.
Don’t judge other men because they aren’t successful in dating. Offer to help them, offer to guide them if you feel like you have a little bit of advice to give in that area.
Look, I’m no suave ladies’ man but I have been successful to some degree in dating, and sharing that experience with other people opens up the conversation. It allows them to share their experiences too. The good and the bad. The moments of triumph and the moments of struggle.
And that open conversation where people can talk about their feelings and recognize that feelings are mentionable and manageable is what we need to do to break down these barriers.
When we measure a man’s masculinity or worthiness based on how many girls he gets we only seek to hurt him. When we belittle a guy because he feels like his height or his race or his status in life is holding him back from dating, we only seek to hurt him.
We have to hear each other out. We have to be in each other’s corners. We have to support one another because life is tough. We need each other’s support to get through it.
Some of you may totally disagree with me, think I’m way off the mark, or full of it. If that’s so, leave your comment down below and let me know. I enjoy a healthy discussion about this topic and I want to hear your opinion.
On that note, I’ll catch you next time.
As always, love and peace.
