The appeal of online Incel communities to autistic men

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I find it ironic.

On one thread we have people trying to figure out why a young man with mental health problems and described as a "loner" shot up a school. People wonder why no one saw red flags and why he didn't get mental health support prior to the crime.

On this thread, we have men expressing clear frustration pertaining to their mental health, saying they find it hard to be accepted socially, yet members are telling them they're wrong. I haven't seen anyone sympathise with the posters or suggest appropriate mental health services, if desired and necessary.

I'm not suggesting that anyone on this thread or attracted to an Incel mindset would become violent, but I wish we were all more accepting of people when they do express a cry for help.

When every "cry for help" is met with helpful suggestions, and all those suggestions are in turn met with rejection and ridicule, it seems more likely that the person crying for help is really just  trolling  begging for attention.

Your attitude illustrates my point, exactly.

Thank you, although I did not have that attitude before signing on to this website, but instead developed it during my time here through interactions with those very same people who only appeared to be crying for help.

I used to try to be helpful; not any more, though.

We are not mental health professionals here.

The approved boundaries on WP are:
It's okay to express frustration, complain about bad experiences, be sad, angry, etc.
If one does it in The Haven, they is also protected from criticism and "constructive advice" they may not be ready for.
It's not okay to cast offensive generalisations and blame whole groups that likely include WP members on one's unhappiness.

I had a very unusual experience in my early 20's where I got to be a VIP in the evening and subhuman during the day.

At the time (late 90's and early 2000's) my friends and I were trotting across states for raves, my friends were promoters and dj's, I was working on live PA (ie. playing your own stuff) for acid techno and tech/trance (still liked dnb more back then but the drum samples I needed, etc. just weren't easy to come by or work with). I'd have, quite often in the summer, five to ten people chilling down my basement. Attractive guys, attractive girlfriends, all of whom I got along with great.

I worked at a restaurant near a liberal arts college where all the popular kids across the state seemed to be sent. The social mentality was 'You small, insignificant, pathetic thing who can't see the grandeur of my corruption'. Pretty much if butter wouldn't melt in your mouth you'd do great. I tried serving, got pecked up by other servers for having social anxiety, asked people for directions on the computer compres and they'd knowingly tell me the wrong thing, and I was one of those people in that situation where if I told a joke - no matter how good it was - people would just keep a straight face. I ended up sticking around as a busser because I did it well and the money was good but my social status was, along with one other server who had ADHD, was seen - socially - as only half a step above the special needs people who worked in the back.

I remember a particular day where I walked in the back for my paycheck while everyone was out back smoking, I was wearing what I'd usually wear rather than my work uniform. The vitriol that was coming off of them for me 'daring' to dress normal as a low-status, inferior, mentally ret*d... yadda yadda... I pretty much had no right to be wearing what I was wearing.


That mentality at least seemed to disappear when I was in college, the guys and girls I went to class with I had a similar sort of social relationship with as the rave promoters, dj's, and other people in that circle who'd be down my basement spinning on my roomates turntables, drinking, etc..

I then got back out into the business world after school, found mentally-unstable boomers and then a lot of the people my age who I was running into were a cross back into the territory I mentioned at the restaurant (but it was weird - half I'd get along with great, to half I was subhuman). I got to work with old ladies at one job where I didn't fit in because I couldn't talk about grandkids and divorces, they also had a new computer system that was slow, they said they didn't trust it's accuracy, they wanted me to double-check every line against the invoice image to make sure it was accurate, I followed those rules as quickly as I could and I'd take maybe six or seven hours on that task, and every week they'd complain that it took me two hours too long (one lady who couldn't stand me, made me feel pretty much like a meth or crack head who'd get arrested on COPS) took four hours on it and when I looked at the paper she didn't do the comprehensive check she was supposed to.

Every job has been a bit like Russian roulette where I either work with people who turn out fine or people who do their level best to run me right out the door. My current job was probably the worst social Machiavellianism that I've experienced to date where I got thrown off cliffs in terms my work (John Wayne swimming lessons with a 50 lb weight around my neck), certain coworkers smelled the stress and treated me like an f'up increasingly from then on. One guy when walking past my desk on his way out gave me the most viceral look of disgust and horror like "How... the f--- is someone as weak and pathetic as you .... even alive at this point?". Eventually at a work meeting I finally showed my work, that I did know what I was doing, a lot of that tamped down but it spiraled out of control for a year or two and even after that - I got thrown off of bigger and dumber cliffs in terms of my projects.

Even now though - I wrote about this in one of the adult autism folders, I can go into a store to buy lunch and if I'm not careful I'll trip some kind of 'weak piece of s---' radar that people have, which means they get to treat me like I never grew up, like I'm miles and miles beneath them, like they'd really love to take me around the back of the building and beat my ass, and it somehow happens because there was a minor break of social protocol (the one guy just had really bad English, was pointing in a direction at like three different menu boards, and I must have given him the impression that I was a space cadet or drug addict because his lack of English and pointing in a general direction clarified nothing).

I'm seeing where it get better in some groups, like people who are self-actualizing, intelligent, doing interesting things, and it gets far worse when I'm around people who either aren't like that or - worse - are really bitter about their place in life (like the old AR/AP ladies) or the guys who feel like the essence of being a man is having an iron plate welded over your face where you have a perpetual menacing grin, your chin up in the air, your chest out, and if you're any more self-reflective than that - at all - it means your parents never should have f'd.

So it's been extremely hot-cold with me in terms of people. On one hand I don't date much because most people can't relate to me or my ways of thinking (so smaller pool), I don't want to be with anyone who can't relate to me (this used to make me enemies all the time, if a guy 'turns down' a woman - something's serious, seriously wrong), and then even if I do meet someone who likes me, I like her, we're attracted enough to each other, she also has to think about just how big a target I have on my back from the hags of all ages as well as the iron-mask men, and she might decided that I'll draw enough conflict just by existing and not being enough like other people that I can't be a safe partner, let alone a functional dad.


I don't know personally what all of these incel guys are going through but from the above I can assure you that I feel like I've been a lightning rod for other people's mental illness, insecurities, and everything else to the point that it really has impacted my place in life. It's very easy for me to imagine people being mistreated, horribly, and constantly for things they have no control over and it happens because our social rules of conformity are so tight that it's almost like a straight-jacket and a noose at the same time. It's like living in a functionally insane society and not being functionally insane means you need your face smashed in with a brick because your parent never should have f'd, etc. etc.


Or you have a completely different set of choices on your hands:

1) Believe that you either just have profoundly, profoundly bad luck in life and it's akin to a magical birth curse where you don't know why you deserve it, somehow it's a given certainty that you just do, you accept that, your depression deepens, you might fall into addiction or even suicidal ideation as you have no ability to come to grips with the situation your in - people just treat you wretchedly, seemingly for no reason, they don't do it to other people, you don't get treated the same way for the same behavior as others, and that keeps taking you apart a bit at a time until something awful comes of it.

2) You notice that this is, indeed happening to other people. You look at what the common factors are. You then get to see that it's wonderfully explained by the harsher side of Darwinian evolution, natural selection, etc.. You finally have confirmation that there is - the persistent logic that you've seen - that's had a boot on your throat much of your life. You can finally validate your experiences, have a tool kit to react to the problem on its own terms.


I find myself in that later category. I remember shiafu and I were talking about John Gray and he mentioned reading Straw Dogs: On Humans and Other Animals. I finally found an academic philosopher who was clearly, powerfully, cogently, describing the world I was experiencing - as I experienced it - in a 150 page book.

So for me these sorts of red pills, black pills, etc.. have been freedom - they've given me a map, whereas before I really need to just smack myself around for being born because I apparently deserved all of it for completely intangible reasons (assuming, from late secular humanist philosophy, that all of these people around me are 'good little Greek philosophers, super-curious, eager to learn') and somehow I just generated these 'misunderstandings' with people, constantly. I learned to put 'misunderstandings' in air-quotes, I feel like I now have to say they're imperial dominance plays and say that without cringing at the possibility that I might be opening a conspiracy rabbit hole. Typically if someone's just wrong-wrong all the time they pay a hefty price for it. OTOH if someone's decisively wrong to certain people under certain situations where being wrong gives them power, and they keep gaining from being wrong, it's really clear that something else is happening in that scenario.


None of that is 'incel' of course, some people have thrown the term 'vocel' around - ie. voluntarily celibate because you don't want to date a nightmare or waste a persons time who isn't enough like you for them to enjoy your company much let alone your inner life, or possibly scarier 'any cute guy will do', I can't be fungible and feel safe in a relationship either - I'd say I'm voluntarily celibate on those grounds and may very well be until I'm in the grave precisely because I'm looking at my life as a deep self-improvement project, not just wealth and status accrual but trying to keep growing learning, improving the quality of who I am on as many dimensions as I can, and that's again something where you have to have someone with you whose doing something similar or it won't work.


Suffice to say though you can probably see why I'd have a positive view of this stuff - evolutionary psychology, 'Straw Dogs', etc., helped give me the right to stop gaslighting myself.

One of the biggest lies my parents always told me was 'Oh, kids are mean - they'll grow up and grow out of it'. Not really, it just changes form. Oh and sure, people who are genuinely high achievers and comfortable with who they are will grow out of it, a lot of people boomerang backward after 40, particularly if they aren't high achievers and aren't comfortable with who they are.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 25 May 2022, 11:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't see people like techstep "wanting attention" but rather, he's trying to have an informed conversation about his research and his life experience.

I'm not taking sides and I don't even know what Red Pill is.

I'm not even criticising anyone.

I just can't help but notice the irony between this thread and the other.

I know this.

That's why I said we shouldn't be correcting their perceptions of the world.

If anything, we should suggest that they get mental health support.

All right, Mr. Tech. I believe I have some understanding of your situation. It's a quandary. I'm certainly not blaming you for it. But at least some of it is borne out of the complexity and broadness of your vision. Rather like Jung versus somebody like Skinner. Jung, the ultimate esoteria-lover; Skinner, the ultimate behavioralist who seemingly disavowed all creative processes.

I truly hope, soon, that you will find a nice lady who will render what you've expressed previously null and void in your mind. It's really not impossible. I've seen it happen with others when they've met someone of their liking after a lifetime of discontent. The emotional items which cut them like a knife had blunted considerably under the influence of finally finding a suitable partner. They've become more "laissez-faire" in how they view Humanity.

I guess I'm lucky in that I don't have a profound, philosophical mindset. I've been lucky in that I haven't gotten close to many psychologically-complex ladies---probably because psychologically-complex ladies can sense that I don't match their intellect and understanding. I had crushes on such women and girls back in high school; I was roundly an thoroughly rejected by them. Afterwards, I decided not to strive.

In a sense, I'm "missing out" because I've chosen the Mundane over the Aethereal, though. I've "settled," in a sense; whereas, you haven't. I'm in a state of complacency which has dampened my creativity.

Why on earth would be a good thing if finding a 'nice lady' made everything I've seen 'null and void'? That would be a marked loss of empathy and I'd be a worse person for it. It's a relationship, not smack.

In another news - if I want to hide myself from reality behind a buffer wall of emotional and hormonal satiation I could do that just fine with ecstasy and a Fleshlight.


If I saw someone's life getting destroyed by bullies and I saw that I had a chance to give them shelter to actually do their work and live a semi-sane life within parameters, I really hope 'box' wouldn't cause me to say 'c'est la vie', if it did then the world would be a better place with me staying single.


I don't follow how my 'aethereal' qualities have anything to do with my story other than 'the nail that sticks out gets hammered down', pretty much any nail regardless of whether they've even heard of Jung. Having to choose more carefully okay but - my whole story was my life experience of reliably having absurd things happen throughout the course, there are tons of people whose environments are absurd and the lower a guy's status the more likely he is drowning in that sort of absurdity. The whole red pill and MGTOW isn't a luxury upperclass belief system, ie. it's not what's 'hip' on the sidewalks and courtyards of Yale, Princeton, Harvard, etc. quite in the same way woke is or was.

I'm starting to get the impression that most people can't even imagine what other people go through unless they go through it themselves or they at least need to be shaken down by equal measures of absurdity to be able to identify its legitimacy somewhere else.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 25 May 2022, 1:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If Alex ever comes back to this site, then maybe a moderator could suggest that he put a disclaimer on the log-in page with words to that effect.

People have criticized me for stating, "No one on this website can render a valid diagnosis.  You would be better off to consult an appropriately-trained and licensed mental-health professional."  Now I see that something like this is being encouraged.  Have people grown wiser on their own, or did I finally get through to them?

Last edited by Fnord on 25 May 2022, 1:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That impression is a well documented reality in the worlds of those who live with certain incurable illnesses.

Even regarding health care providers ...

For instance ...

In a previous decade my Psychologist of the time was diagnosed with Lyme disease.

Eventually she began to recover and resumed practicing on a limited basis.

One day Bonnie said to me, "Is this what you deal with all the time with what you have? How do you DO it???"

Yeah, you can't practice accurate accountancy on parameters that you don't know exist.

And it appears to be a common human behavior to automatically reject any parameters different from those encountered in one's own experience of life; as in, "Oh, your stated life experience is different from mine? Well then, your stated life experience is incorrect.", which has sometimes been stated that directly.

I've actually been through some of the things you've been through, believe it or not. I've been rejected, bullied, the whole nine yards. There were times when I didn't believe I was "long for this world." Godammit! I'm not gifted. I don't have esoteric knowledge to fall back on. If I had that, I would be much better off. There are times when my mind draws a blank. When that happens, I just turn on the ballgame.

I meant "null and void" as far as immediate impact is concerned. Why would you think I wouldn't empathize with a person going through stuff? You don't know me in person, so you can't know me. But I'm not an unempathetic person.

You don't think I would "offer shelter" in a metaphorical sense to one being bullied? What kind of a person do you think I am? I think you're just upset with me. I know how it feels to be bullied and not "offered shelter." It's not a good feeling. I had to develop strategies so I don't go into despair.

When one has a "different world" to fall back on, one has an advantage. Especially if you could, at a moment's notice, go back to the "real world." I've had "absurd" things happen to me. I don't have the "spiritual awareness" or anything like that to do this.

I don't know if I've been through more, or been through less than you (maybe less).


I feel like you misunderstand me-----because you're on a different level to me. The written medium is very limited and limiting. I can't blame you, actually. I tend to do better when I'm "in person" with a person.

The trouble I'm having is the idea that the things I'm seeing are supposed to 'go away' if I were in a relationship. That idea was what I was taking issue with because it doesn't make sense.

If someone's just crabby per say and they get in a relationship, at least for a month or two they'll be less crabby. I don't know what magic would wipe the Machiavellianism and Red Queen aspects of our biology, our social systems, or our economy out by me having a partner. I wouldn't all of a sudden see 'Firefighter rescues car from tree in x suburb' on CNN every morning. Having a partner doesn't rewrite the world around me nor does it rewrite history, it changes frame and changes what's on my plate of possibilities and concerns but nothing goes away other than some degree of loneliness and spare time. If I couldn't still hold facts and reality in my mind and be with a partner I'd have a bandwidth problem, a maturity problem, most likely both.

Oh I see. But how do the cross the border. I thought that believing that 80 percent of women going for 20 percent of men was not offensive, unless I am wrong? I didn't think it was a generalization if it was 80 percent though.