Study Reveals the Twisted Way Incels View Dating – and Why They Have Little Success (Conservatives, With Their Recurrent, Abhorrent Singles- Shaming Commentary are Exacerbating This Problem)
A few comments by me before I copy the links and excerpts in below:
External Locus Of Control – Not Taking Personal Responsibility
One of the comments from the article below that really grabbed my attention was this one:
Results showed that the incel group was more likely than the other to attribute their singlehood to external reasons, such as the competition posed by other men.
— end excerpts —
If you make your locus of control external to yourself, as many personality disordered people do, and as people with codependency do, you will never be happy, and you’ll have very little success in life. You’re setting yourself up for failure.
If you want to find inner peace and encounter more success in life, you have to make your locus of control internal.
This doesn’t mean you cannot acknowledge how the past, or people of your past, negatively impacted you or hurt you, but – you have to still get up, brush off the dirt, and make a deliberate choice to move forward and keep trying.
If you sit around constantly focused on how life has done you wrong, how life has been unfair to you, or over how the people from your past abused you, exploited you, or let you down, you’re not moving forward.
You cannot simultaneously live in the present and make strides in the future if your mind is constantly ruminating on the past.
If you keep blaming other people, you’re not taking control of your own life, your own choices, and your own happiness; you are not making any type of attitude changes, or other changes in your life, that will tilt things to your favor.
During the 35+ years I was extremely codependent (and I also had clinical depression until my mid-40s), I kept attracting a lot of acquaintances and friends who had clinical depression, negative attitudes, and many had Covert Narcissistic traits (ie, they had huge victim-hood mentalities).
In over 20 years on the internet, in participating on forums, blogs, and social media, I’ve attracted the same types of people (until I dropped the codependency).
I wrote long blog posts about some of these people (such as here), and one trait of several I noticed all these people had in common was a victimhood mentality – these types of people waste a lot of time and energy re-hashing past wrongs, how everyone has hurt them, how God let them down, and how life didn’t work out like they planned.
They blame all their misfortune on factors external to themselves – which means, they’re not taking back control by taking responsibility for their choices and actions.
So long as you stay mired in that victim mindset – instead of accepting the pain of your past, grieving it, and determining to move forward – you’re making yourself miserable, and you may even be causing yourself to have depression, or, you may be causing yourself to remain “stuck” in depression.
That’s right.
All the people who hurt you previously, all the people who refused to date you (whatever or whomever you’re upset about) are not currently holding you down – you are.
The only person standing in your way now is you. Not someone who mistreated you when you were a child, or someone from 15 years ago, or all the women (or men) who didn’t date you.
If you’re having a hard time working through past hurts (i.e., you were badly abused or neglected in childhood), you may have C-PTSD or CEN (Childhood Emotional Neglect), and you need to see a trauma-informed therapist to help you recover. You need some kind of professional mental health help to take back responsibility for your life now.
Traits of Personality Disorders
Unfortunately, if you’re someone with a personality disorder – such as Vulnerable (also known as Covert) Narcissism, there is no cure for that. And it sounds to me like a lot of the traits incels are said to have (according to this study) belong to people with Cluster B disorders, particularly, Covert Narcissism.
Paranoia, pathological insecurity, anxiety, and fear of rejection are traits that are often found in persons with Covert Narcissism and/or BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), and the study says those are common traits in Incels.
Covert Narcissism is not generally treatable, but BPD is.
Sounds to me like a lot of these Incel men have psychological problems, many of which cannot be cured or healed.
Singles Shaming – Which Conservatives Engage in Often – May Be Contributing to the Problem
Another possible contributing factor in making this Incel problem worse:
The culture at large – in particular my fellow conservatives who have unbelievably moved into turning marriage and parenthood into idols they worship – need to send the message to everyone that there is nothing shameful, wrong, or bad about being single or being a virgin past age 18 or in being celibate.
The study says that one driving factor behind negative mental health or violence of Incels is a sense of shame over being single, and that these Incels wrap up a lot of their identity in their lack of a romantic partner.
My fellow conservatives tend to spend a lot of time, every few months, shaming and insulting single and childless adults for being single and childless.
I think that conservatives (who worship the Nuclear Family, motherhood, and marriage) are contributing to the Incel phenomenon because of this.
Conservatives incorrectly encourage adults (women particularly) to wrap their entire identity and purpose in life in marrying and becoming a mother.
Here is some of what my fellow conservatives should be saying to single men and women:
If you want to be married or dating but are not having success at it, that can be very frustrating, disappointing, and lonely. I acknowledge that.
It’s not wrong to want to have a significant other or to marry, but if it doesn’t come to pass, you need to actively accept that is your situation instead of sitting around in perpetual resentment, rage, or shame about it.
Allow yourself to grieve your single status if you find it upsetting, allow yourself to feel the loss, but make a choice, after you permit yourself some time to grieve it, to enjoy your life as it is,
rather than sit around often ruminating on it, dwelling on it, feeling infuriated about it, or joining online forums of other angry singles who are angry and bitter about being single.
Instead of sitting around all day focusing on what you do not have (a girlfriend or boyfriend), find other interests in your life, and go after those.
That doesn’t mean you cannot occasionally try to date, but your entire life should not be wrapped up in finding a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or in feeling ashamed that you do not have one.
Platonic friendship can be wonderful.
You don’t have to get all your relational or emotional needs met through a wife or a girlfriend or through a husband or boyfriend.
I had wanted to be married, but it never happened (I was engaged in my 30s but I broke up with my fiance.)
I’m middle-aged now, I never did marry, and while I felt sad about that for a few years (up until my mid- 40s or so), I learned to enjoy my life as it is, not as how I planned or hoped it to be.
You too can achieve that, but you have to be willing to do it, rather than permitting yourself to cave in daily or weekly to the anger, disappointment, frustration, and disillusionment.
Acceptance is key, too. We don’t always get everything we want in life or had hoped to have. Make peace with that.
Some Single Women Who Want to Date Are Not Primarily Or Only Interested in Looks or Money
One part of this study says that these Incels think that women are primarily interested in looks and money – which is not altogether true. One of the top qualities I look for in a man is Kindness.
I do care about what a guy looks like, but like many women, I am willing to be flexible if the guy in question has other qualities I like. For me, personally, I don’t care about a lot of money.
When I tried to explain this to some embittered single men in a thread on X (formerly Twitter), they sat there and acted incredulous.
These men then tried to explain to me, what I, a single woman, finds attractive in a man – though I had just told them the traits I find appealing in men (and a lot of money was NOT on my list)!
These bitter single men are so very cynical, I don’t think they will ever get a girlfriend or a wife.
If you harbor THAT level of mistrust against any and every woman you meet, even ones online, you will continually fail at attracting women.
Don’t Build Your Entire Identity Around Having a Mate or Not Having One
Instead of forming your identity on being sadly single, choose to form it around something more positive and uplifting.
And again, my fellow conservatives CONTRIBUTE to the Incel problem by insisting that adults who are single should feel guilty, ashamed, and terrible about being single, that every adult should wrap his or her identity up in being a spouse and a parent – concepts that the Bible never endorses, teaches, or suggests.
I understand that one motivation of Conservatives in their shaming of singleness is to fight back against “anti nuclear family” views of the far left, but that does not excuse the behavior in the first place.
Other than that motivation, I’ve never understood why so many other conservatives hype marriage and parenthood as much as they do,
because if you wrap your entire worth and identity up in being a spouse or parent,
what will you do when and if your children and husband die young, your spouse divorces you, or your children grow older and move out?
For the benefit of your own mental health and flourishing, you need to form an identity that is not wholly wrapped up in being a husband, wife, mother, or father.
My fellow conservatives are completely in the wrong to encourage adults to build their entire identity around their relationship status.
(Link): First official study reveals what creates incels
Incels is the term used for a group of sexually embittered men who form their identities around their perceived inability to establish romantic connections with women.
(Link): How Incels Approach Dating
Excerpts:
Self-identified incels take the “grapes are sour” argument to its extreme.
October 2023
by Jourdan Travers LCSW
…The misogyny, hate speech, and, in some cases, real-world violence perpetrated by self-identified incels are alarming and appear primarily driven by hatred and distrust of women and a sense of feeling victimized by the feminist movement.
1. They rely on an external locus of control.
A 2023 study found that, in assigning a cause to their singlehood, men who self-identified as incels displayed a greater “external locus of control” than non-incel men, attributing life events and outcomes of one’s actions to external factors and perceiving their lives as being largely governed by forces beyond their control.
The researchers suggest that such external attribution may stem from social comparison, as incels often perceive themselves as having lower “value” as romantic or sexual partners than other men.
The study found that incels further placed excessive importance on physical attractiveness and financial prospects to attract women and underestimate their preferences for the qualities of intelligence, kindness, and humor. Incels’ inaccurate perceptions of what women desire in partnerships led to them blaming women as well as other men for their lack of romantic success.
…Incels also believe that highly desirable men, branded by the community as “Chads” or “Alpha males,” are winners of the genetic lottery for attractiveness, due to which a majority of women gravitate towards them, reducing others’ chances for a match.
Finally, incels believe that “subordinate” men, often referred to as “betas” or even “simps” make women believe they are more desirable than they actually are, so that they will choose them. Incels perceive themselves to be at the bottom of this three-tier hierarchy of desirability.
The researchers suggest that by viewing technology, women, or other men as the cause of their misery, incels avoid accountability for their actions or maladaptive coping mechanisms for rejection. By projecting their dating insecurities onto their external reality, they reinforce patriarchal values and dehumanize the women they seek to date, further reducing their chances of romantic success.
….A 2023 study published in The Journal of Sex Research examined online dating experiences of incels and non-incels, finding significant mental health differences between them. Incels scored higher than their counterparts on the following dimensions:
….Rejection sensitivity.
The self-identity of an incel is rooted in romantic rejection. The researchers found that they also experience high levels of rejection sensitivity, which refers to an individual’s heightened and often anxious response to the perceived possibility of rejection or social exclusion.
The study found that incels also reported a greater fear of being single. This creates a tendency to react strongly to situations that may involve social judgment, like dating often does.
It seems that in rejecting themselves and believing they will not be good enough for potential partners, incels believe everyone else will agree.
This may contribute to hostile behavior, making them more dismissive of others and resulting in an unfortunate self-fulfilling prophecy.
Lower self-esteem.
An incel’s self-esteem is highly influenced by their relationship status. The undesirable category they assign themselves to, as well as heightened levels of rejection sensitivity, could be contributing to their lower self-esteem as compared to non-incels because securing a relationship is essential to their confidence.
Insecure attachment style.
Incels tend to display insecure and avoidant attachment styles and this may be associated with their perception of women as manipulative or the narrative of them that suggests that they settle for rich “beta” men until they meet a “Chad.” Insecure attachment styles have also been linked to violent relationship behavior.
The researchers found that all of these symptoms in incel men were linked to believing they were less popular than others and suggested that incels’ anxiety around being single could make their dating experiences worse.
Inherent to extreme incel ideology is the attitude that women are inferior, make shallow choices, and are commodities men are entitled to. These ideas, rooted in toxic masculinity, perpetuate a harmful narrative for both incel men and non-incels.
(Link): Study reveals the twisted way incels view dating – and why they have so much less success
October 25, 2023
Incels – involuntary celibates – are men who form their identity around their perceived inability to have romantic relationships with women.
They make up a dark and depraved online community of young heterosexual men who blame society and women for their lack of success with intimacy.
Some commentators have suggested that one reason why incels fail in the dating world is because they judge women too highly, and are unrealistic about the caliber of potential partner they will attract.
However, the first official study into incel mating psychology has suggested this is not the case.
Researchers at the University of Texas found that self-confessed incels actually make fewer demands of potential female suitors than men who are not in the group.
Another interesting finding was that incels were more likely to be of shorter height. Studies show that women are more likely to be attracted to taller-than-average men, which could contribute to the feeling of rejection that incels are known to harbor.
[Image caption on page:]
Being depressed, paranoid, anxious all make men more likely to become an incel, previous research from the University of Rome found.
Attachment styles causing clingy behavior and a fear of rejection are also predictors of a hatred towards women, they discovered
Continue reading “Study Reveals the Twisted Way Incels View Dating – and Why They Have Little Success (Conservatives, With Their Recurrent, Abhorrent Singles- Shaming Commentary are Exacerbating This Problem)”
Christian Pundit 
You must be logged in to post a comment.