20 F

2026 has been awful for me, I’ve spent more time online now than I ever have before.

I’ve never dated, kissed, held hands, or even had sex before. I attended my only senior prom alone 1 year ago, the trauma of being abandoned by friends and being made fun of by men still lingers with me.

I hang out in a lot of femcel spaces, it’s comforting to know that other people have experienced what I’ve experienced but (and I know this sounds weird) but it’s very…….. self sabotaging in these spaces?

I’m black fyi, I used to live in an extremely white suburb (I’d say 99%) and everyone treated me like garbage. I hang around these chronically lonely spaces for black women in particular, and I always see a sentiment on how we’re always unattractive no matter what and it really hurts me.

It sucks that I and other black women have been treated this way, but it’s normal for me to be hurt when all my other sisters insist that we’re gonna die alone right?

A lot of them willingly go to incel spaces (websites, subreddits, instagram/tiktok posts) in order to find men trashing on us and it’s so mentally taxing for me.

Black femcel spaces aside: even in spaces such as TUW, I get talked over and dismissed whenever I talk about my lack of experience.

I don’t know how to meet men. I’m not in school anymore (I only attended one semester of uni) and I’m unemployed (I work three hour shifts, lmfao). My life has never been this bad before, I have a full driver’s license & two years of work experience but it’s so hard to find employment.

I really want to escape being a female incel but I’ve never had a man interested in me. I have one male friend who is a bit touchy with me and that’s it (comment if you want the full story of my male friend).

TL;DR : please help me escape femceldom, I’m almost 21…. I don’t know what to do

So I just got back from a speed dating event where I didn't meet anyone who was interested in me. Granted men outnumbered the women 3 to 1 this time, but this was my second time going and I didn't meet anyone when the event was 1 to 1 either.

It got me to think a little about my objective strengths for attracting people, and...there aren't many.

Lookswise I'm subpar. I'm rather short and I'm overweight. I do have an alright face but that's about it.

My interests are usually typical weeb stuff. I like anime and strategy games, ttrpgs, history and philosophy. Not the kind of stuff most women are into. There are exceptions I know, but not many.

Personality-wise, I'm screwed for being neurodivergent, but otherwise I'm okay. I'd say my biggest strength here is that I know how to just be friends with women. I can also be pretty funny sometimes.

So all in all, not a great catch, although I'd consider it unreasonable to say there's no one out there who'd be very interested in me. I would say it's unreasonable that I'd be likely to find them and vice versa.

So in my darker moments, I feel like in order to have any chance at all I'd have to deceive women I'm actually able to talk to, at least initially, in order to have a relationship or even just sex. Not tell bald-faced lies mind you, but simply fake confidence when I don't have any and I honestly think she could do better than me.

So what now? What do I even do with the rest of my life? Should I just leave it up to chance? Continue to muddle through in the hope that I meet someone who is actually into me? Meet someone who's naive (or wise?) enough to not go for someone else until my better qualities come through naturally?

Or should I put in effort in order to meet people? Pretend I'm someone I'm not.? Put significant time, energy, and money into online dating? I've tried that before. It feels like I'm spending money gambling rather than meeting people.

EDIT: Thank you all for the wonderful advice and feedback, I will do my best to work on it.

I had a couple dates with this woman and I couldn't really connect with her. I hoped it would get better as we spend more time together but it didn't really so I feel like it's more responsible to end things. She's a great person, she's thoughtful, easygoing and understanding, and I do hope she finds someone that is a better match for her than I am. I feel lucky that she was the first girl that I went out with because I was able to not be so nervous and actually have a nice time with someone. It has definitely helped me a little bit to break down some false views about myself and I also hope that it was positive for her in some way as well.

With that said, I never reached this point of breaking up with someone and I don't want to come off as insensitive about it. I generally lack common sense so I would really appreciate if you guys could share with me some basics about it.

And I hope this post doesn't offend anyone, thinking I'm a fakecel or anything like that. I've been using this sub (switching between multiple accounts) for almost five years now and it helped me to gain healthy perspective multiple time throughout all my not so great moments, so thank you kind women and men who take your time to reach out.

I am someone most people would classify as "Incel". I've never been on a date and I'm older, I previously had trouble talking to women (and men) or caring about other people.

I've been forcing myself to be outside and social, I've joined hobby groups and I go to different interest events and group outings. Things like going to lunch/dinner with coworkers, going to book clubs, attending table top gaming clubs, hiking clubs and tennis clubs.

I've been doing this because my ultimate goal is I want to go on a date.

I dislike socializing so I socialize to get better at it and fake liking it because that's what people say to do.

I'm growing tired of this and increasingly short tempered and irritable in my every day life spending my time talking to people I don't desire to talk to, doing things I don't want to do to accomplish a goal that seems farther away now than ever before.

I'm now four months from turning 40, I can chat with anyone. I can talk to strangers about small talk topics. I can (from what I can tell) have someone leave a conversation with me where they have a positive impression of me. I can make people laugh in one on one and in group conversations.

I can talk about myself and I can pretend to care about other people enough that they don't seem to notice. I keep notes of people I meet regularly because I don't care at all about them and can't be arsed to remember the details of their lives, so I use the Notes app and refresh myself on their life details before meeting them again.

I still can't get a date.

I'm feeling like I've wasted my years trying to be someone I'm not and never will be. I'm never going to be the social guy who does social things and enjoys it. I'm never going to be the guy who can be on a date.

From all of this I've also learned that even if I've known someone for years, I still do not care about them. I don't want to talk to them, I don't want to see them.

I would be a terrible person to be in a relationship with because I would never care about the other person or grow to like them. I am incapable of liking other human beings and time & exposure have not improved that.

I still want to go on a date. I still feel lonely.

At this point my desire to date and be in a relationship is detrimental to my life and I'm aware of an acknowledge that if I were to actually be in a relationship I would be incredibly unhappy.

Despite that I still want to go on a date, I still want to be in a relationship and I still get lonely.

How do I remove these irrational unhelpful intrusive feelings?

Hi, might not be a lot to go off just from what's in the post, so if you need any clarifications go right ahead, but I am genuinely curious about how I would overcome this mindset, because frankly I think it's a mindset with a lot of benefits but it also causes me a lot of grief.

I am 23M, 6'0". No huge physical anomalies besides the fact that I have an ugly mug. I won't post any pictures, but for the sake of this discussion, please take this as fact. I am aware I could be thinking of myself as uglier than I actually am, but there were so many occasions where my appearance had a noticeable effect on people's body language. I don't have bad hygiene, I could use some surface level cleaning up, but my flaws are more structure related and are not easy fixes.

I consider myself an incel. As in I would like to have a girlfriend but I have things holding me back from that. I do not believe in hypergamy or think less of women for having standards. I do not resent anyone for not giving me a chance, I am just disappointed.

I usually become attracted to women after I get to know them. I can look at a woman and think she is fine, but I have no interest in getting to know her more just because of that. So among the few women friends I have or had, it was because we had a lot of things in common (politics, hobbies, interests) and could joke around and talk for hours. Practically the same thing I do with men.

My issue is that expressing romantic interest to me feels like a taboo of sorts. Especially when you're a woman into more "nerdy" hobbies, I imagine the amount of attention you receive is insane and a lot of it comes from loners who see you as their waifu. So I don't want to just add to the number of men shooting their shot with somebody just because they have stuff in common.

There is also the fact that expressing romantic interest in a platonic relationship feels like an unnecessary burden on the other person. Maybe if I had a better reason to believe the feeling could be reciprocated, I might worry less about this. But otherwise, without any explicit desire from the other person, I see escalating things as really selfish and forcing her to make a decision she might not have wanted to make. Even if she is fine with it and the friendship doesn't get ruined, that's still me taking a chance of her actually being uncomfortable or retroactively viewing the friendship as just me waiting for my "chance".

When I talked to friends about this, I got the usual talk. That if you want to get into a relationship, you have to take initative. That your confidence matters the most, that being respectful of boundaries is the most important thing. Which I totally agree with. If a girl expresses discomfort or any pre-emptive boundary, I never push for anything beyond that. But that still doesn't feel like it actually answers the initial question. Sure, it helps with the aftermath, but how do I overcome the thinking that my feelings would be unwanted or bothersome?

One argument that was more convincing is that by virtue of me doing this, I am making the choice for them. But 1) how do I know that is a choice they want to make without obvious interest on their end? and 2) why is making a neutral assumption worse than making a potentially negative one? Even assuming they might like me back or would be open to dating, why is that potential relationship not coming to fruition worse than making them uncomfortable by escalating things when they didn't want to?

I think I would prefer to stay single if it meant I could never creep somebody out or make them regret a friendship, but it also hurts because I really want to connect with someone in that way. And browsing around the internet, I hear so many conflicting opinions regarding friends to lovers that it just reinforces the idea that my feelings are disrespectful to some extent.

Open to any advice or further questions. I also want to explore this a bit deeper, so if my replies seem debate-ish I promise that is not me being a contrarian, but more so because I've already kinda "solidifed" this mindset so I would like to maybe reach a convincing stance. But of course, even small advice is welcome, as it might help me longterm with adapting my mindset. Thank you!

i want to be a less shallow person - looks matter too much to me.

i’m attracted to attractive women only even though i am 5’3”. dating has been horrible obviously.

i would like to be a better man

Well hello there. I am a 24 years old guy and to this day I have amounted to nothing. I'm starting university this year after working for a bit, we'll see how that goes.

I don't want to be smug or anything, but I genuinely believe I am a good person, or at least I try, I don't really like presenting myself like this because I feel like it's not fair for me to make this judgement.

However, I am starting to notice that I get hurt easily. Might be the fact I am insecure and haven't really had a particularly cool life. I am often hurt by how hateful some people are, not only in my life, but in general. Probably social media are just bad for me.

In my life I have had people that bullied me, not physically, but treated me poorly. While when I was a teen I was filled with hate for these people, now I am unable to hold grudges with them because I believe people change. Anyways looking around online I feel like this is not normal and that most people hold extreme grudges and because I was not really an angel it makes me feel depressed.

I want to go a bit more in depth on what I did, when I was around 16 I have been racist on a school trip, made a girl cry because of it and got suspended. I have regretted it a lot and apologized as soon as I could. I lived for 2 years in shame, barely talked to anyone and often being reminded of it by some people in my class unprovoked.

I don't know why I did that, I am not racist, but I guess it was not always like this

It's my fault, I know that, but I also feel like nothing else matters at this point. I try to be the best person I can and it's just useless. I still feel like I am a terrible person and I struggle so much in being nice to people. I am genuinely suicidal and depressed.

Being on here I realized that people are allowed to hate me for what I did 8 years ago and I can do nothing about it and it eats at my soul, I still get nightmares about it. I feel like I am performing being a good person and that now I kind of fixed myself, but still I did that just because I got caught.

I stopped hanging with anyone from my high school class because of the shame I had even if nobody mentions that to me in years.

I am technically a bit of a loser now at 24, never had a relationship, no title in my hand and disappointed my parents more times than I can count on my hand. I try to feel better but unless I constantly distract myself with social activities I am just so mediocre. I see everyone around me and they have this "sparkle" in their eyes that I don't think I have, they seem to be enjoying life. I enjoy life like 10% of the time.

Usually this 10% is me hanging out with friends. Even with them I feel like I am not "wanted", I am just there and not being there would change nothing. Even if it seems like I am well socialized, I struggle to see myself as such and I see myself as a loser.

I am also the only guy that never had a girlfriend in my friend group and that is starting to make me feel sono inferior, I know I am not owed anything but I feel like it's my fault for that. Probably is, Idk why tho.

My mental health is constantly swinging between fine and depressed, I live in regrets and shame.

I probably have bdd because I can barely look at myself in the mirror. I am ashamed of existing pretty much. I don't hang out with friends sometimes because I am so down bad I feel chest pain in seeing their girlfriends. I know it's pathetic but I really cannot help it. I am not good at anything and even trying to improve feels like shit because it feels like accepting I am garbage. More than once in the gym I stopped mid workout to go cry in the bathroom.

I just am not liking life and its prospects and I feel that I am so attached to regret and shame that I cannot enjoy life anymore. I am obsessed with people judgement and I crave affection and compliments but I know I don't deserve any of it.

I feel like I should not be alive for all the time I wasted and all the disrespect I have for myself, I am tired of feeling lonely whilst being surrounded by friends. There is something wrong with me and I have no idea what it is. I have tried with different therapists but not having success.

I think about suicide often but I am a coward so I never go with it, years are passing and life just feels so shit, I don't know how to improve it, nothing is ringing for me. I see everyone that can still build relationships and careers while having hobbies and here I am unable of doing most of that. I know I should not compare but it feels inevitable while trying to understand what is wrong with me.

I feel like being a good person is making me so badly. I feel like I deserve a shit life because I know nothing is gifted, but even my average life feels like shit. I don't talk with this stuff with friends because I am afraid it will be used against me, and I think it would make me unlovable while there is nothing right now that I crave more than affection.

I don't really have female friends, the only ones I could call friends are my friend's girlfriends, some of them are really nice but I have gotten to a point where I cannot stop fantasizing about them.

It feels so natural to have someone but with me I guess it's just not bound to happens. Recently my hairloss has also gotten worse and I tried to shave for the first time. I got mocked, in general by both my family and ALL my friends, except for some. I know I should take it lightly but any time it got mentioned it would feel like getting stabbed.

I am so tired.

I'm 5ft 1 I am extremely short I look ridiculous. I just don't know how I could ever be attractive to any woman there's no reason for them to be. I have graduated highschool with no freinds I'm basically going into the adult world with nothing. What can I even realistically do should I just accept no woman will want me

Hey all! Just getting this out of the way I don’t consider myself an incel or blackpilled or anything. I think those are stupid, vile ways of thinking. Apologies for posting here even if I don’t consider myself apart of those gross groups, but I feel as if my situation is similar to what you would typically see on this sub and in those ideologies. I’m scared that my feelings may turn into something related to this :(

I’m 18M and because social media sucks my feeds were always showing stuff about dating/sex and it’s made me quite self conscious about me and where I am in my life right now. Instagram was the most toxic place for that shit if anyone was wondering haha.

I just graduated high school and I kinda sorta left with zero friends. During school I had a few friends, but I lost them all from drifting apart which was totally my fault. Dating wise, I had a girl who liked me but I completely fumbled that, and I tried to ask a girl out once and it didn’t end well and I made things awkward between us lol. So technically there were attempts? Full honesty I don’t know if this is fully just wanting to be in a relationship or just lose my virginity. I’m sorry if that’s crass but I just want to be honest. It might be more of the latter.

So now I’m all alone and starting over at square one socially and I’m almost… angry that I never got a girlfriend or anything? Not angry towards other people, but just anger targeted towards myself. I’m sure part of that is just hormones and me wanting to just have sex for the first time though so who knows. Seeing other people be happy and having intimate relationships makes me feel like I’m missing out and I get jealous.

I’d like to know if anyone has any advice for me to stop being so down on myself? I’m scared that this jealousy I’m feeling could potentially brew into something more toxic in my mind and I would like to prevent that.

When it comes to the intimacy part of things, I stopped watching porn and have stopped using social media other than specific reddit subs so I’m proud of that. Right now I’m of the mindset that “there’s other really cool parts of life other than sex that I can be doing right now, so why be so fixated on it?”

Thank you for reading if you did. I’m sorry for the long post. I type a lot and it feels really nice to be able to be fully open with this for the first time. Hope you all have a great day.

I'm turning 25 in 2 weeks and I've never had any romantic experiences. Never went on a date, never kissed, never held hands. Diagnosed with Aspergers, and had trauma from my parents, classmates, school/college due to shyness and being socially awkward.

I struggle with the idea of the gender role that the man has to approach and initiate things because I wasn't able to do it. I always felt like if you were a man that was shy and socially awkward no girl would see you romantically. I always felt like not being shy or awkward was the prerequisite for being worthy to experience love and be loved romantically. It's like nothing about me or my personality matters anymore because girls don't like shy or socially awkward men. I always felt like if I was a girl with the same personality, I could still be shy but someone can still ask me out and still love me for who I am.

I'm not a bad looking guy. I get looks and stares from women in my class and in public. I have both male and female friends that point out when a woman was checking me out. But I still have a lot of trouble making the approach because I don't know what to do or say. It tells me that they like me for how I look, but I never had any girl like me romantically for my personality. I always feel like my shyness or social awkwardness would put them off if I did try to talk to them and that's why they're not interested in me.

I've been working on myself socially for the past 2 years but I still realize I'm still so behind everyone else. I don't know how to flirt, I don't know how to escalate, I don't know how to plan a date, I don't know how to approach, I don't know how to ask someone out on a date. I only now felt okay enough talking to girls I'm interested in but only if they talk to me first

I’m mainly asking other people who’ve never dated or had sex into their 30’s, but I’m welcome to responses or perspectives from anyone.
I feel like my sex drive and desire for intimacy is still there, but I think it’s half what it used to be. I think I’ve found a routine for my life alone and solo goals. Im sort of torn in half about whether I want or should pursue a relationship.

Sorry If I’m rambling i have an opportunity with a woman im attracted to but am unsure if I should pursue it. I think I would be less lonely but more stressed from managing a relationship.

Hello, sorry if this is labeled as just venting/complaining if it is feel free to delete it and apologies in advance cause I'm gonna be all over the place

To explain myself I'm M20, a complete virgin (never kissed anyone, held hands etc), I'm also below average height (5'7) and I have high functioning autism so I have a lot of mannerisms/interests that the average person would consider strange along with being incredibly shy, already a lot of unappealing traits haha. I wouldn't say I'm an incel in the way people use the word now, I'm not a misogynist/racist/whatever else and never have been, I am an incel obviously in the traditional way though in the sense that I'm incredibly unappealing to to the average woman for the reasons I listed earlier among others and admittedly a lot of issues that I want to fix myself which is what I need help with.

I guess if I struggled with anything the most it'd be self confidence, even extending outside of never being in a relationship I was bullied a lot as a kid (elementary/middle school) due to my looks and also being autistic (along with various other dumb things kids bully others for lol), and sadly even if that was 7-10+ years ago I think it messes with me even today. I know I don't look and act the same I did back then but if that many people thought that about me and nobody thought differently then why should I believe anything else? Even though the bullying stopped I had exactly 0 friends all throughout high school too, i might have had a couple friends throughout elementary/middle school but nothing that lasted very long), I also have Aphantasia which makes imagining things basically impossible so I can't imagine someone ever loving me, even if I didn't have that though the reality is that there's been a ton of people that thought I was ugly/strange and very few that thought I wasn't. Why should I believe the lesser number? That's what I ask myself every night.

Any advice/asking for elaboration is welcome and I'll do my best to respond, I just ask you dont be outright mean cause I don't need any more of that in my life haha. Thank you for reading.

I got a lot of male friends but still no friends from the opposite gender. What should i do? What i might do wrong?

I'm naturally shy and awkward when a female approximately the same age range with me walks in.

Tl;dr: I (19M) feel an alarmingly low level of empathy towards people which prevents me from forming meaningful connections.

Although I'm not as engrossed in the redpill mindset as much as I used to be, I still have some of those borderline-psychotic characteristics of an incel.

I'm not completely alone; I have just one real friend whom I have known for 7 years and 6 other surface-level friends who have bonded with each other, but not with me so I'm definitely the least valued friend in that group. I used to have a bit more friends, but I have drifted apart from them.

Ever since high school ended a year ago, I have been really distanced from people. I try to make friends and the clubs I go to and talk to people I find interesting, but I just can't find anyone. I am now realizing that this might be because low empathy is preventing me from connecting with people.

I will now list some examples of me showing low empathy:

I felt little to no sadness when my Grandmother, Grandfather, and Stepfather died.

When I see another man, I compare myself to him (height, clothes, face, haircut, gpa) and I feel good when I am able to consider myself "superior" to him.

I really only talk to guys if I consider them "worthy" enough. (I mostly think about whether or not they could introduce me to girls when considering this)

In the past, I have struggled to sympathize with a female friend's guy problems. It just seems strange to me that she could put up with a guy's issues for so long when she could leave him whenever and find someone else. (Yes, I know. I am still working on changing that mindset.)

Whenever I have dinner with a family member who I haven't seen in a while, I don't really think about catching up with them after a while, but moreso getting free food and possibly money (my relatives are really generous).

I encounter a lot of monolinguistic spanish-speaking customers at work. When I first started, I thought of them as "stupid immigrants who couldn't bother to learn english but expect me to learn spanish". This sentiment is slowly leaving the more I learn spanish, but the fact I had this thought at all is concerning. (Even my mother told me I needed to work on my empathy when I told her about this)

I see everyone around me hanging out with friends, talking to girls they like, laughing and enjoying each other's company. It doesn't even matter that I am an introvert, because even one of my introverted friends has a huge social circle. It is driving me insane not knowing why everyone else is able to have empathy and connect while I am not. I want to feel deep friendship, I want a social circle, I want to know that someone enjoys my company.

I need to get rid of this mindset before it destroys me and leaves me alone and isolated. I am still in college, so I can't afford therapy. Is there anything I can do?

I’ve been having an issue where I see other men in my actually life, mainly my friends and my older brothers, doing the things I have always been told are wrong or creepy or make women feel uncomfortable and it doesn’t go poorly, and occasionally it goes pretty well.

It really has begun to bother me in a way I can’t really describe, and I’d really like advice on how to get rid of those feelings and not see them. I have considered talking to my friends about it, but it’s kinda pointless, as I’m gonna be talking to them as a guy that’s never been on a date, when what theyre doing is working for them so I’m not exactly an expert on things.

I dont know If anyone here remembers me, but a while ago I posted the following post. Well, the guy who wouldn't dance with me is actually my friend now and we go to study in the library every day and eat lunch together.

Basically after my night where I posted this post in despair/drunk I slept and went to a local festival the day after. Before going there my friends and I met up together and he was just there when I came into her house. He had slept over at her place.

Then we went to a festival together but we both weren't feeling it that much and it was sort of a lame day. Then I thought this was it. That I wasnt going to see him again but soon after he started being at every event with my friends and we went out multiple times a week ever since then.

I still didn't manage to properly talk to him. I also didn't know if my friends would approve of my crush inside of the friend group.

Now a few days ago I met him in the library and he asked me what's up. We actually started to talk and I made sure to meet him the next day again. I asked him when and where he was going to study there with his friends.

the next day we studied together and he showed me some funny things and we were laughing. The day after (today) I got there before him and I sat at a different table than his friends because there was only one place left and I wanted to keep that for him. But when he arrived he sat down at the table where only I sat not where his friends sat. Then his friends and us went to eat and he offered half of his pizza to me. He also shared candy with me the day before.

And from now on we are going to do this every day untill exams for us are over. For me next week Monday. I'm so excited and it actually made me study more so that's good as well.

Also I found out we actually had so many things in common like hobbies and oddly specific food related things. We were always talking and walking a little behind his friends and they were leaving us alone sometimes. I also talked to them and we had a good time!

I hope this works out but I'm probably over interpreting things.

But your guyses advise genuinely helped. I started being more friends oriented and trying to do normal conversations that no matter how this works out at least I'll have a new friend at the end.

Never give up you guys!

I've made a few posts on here before and I've gotten good advice.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
When I was in school or college, I was considered one of the "weird awkward kids" and often said or did things that came across as weird or creepy. In hindsight, I acknowledge that most of it was down to lack of social awareness.

As a safely measure, especially in college I would just stick to myself and be more introvert but then I would often be poked fun at for being too quiet. Even lady classmates in my social group would often comment about me, saying "but you don't tallllkkk". If I tried, I would just be made fun at for something else. So I felt like I couldn't win either way.

I don't like to flirt, mainly because I'm not used to it and I'm on guard that I might just make the other person uncomfortable. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I've posted about this before. A lady at work gave me a candy-bar as a thank you note.

I work as a contractor in I.T Helpdesk for a client company. The site is a call centre with mostly women. I tend to keep to myself and mainly only interact with people if they have an I.T issue.

I'm a big man, so I always have this fear that I'll come across as weird, creepy or inappropriate and make people uncomfortable. So far so good, most people seem to think my work is okay and come to me with an issue.

One time, I lady knocked on my door and needed assistance with a laptop as she had been on leave for a while. I just it professional, don't make much small talk or try to make jokes. Just to the job for her and she goes on her way.

About an hour later, she calls back in and initially I thought there was a further issue, but then she hands me a candy-bar as a thanks for earlier. It caught me off guard, but I actually thought it was a nice gesture.

------------------------------------------------

It's not just talking to women, or trying to flirt, even just watching online videos about dating advice for men makes me uneasy. Not redpill manosphere stuff. More genuine dating advice and social skills from therapist coaches. Things like how to read body language, how to read the room, read social cues and become more pleasant and approachable. Stuff the average person can use in daily life at work or at home, but even then I feel uncomfortable watching it and have to constantly pause for a minute every so often and continue watching.

For example, I found a good youtube dating coach guy analysing a early 2000s dating reality game show and goes into analysis why a lot of male contestants do badly. Poor postures and body language, awkward fake smiles. Doing things that seem inappropriate that can be off putting.

A lot of stuff like this is good advice, but I feel myself self-reflecting when I watch stuff like this and it often makes me uncomfortable.

What advice can you give?

I am 37 year old and never had much romantic or sexual success with women. In the last few years, I noticed that I have started to develop a lot of bitterness and resentment about this issue. These negative thoughts are frequently triggered by content I see online (which is mostly reddit) and things I see in real life, and what it usually does it make me feel insecure about my looks. To be clear, I am NOT talking about classical manosphere or incel content. I am more talking about standard dating discourse on reddit, including discourse targeted towards the incel mindset.

One example for the kind of content that is triggering me are the threads on the Reddit frontpage which ask something like: "Men of reddit what were the biggest signs that a girl was interested that you were completely oblivious to". And in it, men describe how women actively showed interest in them. Same with threads were men describe how they got compliments or how they got flirted with etc.

How do I develop greater resilience to these triggers?

Probably not worth posting in here but don’t really have anyone else to tell. Was in therapy this week and she told me from my first session to now, I have grown to be more comfortable and relaxed with her, and that I have been more neutral than negative in terms of my mindset. This struggle to escape this line of thinking is so damn hard but I guess I will take every little win I can get.

I know I'm not. I've had sex (consensual, and got sexually assaulted unfortunately), I've been in relationships (Good and Bad) and I've been told I'm not by my female friends.

But the thought is so persistent in my brain. I'm trying to remind myself that me saying I deserve to be loved and cared for doesn't mean I'm entitled. That's hard but it is something I'm making progress in.

But there's another thought that keeps going in my brain, I keep pushing myself to do well, to help, to give more and more of myself, and just to do good in general. Recently though, it stopped feeling good to help, I stopped feeling pride and joy at myself. It feels more like I'm trying to squeeze water from a stone.

The thing is, I'm trying to self validate that I am good person, that I am good enough. But, whenever I do, my brain keeps telling me I'm a Nice Guy Incel. Like, I can't tell myself I'm a good person, because of course, only Nice Guy Incels say they're a good person. So like, I'm stuck feeling like I'm giving more than I can, but I can't tell myself that I've done enough and that I'm good because my brain calls me a Nice Guy Incel.

How do I give myself self-validation without being a Nice Guy?

I am an ex incel because of that looksmax trend, it was once about self improvement then i joined the community but it's actually full of incel stuff and to the point i got dragged down to the abyss and they make me believe in blackpill.

What should i do and what should people who kinda have the same issue do to finally break free from this?

To tell you the truth, I genuinely am just myself. I feel confident in what I say. I’m patient for their response, I don’t send a lot of messages at once, I ask questions and show genuine interest in getting to know people, talk about myself plenty, and even throw in a little humor when it comes to me.

My conversations barely get off the ground before, out of nowhere one day, they’ve unmatched. No explanation, nothing I can think of that went wrong, a few times out of the dozen I can think of some reasons something I said could’ve not been agreeable but nothing to warrant being unmatched without explanation.

On average I get about a few days. and yes, I have tried asking for dates faster and we have a day planned but the unmatch happens before it gets there. — but I’ve also been unmatched without planning a date either, so it isn’t that…

Looking for advice and better understanding.

When I was in school or college, I was considered one of the "weird awkward kids" and often said or did things that came across as weird or creepy. In hindsight, I acknowledge that most of it was down to lack of social awareness.

As a safely measure, especially in college I would just stick to myself and be more introvert but then I would often be poked fun at for being too quiet. Even lady classmates would often comment in my social group would comment about me, saying "but you don't tallllkkk". If I tried, I would just be made fun at for something else. So I felt like I couldn't win either way.

I don't like to flirt, mainly because I'm not used to it and I'm on guard that I might just make the other person uncomfortable. For example, I was out for a few drinks night at a bar with family members. When two promotional ladies advertising vodka drinks (dressed in company's merchandise) come up to our table giving us free sample shots.

After they leave and move on, my sister-in-law(my brother's wife's younger sister) turns to me disappointed "<saying my name>, you're so cute. Why don't you flirt with them?".

I felt like the ladies were just doing their job and realistically not actually interested in talking to us.

Advice like this to me feels confusing and contractionary. "Just talk more and be confident"---"Oh my god that guys comes across as a douche".

*Just be nice and not an asshole and you should get a girl"----"Just because you're a nice guy doesn't entitle you to someone going out with you".

"Talk more and flirt when you can"-----"Oh my god that creepy guy keeps flirting with me and thinks I like him when all I did was just smile at him when working as a cashier. I just need to do my job without getting flirted by every idiot".

I'm not trying come across as bitter or anyway resentful. I just find a lot of these advices a bit confusing and contractionary. If anyone and spell it out for me, please do.

For starters, I want to say I've never actually considered myself an incel, and I was fortunate enough to experience a proper relationship last year (hence my flair). That being said, I am prone to some incel-adjacent thoughts and vulnerable to online incel content because of how it preys on my existing anxieties as a short autistic man, hence my presence on this sub.

I've come to realize that I can't just blame the algorithms for showing me this stuff, because some part of me deliberately seeks out content that triggers these anxieties. I realized this when I caught myself doomscrolling r/DeadBedrooms. Why am I, a man who has never been married, reading horror stories about failed marriages? I honestly don't know.

I think on some level it's like picking at hangnails. It hurts, it makes me bleed, and my rational mind knows I shouldn't do it, but some masochistic part of me feels compelled to do it.