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Which high school friend took a path you didn't expect?
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this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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I'm not in the fucking manosphere, I hate that machismo bullshit. And if being unable to get laid makes me worthless or lesser in your view, then you're promoting toxic masculinity more than you realize.
Any time I express a shred of self-respect, people call me names like "incel," "redpilled," or whatever. Sorry, if you want me to be perpetually self-debasing to earn your approval then you can fuck off and I'll continue to be a friendless recluse. I don't care, I'm already used to it.
If telling my story and talking about the challenges I've faced means I'm "redpilled," then everyone can fuck off. You can't expect sympathy from me if I've never gotten sympathy from anyone else.
I'm tired of being gaslit that my problems don't exist and that I've supposedly been brainwashed into believing in my own problems by a bunch of douchebag influencers who I don't even listen to, who I despise as people and fundamentally disagree with philosophically. They're the abusive assholes that I'm talking about.
No, you're just angrily venting indistinguishable to someone who is, making up my position, and getting angry at what you made up. If that's how you act when someone offers any sort of help than go ahead and ignore it.
You're not helping your case by telling people who actually get laid regularly "don't be a cuck," though. If you don't want people to throw you in that handbasket, then maybe stop giving them reason to do so through the way you speak and present yourself? Then turning around and blaming them for it?
I mean, I definitely don't feel like a cuck because a woman with serious issues that stemmed from trauma stopped talking to me (and later admitted to stalking me afterwards, wondering what I was up to), when I was dating someone new who was a better fit for me within six months (a beautiful punky redhead with a killer rack). Nevermind that this was also all 22 years ago for me. Nevermind that I've also never wanted to get married or have kids. She's doing well now, has kids, is married to someone kind and loving, and I'm happy for her for that. I'm happy she worked through her trauma and didn't keep going down the same path of submitting to abuse.
You're giving people lots of people good reasons to make such assumptions and then you blame them for not knowing your personal history after some throwaway internet posts where you make some seriously misogynistic statements and aren't initially giving your background. You don't have to be steeped in machismo to be a misogynist, in fact it can be argued that the 4chan incel crowd feel the same, which is where all the talk about "Chads and Staceys" comes from, where they, like you feel not attractive, feel like they have bad social skills, and get angry at the world for not holding their hand like a baby through it instead of making an effort to do better themselves, even if it takes a long time, a lot of effort, a lot of pain, and a lot of rejection.
But as I said elsewhere, you obviously need help. We all need help. But you won't be able to move forward until you accept help and accept your own part in how all this works instead of all the blame being on external factors and external actors. We absolutely play a part in how others perceive us and judge us, and we can't always blame others for those rationally made judgments if we're giving them good reasons to hold those judgments.
Whatever. I don't have a case. Certainly not one that would benefit from any amount of help. I'm clearly past the threshold of being helpable, so what's it matter? You're just witnessing the off-venting of years of pent up cynicism. Don't expect it to be prosocial or beneficial.
And I don't know, maybe if society didn't ostracize people for being unable to get laid then you wouldn't end up with a large group of maladjusted angry miscreants forming an online community centered on their shared aspects of identity?
Maybe if "involuntary celibate" wasn't an insult, then guys who don't get laid would be able to get over it and adjust as regular members of society. But if they're ostracized for it, and treated as if their worthiness as a person is somehow lesser because they don't get laid, then maybe it's not entirely their fault that they're bitter and frustrated at the world?
If "vagina" is treated as social currency, then what the fuck do you expect to happen?
The thing is here, you're the only one seemingly holding it up as social currency. I think you really need to think about that. Because I have close friends who are asexual, they're not and never have been driven by sex, and they're some of the funniest, most thoughtful, most artistic, most pro-social people I have in my life. Genuinely one of my best friends has had one girlfriend in his life and has been celibate by choice since, and he is one of the most prolific artists I know and I wish he could get a foot in the door with his comedy writing, because I think his stuff should be on television or other media. I listen to the albums he has released regularly. He has a vibrant social life and many friends and literally no one cares that he has no interest in sex.
If you think "people who get laid" hold it up as a social currency, you're the one who actually holds it as a currency.
I don't hold it up as social currency, but just cause you can name some exceptions doesn't mean the trend isn't a big one. If it wasn't treated as social currency, then why would "incel" even be an insult? "He fucks" is often left as a compliment on posts where someone says something cool. "You can't even get your dick wet" is often said to people as a way to degrade them.
Maybe your social circle is healthier than the ones I grew up in and was exposed to in my early adulthood. Good for you and all your friends, I guess. When people found out I was a virgin when I was 18 (it was by choice at the time as I was abstinent until 19), they treated me like I was less than human.
And you think that doesn't leave a long-term psychological impact that lasted deep into my twenties? "Oh no, gotta get laid so people will respect me." Don't act like it's something I made up in my fucking head.
Asexual people often complain about society viewing them as lesser, different, or incomprehensible due to their disinterest in sex. Why would that be the case if society didn't treat it like social currency?
Psychological studies have been done and shown that women tend to ascribe more subjective attractiveness to men who get laid. So it's not even just men doing it to each other.
Incel is an insult because people like you make it your whole personality and are bitter sad sacks who make it the worlds problem instead of choosing to look inward. People give up and insult incels not because they can't get laid, but because they make their whole lives about it instead of finding anything constructive to do with their time like my asexual friends do. If you think people actually make fun of incels because they don't get laid and not that they fail to see how their shitty fucking attitudes is why they don't get laid while latching on to anything to try to justify it except their own shit behavior and beliefs, you're missing the forest for the trees.
Also, I didn't get laid until I was 20. You are literally reaching for any, and I mean any, reason for this to not be your fault and to justify being bitter and angry and unlikeable.
I don't make it my fucking personality. I've been made fun of throughout my adulthood for not getting consistently laid. Don't gaslight me that it's all in my head and that I'm just making it up.
I'm consistently rejected by society. Not even in terms of sex. That's another problem, whenever I talk about being rejected by society people think I'm talking exclusively about sex. That's indicative of their perception of the term "society."
I don't call myself an incel. But when other people call me that, it's based in cruelty, vindictiveness, and a feeling of superiority. They enjoy having someone to talk down to because they're getting laid and someone else isn't. Stop acting like they're actually morally superior because they're well-adjusted, and that I deserve the hate because I'm bitter after a lifetime of ostracization.
People don't fucking like me, and it's as simple as that. It doesn't matter what I do, because people have disliked me my entire life. I haven't always been bitter, but there's a reason I am now. And it's not as simplistic as "because I don't get laid." I don't fucking care if I get laid or not. But if I get treated as subhuman for not getting laid, that I have a problem with. Yet what I raise a concern about it, people say I'm acting "entitled to sex," missing the point entirely and reducing it to a strawman.
It doesn't matter what I fucking do, people have never liked me and they never will. It only makes sense that I'm bitter. Stop acting like my bitterness came first. You don't even fucking know me. If I were to suddenly decide to be cheery, people still wouldn't like me. They wouldn't trust me either, because it would be obviously contrived.
Stop pretending I can simply choose not to be bitter.
I'm not the one who is pretending. You do you, obviously no one will be able to break through that wall of self importance.
EDIT:
*Gestures broadly at this entire thread.
Sure looks like it from here.
Apparently giving a shit about my own problems is "self-importance." Let's see how that scales to the general populace...
Once again, you whining that people don't like you isn't the same as caring about your civil rights dumbfuck. I gave you a lot of outs in this conversation, but your whiny bitch ass just wants to keep digging a deeper hole to prove how unlikable you are. Well, guess what, you succeeded, I officially don't like you and think you suck. Not because you're a bad person, but because you have zero self reflection and whine about lame shit when people tried to help you understand and do better.
Be happy, you got what you really wanted, people don't like you. Good job, it's a self fulfilling prophecy you fucking idiot. If the only thing you put out into the world is "no one likes me and everyone judges me" eventually, that's all you'll get from the world. You get out what you put in, and you're obviously all too happy to put in "I want people to fucking hate me so I can be sad and bitter about it."
At least you finally understand. It took you long enough to get it through your head. Now go look yourself in a mirror and see the monster lurking within, waiting for you to let your guard down long enough that it can break free.
Of course it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. That's how trauma works. A pattern was ingrained in my deep subconscious at an early age, and I've been reliving it on repeat ever since. Even if someone gives me a chance, I drive them away because it's easier than building something on potential only to inevitably see it come crashing down. I don't need the anxiety of constantly dreading when that might come. I don't even try to build relationships anymore, because according to my cognitive conditioning it can only end in pain and disaster.
So you finally admit that you're the problem here. Glad you recognized it. Now shut the fuck up.
You aren't your cognitive conditioning, you can make a choice to be different. You don't want to make that choice, ergo, you can fuck off. That's me setting a boundary with someone who obviously isn't worth the effort.
Nope, this conversation started with you saying your ex isn't to blame for her trauma, and now you're blaming me for my trauma.
She left you because she couldn't handle being treated with respect. And you say that's okay, but I'm wrong for avoiding relationships for similar reasons? (In addition to growing accustomed to rejection, ostracization, ridicule, and derision)
Still the same double standard I've been pointing out all along... maybe if I chop my dick off and wear a dress then someone will finally give a shit, or at least I'll be allowed to talk about my problems even if no one cares...
My ex grew and changed. You haven't. That's the part you've conveniently ignored this whole time. I literally explained that in an earlier post, but you're more than happy to ignore information that conflicts with your fake ass worldview. I'm not some shmuck who thinks she is irredeemable because she didn't choose me, and instead eventually found someone else who really treated her right, after struggling with her trauma for a while. If she had kept doing dumb shit and getting with abusive men her whole life maybe your argument would have a leg to stand on, but right now your argument is a fucking quadriplegic.
As I said before, she eventually got divorced and broke free from her traumatic past and is now happily married to a good man and has kids. But sure, the fact that she grew and changed means nothing and means she's to blame! No, losers like you you refuse to grow are the only people to blame.
It's not a double standard if it's bullshit you made up in your own head that doesn't match the facts of the situation.
I've already told you, I've put effort into growth. It only got me shat on. I haven't always been this resigned to defeat.
Some people overcome trauma, some people don't. Just because some people escape poverty doesn't mean the ones who can't are to blame for their own condition.
All I hear is the equivalent of a Republican saying "well Democrats said I'm a racist so I guess that means I should be mega racist Nazi."
Seriously if that's your takeaway, that your self improvement was for nothing because you didn't get what you wanted out of it instead of self improvement being for its own sake, then you're doing the same thing. You're choosing to be worse because you're too weak to stand up and be better. Sorry not sorry.
Just like Nazis, if people being not nice to you and saying you're being racist means you should go as deeply Nazi as possible: something is seriously wrong with you that not even trauma can explain or justify.
Being a bad bitter person blaming everyone else isn't ever justified. Hopefully you learn that some day. If not oh well one less loser in the world.
Saying "people were mean to me so I need to double down and be worse about the things they said were bad about me" isn't the flex you think it is
I've always wanted to open my wrists in a public place, to traumatize everyone around me. They'll probably celebrate my death, so I won't give them the satisfaction of doing it quietly in a dark corner. I'm not mean enough to be violent towards others, though. But no one's ever grateful for all the times I've exercised self-restraint. Oh well.
The world is going to shit, anyway. It's a shame about all the loss of biodiversity. Nature was always my refuge, but humanity destroys all things good. I won't care when they destroy themselves. It's only a matter of time...
Man you really just want to prove how genuinely unhinged you are and how little you've done to grow, huh?
No one who has actually had serious self-growth would ever in a fucking million years want to force other people to want to watch them commit suicide to punish them.
Seriously, my ex did that shit to me. Why? Because we were in an argument about how I had cancer and was working full-time, did all the cooking, cleaning, shopping, and life planning and she sat on her butt at home. So she decided to tell me I never really loved her and tried to force me watch her kill herself because I had the fucking audacity to ask for help after I had been struggling with cancer for a year already. It has left me all fucked up, but the only people I blame for that is her and me specifically. Her for being so petty as to try to force me to watch her kill herself (by trying to swallow all my cancer meds no less) after over a decade of basically being her caretaker, and myself for not having the balls to make a boundary earlier before she tried to do this fucked up thing to me. Anyway, good job, you successfully triggered me over some fucked up shit I've been through.
No one who has ever done the work and experienced real growth would ever do that to another person, especially not just random people as you seem to be implying you would do it to. You are deeply fucked up, and you have made no growth as much as you lie to yourself that you have. If you ever had any real serious personal growth, you wouldn't ever be saying shit like that you fucking sociopath. Like that's the whole thing, you've said an unimaginable amount of selfish fucked up things here today, shifted goalposts from "there's a double standard" to "well she grew past her trauma but not everyone grows past their trauma like me for example", and have generally been one of the biggest fucking whiners I have ever encountered, but even when you admitted that you purposefully push people away because it's easier to be an angry angsty asshole who feels sorry for themselves than it is to actually be a decent human being, you still haven't put two and two together that you haven't actually grown at all and you're the actual fucking problem here and maybe, just maybe, that you are the reason people don't like you, not the cruel cruel world.
I mean, even if humans didn't destroy themselves, it's not like the heat death of the universe isn't inescapable. Yawn, what a load of existential crisis bollocks. You're pathetic.
Demean me harder. Maybe it'll finally give me the resolve to do it.
Like I said, it's clear you get off on trying to be so terrible that people hate you. Don't worry, if and when you do that, all those people you force to see it will have very, very justifiable reasons to fucking hate you and be glad you're dead. Mostly because you had so little empathy as to think they deserved to suffer simply because you suffered people being big meanies to you. Once again, wanting to make others suffer because you have suffered speaks to something being deeply wrong with you, instead of you not wanting others to suffer as you have. As I said before, your attitude and beliefs make this a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your unwillingness to learn and try to change is your choice alone. You have zero desire to do better or grow, as much as you like to pretend you do.
When you decided to switch to personal insults, I stopped caring about your feelings.
I used to want to change the world so that others wouldn't suffer like I have, but when people decided to view that as a weakness and exploit the vulnerability by heaping piles of extra suffering on top of me, it beat me down and after a while of that it kind of turned my plot arc into that supervillain origin story with an underwhelming conclusion due to my lack of superpowers.
The world has never taken responsibility for its role in making me what I am. I had potential, but they'd rather see me fail and suffer than live in a world where I had the satisfaction of making the world a better place. They wouldn't tolerate me being compassionate. They chose suffering, and then they complain when the suffering envelops them too. They thought I would be the only one who suffered, a convenient and well-behaved scapegoat. Well, I'm not so docile, and I don't have sympathy for a world that had no sympathy for me.
You've clearly misinterpreted what I said. I said I put effort into growth for years in the past, but when it proved to be futile I gave up on it. That implies that I don't care anymore, so it's still logically consistent. Is trying the same thing over and over and expected a different conclusion not the definition of insanity?
I'm sorry but you clearly didn't care about me or anyone else's feelings in this conversation long before I resorted to rightfully insulting you.
If you really believe this about the world, let me repeat myself as I have over and over again and you clearly still don't get it: if you really believe this, you never actually experienced any real growth at all nor do you have real empathy for others. You can lie to yourself and say you "gave up" on it all you want, but the reality is anyone who actually had experienced real growth would have never, ever come to these conclusions to begin with, ergo, you have not actually grown or used any of the skills you claim to have. You never did. It's a convenient lie you tell yourself to justify being a shiftless piece of shit who loves being hated because it fulfills your victimhood complex.
No, no, you've just not been aware of how much of yourself you've really revealed with all you've said here today, and it isn't anywhere near a misinterpretation, it's a lunatic who will never have enough self reflection to really see themselves and understand their own failings instead of blaming the entire world for every single little slight they have ever experienced. Like I said, you're a fucking loser like Donald Trump, a fucking whinger and whiner who takes no responsibility for themselves, their actions, or what they've said. You've made that exceedingly clear, even if you're too oblivious to realize how you've done so. You are what you hate so much about the world, wrapped up in a neat little bow. No wonder you want others to hate you so badly, because deep down you must hate yourself something awful because somewhere inside you recognize this in yourself and hate yourself for it. Yet, like Trump, you want to make others suffer for your own personal failings more than you want to do better an atone for any of it. And that is what makes you worthy of derisive words.
I'm gonna paint you a picture with words, because I don't have skills with pixels.
Imagine there's a bucket. Maybe it's been sitting in a forgotten corner for a long time, filled with cobwebs and debris from disuse.
The bucket decides it wants to improve itself, so it cleans itself up and sets itself out somewhere someone might make good use of it.
People see the bucket, but it doesn't look new, it doesn't look clean, so they don't want to use it for nice things like carrying water. But the bucket waits patiently, hoping someone will put it to good use.
Well it sits out for a while, and people regularly walk past, and those people are carrying cups overflowing with hate.
The people pour their cups of hate into the bucket. The bucket lets them do this because, after all, it wants to be put to good use, and giving people a place to pour out their hate seems like it might be helpful.
So people continue pouring their hate into this bucket, until the bucket starts overflowing. Then people get angry at the bucket because it's overflowing with hate. They say "that's an evil bucket, it's filled with hate!" Forgetting that they themselves were the ones who poured the hate into the bucket in the first place.
What did the people expect? They filled the bucket with hate and now they wonder why it isn't overflowing with honey?
Sooner or later, someone knocks the bucket over, and all the hate pours out. Then everyone blames the bucket. "It shouldn't have been filled with hate! Now the hate is spilled everywhere!" Well, it was their hate in the first place, and the bucket gave them a place to pour it so it wouldn't be spilling on themselves while they were walking.
But the people move on, and forget about the bucket. Eventually someone sees the bucket and says "That's a useless bucket. It's on its side! It can't hold anything like that!"
So the person sets the bucket upright and says "There, now the bucket can be useful." Then the person moves on.
The people walking by see an empty bucket, and find that it's a very convenient place to pour out their hate...
This is by far the dumbest fucking analogy I have ever had the misfortune to read.
You will, never, ever, understand what I am saying because you obviously do not even want to try. You are not a bucket, you are a human fucking being, and it's a choice to hate others because you have had misfortune.
As I said in a previous post, I blame no one for the pain and agony my ex put me through except myself and her, and I would not want to make anyone else suffer such things ever because it doesn't matter how hurt I am because of it, I know being a decent person that making others suffer will not fix what has been done to me. The only thing that can fix it is me trying to be better. You want to cook up every excuse in the book for why it's not on you to ever be kind to others or consider others feelings like you want people to consider yours.
Like, think about that for a minute, you want others to consider your feelings, but you consistently have made clear you're actually content to not think about theirs, going back to the very beginning of this thread where you callously said that my ex "married the wrong man" and waxed poetic about how you think women are coddled for such choices. Why should anyone give a fuck about your feelings when you consistently have made clear this whole thread you have no consideration for anyone else's? That despite all you've been through, you haven't learned "gosh I never want to make anyone feel the way I have felt, it's so awful!" you instead learned "FUCKING EVERYONE DESERVES TO FEEL EVEN WORSE THAN I HAVE FELT BECAUSE I AM THE SPECIALIST LITTLE SNOWFLAKE BITCH ALIVE! BLEARGH!"
It really says a lot about how fucked in the head you are, how you don't actually understand how empathy works, how you never actually worked on yourself like you keep claiming you did (I promise you, people who have worked on themselves don't think like you do), and are possibly one the most selfish and petulant people I have had the displeasure to interact with on this site. You have no intentions of actually hearing what anyone else has said, continuing to repeat your "woe is me" horseshit that everyone is tired of hearing because to everyone else it is painfully clearly and obviously nothing but selfish horseshit.
You will never have the amount of self reflection needed to understand what I and others have bothered trying to posit to you today, and yet you persist in trying to convince us that no you're just a sad sad widdle boy who needs to be fucking coddled like you apparently think everyone else is. Bitch, you have no idea what that woman I was speaking of in the beginning of this thread had gone through when you decided to slander her for no fucking good reason and whine about how bad you had it in comparison. You are the one who came in and slandered a person who I have compassion for because you're a whiny little fucking bitch who can't handle seeing people who are emotionally mature without deciding you need to shit all over it.
I'm done trying to explain it to you. You have no intention to hear it, you have every intention to repeat your selfish bullshit in desperate attempts to manipulate people into feeling sorry for you. Fucking suck it, loser. Eat shit. Nobody with a compassionate and empathetic bone in their body has time to waste on people like you and I regret spending the latter half of my day wasting my time trying to get you to see your own fucked up priorities, because you clearly want to be a victim so god damned badly you'll Donald Trump it to the end of your life.
I mean seriously dude in your second message to me you said "Don't be a cuck." Like what kind of clueless and fucking dickless wonder who admits he never gets laid says that to a fat fucking loser like me who has had endless pussy simply because he's a nice person? I'm being a cuck because I fucked a bunch of women and some of them moved on in their lives? And you're not an incel? Fuck me, you're an incel, a moron and a liar because if you had cared about anyone's feelings at any point that wouldn't have been one of the first things you said to me. Yet despite that, for a while, I tried to give your stupid worthless victimhood desiring ass the benefit of the doubt. You took my kindness even after you had already attempted to insult me and went "WAHH NOT GOOD ENOUGH BECAUSE I'M A LITTLE BITCH!" Well, fine, go be a little bitch, then.
You continue to reverse the order of operations. I stopped caring about people's feelings after years of consistent reaffirmation that nobody cares about mine. Why should I? By your logic, you don't have to care about my feelings because I don't care about yours. Apply your logic consistently and this whole thing will make more sense to you.
Or continue making special exceptions for yourself to justify why it's okay to degrade me, but wrong if I question someone else's choices, because I'm an easy target and it's so easy to gang up on someone that already no one likes.
You've consistently operated on the assumption that I can simply choose to be likeable, but I assure you that no matter what I do, I will never be likeable because I don't know how to be "normal," and the harder I try the more people call me "cringe" or a "try-hard." You can go back as far as you please, to my earliest memories and beyond, and I was already being ostracized, bullied, and isolated.
Call me a fucking whiny bitch. I don't care. And when I don't care the next time someone else complains about their problems you'll probably call me callous. Because to you, their problems matter, and mine don't. It's a pattern I'm familiar with. This isn't fucking new to me. You're not unique, and your vitriol isn't some breakthrough revelation that's somehow never occurred to me.
You don't know fucking shit about me or my life. Don't give yourself a stroke on your way out the door.