Valentine's Day and Lonely, Angry Men

This post is probably going to be a bit unfocused. I’m not sure if I can really put these thoughts into words in a way that makes much sense, but… well, let’s try it and see where it goes.

oh noes i started a post with a pepe wat am i doing

It’s the evening of Valentine’s Day as I write this, and… I’m alone. Of course, I’m not alone in the sense that one would normally say “I’m alone on Valentine’s Day;” I am, in fact, married to an amazing, beautiful woman… who is out of town on business tonight. So we got in our dinner date and gift exchange and other activities associated with this holiday before she left. But being alone tonight made me reflect on the idea of really being alone on Valentine's Day; I’ve certainly had a share of those sorts of Valentine’s Days as well. But one thing I don’t remember is being angry about it.

But this is the Internet, and, for better or worse, one thing the Internet is really good at is helping people who think alike to come together and find each other. And there sure are a lot of men angry about women on the Internet.

Perhaps you've heard of a couple of these subcultures. Allow me the indulgence of explaining them.

Probably the most tolerable are MRAs, or men’s rights activists. These are men, and sometimes women, who basically protest what they view as unfair treatment of men in society, and they can make plenty of good points: men are far more likely to be victims of suicide and workplace accidents; courts typically give men harsher sentences than women for the same crimes; men often come out on the bum end of divorce deals when it comes to things like alimony and child visitation. Some MRAs are good people with good points. Nonetheless, many of their communities can come off as feeling populated mostly with men being mad about having to pay child support, or hating on radical feminists, or, in the extreme, decrying marriage as a financial scam that victimizes men - not that far different from radical feminists decrying marriage as a long-term act of prostitution that victimizes women, actually.

More pathetic are incels, or involuntary celibates - which seems like a rather odd thing to call one’s self. I mean, isn’t pretty much any post-pubescent man not in a sexual relationship involuntarily celibate? I suppose I’m an incel tonight, since rather than writing this blog post, I would rather my wife be home and… Well, at any rate, these guys are mad that they’re not in a relationship, but they take it a step further and place the blame on the women that have rejected them, or women as a whole. Women are referred to with terms like “bitch” and “femoid” (I’m not sure which is worse; women, please enlighten me) and disparaged for saying things like “I like nice guys” and “it’s what’s inside that counts” but then going out with “Chads” - stereotypical meathead men who have looks and muscles but no brains. The main incel subreddit seems to have been banned, which is too bad because it was good for a few laughs; they had a bot they had trained to respond to things like “why don’t you treat women nicer?” with cynical boilerplate responses.

In short, these are beta males who have given up on being anything other than beta males and embraced their betaness while simultaneously hating the world because of it. They just can’t seem to accept that the reason Chad got the girl is because he had a spine and asked her out rather than just staring at her from three tables over in the community college cafeteria for three months. (There’s also wizards, who are virgins at least 30 years old; I haven’t been to such a community in a while, but from what I recall they were generally less vindictive than incel communities.)

Look, guys. I get it. Life can feel unfair when your psychological, instinctual desires for affection and sexual attention are not being fulfilled. I’m not Rico Suave over here; I’m in many ways the typical introverted nerd, and I was a virgin until I was… uh, probably older than the statistical average. I’ve been rejected by girls I was head over heels over, and it hurt. But is that her fault somehow? Am I entitled to her affection and dedication just because we had a few conversations and coffees together? Moreover, I’ve been in bad relationships that left me feeling bitter. Romance by definition involves emotional extremes, so it can be painful when things don’t go the way we were hoping they were. But you cannot let the pain consume you and ruin your outlook on women. Because to do so is to ruin your outlook on life itself.

Pick yourself up, gentlemen. Dust yourselves off. Get yourselves some decent adult clothes and perhaps get in shape a little (though I had an almost-morbidly-obese roommate in college who had a cute upperclassman girlfriend - because he was bold and personable). Speak to women with calm confidence and respect, but stop short of ingratiating and fawning, and if they reject you - which they always have the right to do, no matter how nice you’ve been or how many gifts you’ve given them - accept it with a smile and move on to someone else. It will hurt, but you cannot allow that pain to turn into all-consuming hatred, or you will never be happy. Again, I speak from experience here; a loser nerd in a loving, passionate relationship with a certified hottie. That didn't happen by staying in my room and posting on the internet about how unfair life is.

You have a whole year until next Valentine’s Day. A motivated person can de a whole lot in a year. Ultimately, I believe that whether you will be alone next Valentine’s Day is up to you.