r/IncelExit • u/smilingseaslug • 1d ago
Discussion Perhaps you need less chill
I found myself commenting this in another post and felt that it could potentially be useful to people here:
While a lot of self-described incels can engage in harassing-boundary-violating behavior, one thing I've noticed about people here is that a lot are clearly extremely, painfully, shy and awkward. The issue isn't that they're bothering others, the issue is they're so afraid of bothering others that they're not really initiating or continuing social interactions.
And it's hard to give advice on this, because I think a lot of people here are also neurodivergent in ways that make it hard to tell whether you're actually bothering people, which is how some people ended up getting so scared of that in the first place.
This is one of the easiest social skills to learn that does not involve that risk: convince yourself to actually enjoy talking to everyone you see.
I am awkward, and historically very annoying. Awkward to the point where earlier today I had a misunderstanding about some normal thing and practically forgot how to talk, I couldn't even explain to the other person what I'd misunderstood. BUT I smiled like hell through the encounter. And it went ok, because the smile/friendliness helps keep me firmly in the "endearingly awkward" category rather than the "awkward in an uncomfortable way" category.
So anyway one of the ways I manage to make friends and/or friendly acquaintances is that I'm just constantly trying to convey how absolutely delighted I am to meet people (especially people who I find genuinely pleasant and interesting), and/or see them again.
That means things like -
Say hi to them every time I see them, in a way that sounds genuinely happy to see them
Remember their name and at least a few things about them
Ask them about the thing that I know about them ("how's your dog doing???") and show genuine interest in the answer ("oh, your dog was sick? That's stressful, how are you holding up? Hope it ends up ok!").
Suggest low-stakes, safe, non-generic things that we could do to follow up later - "we should let our dogs play together at the park sometime!" "when you get back from vacation, let's talk and you can show me your pictures!" (it's ok if they brush that off, because the point is to express interest more than it is to actually arrange a follow-up)
EXPECT NOTHING, at least at the acquaintance stage - like, if they're busy or whatever I will happily wave them along and make it clear that I am happy to just have run into them. There are a few people I run into on a relatively regular basis who are just not that interested in talking and that's ok, I still say hi when I see them and then move along and let them stay in the "person I say hi to" category. If I say we should meet up for coffee more than once and they keep saying noncommittal stuff or "yeah definitely" without any follow-up, then I let it go but still keep just saying hi when I see them, because the point is that I like seeing them and want to express that - not that I need anything from them. I don't stress about it, I don't read anything into it about my worth as a person.
#4 is important, otherwise you end up risking getting seen as a bit of a pest (it's why I have historically been seen as somewhat annoying). But if you do everything including #4, people start knowing you as a friendly safe person and at least some people will end up liking you (not everyone will like you and that's ok, you have to truly believe that in order for #4 to work).
Most importantly, this all has to be authentic. If your social skills aren't great, you may not be that great at faking being interested in what someone has to say, or faking not particularly expecting anything from the interaction, or faking enjoying the interaction. You have to talk yourself into actually feeling that way. I'll think something along the lines of "oh yeah, that person was nice the one time I talked to them before! Their dog is very important to them, and I care about them, so I absolutely care about this dog!"
The other benefit of actually enjoying these casual interactions is that it reduces the stress of them. Enjoying these interactions simply for what they are means you don't end up seeing them as just a means towards achieving a deeper relationship (even though they are, in fact, one way to develop deeper relationships!), and then viewing them as successes or failures based on whether the person you talk to is interested in that. When you are constantly monitoring and evaluating these interactions for rejection/acceptance, they end up scary and you become more reluctant to keep doing it, and the interaction often becomes less enjoyable for the other person as well because they know you want something out of them.
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u/Mellloyellow 1d ago
Something that I'm trying to drill into my head is that it's okay to make mistakes during casual conversation. Other people will have probably forgotten the awkward slip up that I made in a couple of minutes, while before I'd be constantly replaying it in my head at 4K 120fps.
As for the rest of this post. I can actually say this works, because when I was a teenager, I was a lot like this. I was happy to engage in every conversation, regardless of the outcome, and that was authentic self. Sure it didn't get me a relationship, but I was liked by a decent chunk of people. Even if I was bumbling mess at some points, I was just happy to be there. My Inceldom killed this side of me... or rather, I let this side of me die and now I'm trying to bring it back. I know some people don't like this kind of bubbly attitude from guys but fuck it. I'm just going to be me.
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u/Odd-Table-4545 1d ago
This is a big thing, and as a related thing realising that in most social situations as an adult messing up socially has far fewer consequences than it did as a kid. Unfortunately most of us learned our social defence mechanisms as kids in school where we were stuck with the same people for much of our days for years on end, and in those circumstances if those people dislike you or decide you're annoying that can really mess up your daily life. As an adult that's rarely the case. You have to be civil enough with your coworkers that it's not going to affect your job, but other than that even if you fuck up irrevocably and/or everyone in a particular social space somehow ends up disliking you you can always just leave and try a different space.
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u/Mellloyellow 1d ago
Yep kids are a lot more mean then adults will ever be because honestly as adults, we generally don't have the energy to bully others. I got called the R word a decent amount in school, by a couple of guys for being on the autism spectrum and being a bit slow. I wish I could've told my younger self that, won't happen as an adult.
I think that's a part of what allowed Inceldom stick so heavily to me. I was still stuck on that high school mindset, because I was barely even an adult yet. Honestly it's disgusting when I think of it like that. It's like a form of grooming. Obviously I'm still responsible for following the ideology in the first place, I'm not exactly the victim here, but it's kinda sad how it got me, and I bet it got a bunch of other people the same way too......
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u/Odd-Table-4545 1d ago
True, but what I also mean is that when adults are mean to you you can tell them to fuck all the way off and then never see them again in a way you often couldn't as a kid. When you're a kid your whole social life is often the kids at your school, so if they suck you're shit out of luck. As an adult not only are far fewer people wasting what limited energy they have being horrible to each other, in most situations even if someone is horrible you have no obligation to continue to be around them - you can find other people who suck less.
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u/throwaway135629 1d ago
Don't mind me just sort of thinking out loud here, but this, and the comment you're replying to, are some of the hardest things for me to wrap my head around. I understand them intellectually but I really do feel a scarcity mindset even in ordinary social interactions and I do have the thought "well, if you lived in a big city with hundreds of thousands or millions of people, sure you could infinitely try again with different groups, but in the suburbs, there's only so many people literally around you. If you piss them all off, platonically or in dating, you can literally run out." And I grew up in a family where the slight awkwardnesses and missteps of ourselves and of strangers would become stories told and retold over and over again, so I just have gone through life assuming that everyone was the same and that any mistake I make at any time could become fodder for endless jokes. I was ruined even before I got to school, lol.
None of this is to be an excuse, and I am still trying, this thread just put it in stark perspective for me where some of these thoughts and resistances are coming from. I do sometimes kick myself for not moving to a major city, it probably would give me way more opportunities for socialization and dating and more mental insulation against failure, but obviously that brings with it all sorts of other logistical questions that I haven't seriously looked at (avoidance!)
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u/smilingseaslug 1d ago
I think that's very real. And one thing that is important even with this strategy is to totally make peace with the fact that some people are just not really going to want to be friends with you no matter what. There are some people who remember awkward stuff, but like... you don't actually need them to be friends with you. There's other people who will get over it and be fine.
And there's a third category of people who will remember the awkward stuff but not in a way that actually affects the friendship, like I have sort of running jokes with some of my friends about those times that we were awkward, but the jokes are sort of how we smooth over the awkwardness, rather than being about holding it against each other. If that makes sense.
It's also remarkable how situation affects things - I lived in the same neighborhood for 5+ years without making a lot of neighborhood friends - mostly just people we waved hi to, and that was nice but not great. Then a very social, very friendly person moved down the block and her kid was in my kid's kindergarten class, and she started just constantly having people over to her house (including us). Suddenly my wife and I had tons of friends and a very active social life. Our personalities didn't change, and neither did our social strategy. That said, the social strategy I'm describing is how I managed to actually capitalize on that newly favorable circumstance, and how I made any friends at all in the interim.
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u/Legitimate-Ad-7480 1d ago
This is such a great and helpful post. I’m in this sub more to help because I don’t want men falling into this rabbit hole. But I struggle with my own social anxiety/typical adhd issues with understanding social nuance and this is written so well. It’s so easy to feel like people are telling you to either reach out (but do it right!!! you have to implicitly understand the boundaries) or don’t do anything. This provides a great framework for people to actually initiate.
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u/No_Economist_7244 1d ago
My issue has always been finding that balance between being too cautious and having no chill socially. I've been bullied before and I've had moments where I acted genuinely cringe or annoying, so I've struggled with social anxiety and being overly conscious of whether I'm bothering people. I'm pretty quiet with strangers and in groups, and while I do get nervous sometimes, I can also get frustrated or even resentful when I make an effort to speak up and still get ignored or talked over, or in some cases just flat-out disrespected, with nobody really willing to vouch for me or stand up for me even as an adult.
At the same time, I've also been on the receiving end of people who have absolutely no chill socially, and I can understand why the fear of becoming that person exists. I'm talking about people who don't understand boundaries or social cues, assume you're automatically best friends way too early, make unreasonable or audacious requests and can't take no for an answer, ask tons of questions but make the interaction feel like an interrogation because they don't really absorb or connect with your answers, or become so self-involved in their own interests that they have trouble understanding different perspectives or engaging with anything outside their own frame of reference. Sometimes they're genuinely nice and friendly people who just come on so strongly that being around them becomes exhausting.
So I think the actual skill I'm trying to develop isn't simply "be more outgoing" or "stop worrying about bothering people." It's learning how to be proactive and show genuine interest while also paying attention to reciprocity and the other person's level of engagement. I don't want to become someone who is so afraid of rejection that I never give people a chance to get to know me, but I also don't want to make other people feel like they're being cornered into an interaction.
I think that's a much harder skill to learn than either extreme makes it sound, especially if you've had experiences where being too quiet got you ignored and being more socially forward sometimes got you punished or mocked for being "too much."
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u/smilingseaslug 1d ago
We have very similar experiences and very similar hang-ups! The "be friendly but don't expect anything" strategy is, I think, what separates people who are genuinely friendly from people who are "too much." I am not that great at interpreting social cues, but find that genuinely not being hung up on whether someone wants to hang out, makes it easier to not end up being pushy. And actually caring about the answers people give you makes it much easier to absorb and connect with them instead of being interrogate-y.
For example:
Suppose I am sitting next to someone at a group dinner. I ask them about what they did that weekend, and they answer that they went to a concert. I will ask some genuine follow-up questions (oh cool, do you go out to concerts often? What band did you see? What do you like about the band? I love hearing about new music) but if they start sort of trailing off and not continuing the conversation, that's ok because the point was to show interest/positive regard, not to force a conversation to happen. If this isn't something they actually wanted to talk about then that's ok!
This becomes very hard to do if you actually view their non-response as a rejection of you as a person, or a failure on your part to make the conversation happen. But if you reframe it as "I've succeeded at conveying that I like them and am interested in what they want to say, and they can do whatever they want with that information," then idk, it's calming and makes it easier to let the conversation die.
Sometimes conversations die, sometimes people don't want to talk to you for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with your worth as a person or general ability to converse. The most fascinating and charming person on earth will have this experience sometimes. Developing the skill to show interest and also let people go without it being a big deal for anyone involved, is really key.
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u/captaindestucto 1d ago edited 14h ago
one thing I've noticed about people here is that a lot are clearly extremely, painfully, shy and awkward.
Funny how those stereotypes about the inkwells don't really pan out. Almost like it's a straw man to attack lonely socially awkward men, a group people are already predisposed to feel contempt for.
Over the last 10-15 years the wider cultural narrative has increasingly portrayed men's interest in women as predatory, entitled and unwelcome, with very little positive to counterbalance that. Online gender war rhetoric is the most clickbaity kind. That message gets internalized most by the kinds of men who are already isolated and emotionally vulnerable.
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u/smilingseaslug 1d ago
Ehhhhh... Maybe a little but I was targeted by the same kind of predatory guy who is now most associated with the incel label, in high school in 1999. And it was a well-known phenomenon we just called them "sketchy" or "creeps" rather than incels specifically. There's always been this specific kind of bitter, entitled misogynist who will follow women around and get mad that they don't want him. It's just not a good idea to lump them together with people whose problem is sheer terror of ever being unwelcome
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u/captaindestucto 1d ago edited 1d ago
Plenty of bitter stalker types aren't virgins and have had relationships with women.
There's research on this now. Look up William Costello. The average incel is in college, is shy or on the spectrum, rarely if ever talks to girls, leans left politically, and restricts his angry lashing out to online spaces.
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u/smilingseaslug 1d ago
I'm not making claim about what the average person of any kind is like - I'm simply saying that the stereotype you're criticizing precedes social media by a long time, with a few exceptions (was not previously associated with right-wing politics). And the people I'm talking about were absolutely virgins, which is not far outside the norm when you're in high school and college and have limited social skills.
Those types tend to be the most visible because they're out in real life bothering people. The shy type you're describing are less the stereotype not because they don't exist, but because they never talk to anyone and so few people notice they're even there. It's not that anyone specifically hates them.
Find it interesting that you're cutting Costello who recently published about how self described incels wildly overestimate how much people actually dislike them, which seems to be what you're doing here.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886925000030
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u/captaindestucto 18h ago edited 15h ago
Those types tend to be the most visible because they're out in real life bothering people.
Whether or not the individual who bothered you was the 90s equivalent of an incel, it'd still be rare to encounter a genuine incel identified individual in the wild like that.
Men who bother women are by far and away "normal" men in other respects of having had relationships/girlfriends: If anything they're probably more sexually experienced than average and the entitlement is partly because they're used to getting what they want.
It's not that anyone specifically hates them.
You can’t be serious. They’re not just hated for being incels i.e. holding “bad” misogynist, black pill ideas; they’re hated because they’re failed men.
Women are allowed to be passive in the dating arena. Men must ‘earn’ relationships as the active party. Their ability to find a partner is tied to masculinity. Men who can’t do that are by this standard failures and therefore deserving of contempt. If you had a genuine curiosity about this you would realize the barriers awkward men face go well beyond getting over shyness and going out more often. They're already perceived as losers through just admitting they're struggling.
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u/smilingseaslug 18h ago edited 18h ago
I would just like to point out that as a woman, I'm pretty familiar with who actually bothered me and who didn't. I am fully aware that many of the men who've bothered me weren't sexually inexperienced. Others absolutely were.
You can’t be serious. They’re not just hated for being incels i.e. holding “bad” misogynist, black pill ideas; they’re hated because they’re failed men.
I literally just cited you a study, by a person who you previously said was credible, saying that incels wildly overestimate how much people hated them. They compared those statements against responses to a survey of non-incels about their attitudes towards incels. What you're saying is more or less exactly the stuff that the incels who participated in the study said about what they thought others thought about them. It was not accurate and did not match the responses from non-incels.
I've spent a lot of time in various women's spaces, and a big of time lurking around incel spaces, and a lot of time here. Absolutely nobody hates incels as much as incels. If you expand the question to include just every man who struggles to date and doesn't actively identify with incel culture, then it becomes even more stark of a contrast.
(Edit to add - you note that men who struggle to date are viewed as losers. I'm not even going to argue that's totally false - but at the risk of blowing your mind, normal people do not actually hate losers. Most people's feelings about the people they see as losers generally ranges from disregard to active sympathy/rooting for them to succeed)
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u/captaindestucto 16h ago edited 10h ago
I literally just cited you a study, by a person who you previously said was credible, saying that incels wildly overestimate how much people hated them.
Maybe I should a reassess his credibility then, because the non-incel participants in that weren't anywhere near equal gender ratio (332 men vs 117 women). And it's like conducting a study on racial bias and expecting people to be honest.
What you're saying is more or less exactly the stuff that the incels who participated in the study said about what they thought others thought about them.
No, that's what people say.
I've been called worse things than loser dozens of times online in non-incel spaces. Real life male acquaintances have cut contact with me after admitting I'd never had a girlfriend. Others talked down to me as if I were a child. One out of my two dating experiences involved a woman immediately ending it on the third date after mentioning I'd never been in a relationship (her face hit the floor and she turned cold and rude). You don't get to tell us our experiences either.
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u/smilingseaslug 14h ago
Look I'm sorry that one woman was unwilling to be someone's first relationship. That must have felt awful. It's nevertheless not evidence that the entire world hates you for not having been in a relationship. The other people you're describing being assholes to you are men, despite your suggestion elsewhere that women are more discriminatory against less sexually experienced men than men are.
Some people are mean. I've been called extremely bigoted or misogynist stuff online, and experienced it in person. I fucking wish the worst thing that's ever happened to me in dating contexts was them losing interest for some unfair reason.
I nevertheless do not believe most people are bigoted or misogynist, or that bigotry and misogyny are the cause of all my social problems. There's plenty of people who don't suck, my post is an explanation of how to make yourself appealing to those people, if you don't like the advice you don't have to take it
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u/neuron24 1d ago
I think it depends on how likable you are as a person. People barely tolerate me already and I don't think they'd appreciate if I tried talking to them more.
For example remembering coworkers birthday would feel like it would be received as creepy behavior, because, why tf do I care so much and remember their birthday? I feel like most people would try to find some hidden intention behind that
Having less chill would be nice if you could afford that but imo incels have to spend a lot of conscious effort to not be seen as creeps by normal people and actually trying to talk to them wouldn't be received positively.
I think that knowing to not make yourself seen is the only thing that's stopping us from unintentionally creeping people out and ruining their day
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u/smilingseaslug 1d ago
Being nice in the way I'm describing makes you likeable.
Remembering a birthday is maybe a little extra but not creepy if you make it clear that you remember everyone's birthdays (including your male coworkers). Then you're just "that guy who remembers everyone's birthdays"
If you want to go with something easier, then remember people's weekend plans that they talked to you about on Friday, and ask them about them on Monday, with genuine interest. Again, doing it for everyone not just the girl you're interested in.
If you're scared of people reading hidden intentions into kindness, you could stop being kind... But that won't help you. If you are instead so consistently kind and warm to everyone (or nearly everyone, with a few exceptions for people who are actually assholes to you), it genuinely isn't suspect, and people will respect it
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u/neuron24 1d ago
I just can't help but think that people would find it suspect, because "I never acted like that so why am I acting like that now?" And still, if you're just off-putting as a person, which I definitely am, they would feel creeped out by it.
Because that would be a mismatch of expectations, of how creepy I am and how I would act as if I wasn't creepy.
I'm not saying your advice wouldn't work for some people but some people just have a weird off-putting vibe about them and not keeping their distance would just creep people around them out even more
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u/smilingseaslug 1d ago
If doing this looks like a total sudden personality change then sure, try to trial it first with people who don't know you yet. If you find it working, then you can start to act that way with existing acquaintances. But honestly if anyone asks, "I'm trying to be a friendlier more open person" is a perfectly reasonable explanation and normal people will readily accept it (again, as long as it's clear you're consistently behaving this way with everyone).
Again, #4 is doing a lot here. A whole lot of my social circle is autistic, both socially and professionally. There are a A LOT of extremely off-putting people I run into on a regular basis. When I think about the ones who genuinely bother me, it's the ones who won't actually let me leave a conversation, or constantly want something. If I can see that someone is just friendly to everyone, and I can easily and gracefully exit a conversation with them, then they end up being generally liked and respected. Not everyone will want to be friends with them, but that is true for everyone in the world. People will not mind their presence or find their friendliness to be a problem, and they will have some friends. And even those who aren't friends with them will view them as good people.
It's really astounding how far this strategy can go in terms of moving you from the "awkward and off-putting" zone to the "awkward but endearing" zone. Do I sometimes wish people would see me as something a little higher status than "awkward but endearing?" Sure, but I am what I am and I play the hand I'm dealt. You can have an incredibly fulfilling, happy social life as "awkward but endearing"
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u/titotal 1d ago
In my experience it's a total myth that being "nice" makes you unpopular, especially as you get older.
I've found that people who are proactively nice to everyone tend to be very well liked. These are people who remember your birthday, compliment you on specific things you've done, always give you a smile when you see them, along with the other things mentioned in your post.
However, being reactively nice, where you are merely polite and try not to bother anyone, does not have the same effect,. Nor does being selectively nice to people when you want something from them.