incel Archives - Paging Dr. NerdLove

Ask Dr. NerdLove: Help, I’m Too Frustrated To Date!

February 15, 2019 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

Hello Dr. NerdLove,

I’m a big fan of your writings and your youtube videos and am immensely glad that there’s a guy giving good dating advice that doesn’t spring from that weird toxic pickup artist bs. You’re doing a great service to men of the world. Anyway, onto my question.

I’m a 24 year old man who’s a virgin (long story short: late bloomer due to issues with anxiety and depression). I’ve made great strides in recent years, in no small part thanks to the therapist I had seen for about 2 years, ending in December of last year. I have lots of friends, diverse interests, and having finally started living on my own starting in the summer of last year. I’ve begun dating as well, mainly through dating apps though I’m trying to get out into the bar scene and other meatspace opportunities to meet potential dates. Though it can sometimes be hard to find a friend willing to head out with me (just another joy of being an adult I guess).

Anyway, while I don’t have trouble finding dates (I’m not great at it, but still learning) I do find myself being somewhat stymied by my sexual frustration at times. I have a very high sex drive (often having ‘me time’ at least once or twice a day), and whenever I get on Tinder or Bumble and start swiping my mind immediately goes to thoughts of potentially having sex with them. Same thing when I see a cute thing at a bar: my mind can pretty quickly go from “Oh she’s cute” to “I really want to see her with her top off” pretty damn quick. I obviously don’t want to approach them with that thought bouncing around in my brain because I’m worried about coming on too strong thanks to my desire, and because I’m genuinely interested in a relationship without jumping into bed with someone right away. Even when I can keep that frustration in check, when I start talking to someone I’m interested in that lust can pop up pretty damn quick, which I feel in turn makes me act like I have more invested in this person than I actually do, which in turn can make me come on to strong and seem desperate.

How can I deal with my sexual frustration? How can I make sure to keep my desire in check and not come on too strong with dates or potential dates? Is this really a problem, or am I just letting my dating anxiety get the best of me and making excuses not to talk to these people?

Sincerely,
Revved Up With No Place To Go

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Post Mortem – Textual Harassment

June 29, 2018 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

On occasion, I’ll get a request for advice on a situation that’s more layered and complex than a typical Ask Dr. NerdLove question. These questions typically need a deeper dive into just what went wrong, a sort of exploratory emotional surgury – a dating Post-Mortem if you will. On other occasions, the circumstances require more than just surgery. Sometimes it requires a session with The Chair Leg of Truth.

Listen to the Chair Leg of Truth. It does not lie.

So come up to the lab and see what’s on the slab. It’s time to put on the scrubs and dig into this particular corpse.

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The Incel Phenomenon: Fixing The Wrong Sexual Crisis

May 4, 2018 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

I see we’re not done talking about incels.

After Alek Minassian’s deadly attack on innocents in Toronto, scores of people decided to share their hot takes about how to “handle” the incel problem. Of course: like as not, the “problem” they focused on was that incels were angry virgins instead of the hate and misogyny that was radicalizing young men.

Worse, the solution wasn’t to deal with the anger, but to deal with the virginity.

Never was the absurdity of this argument more visible than when economist Robin Hansen attempted to equate being a virgin to financial inequality – leading many to wonder just what the absolute fuck was wrong with him.

(Considering that Hansen has described infidelity as being akin or worse to rape and that maybe women who cuckold their husbands should be tortured – but don’t quote him on that – the answer is evidently “a lot.”)

Now, one might be forgiven for thinking, as I did, that most people would recognize the idea that maybe we should ask women to “take one for the team” in the name of preventing future attacks is both idiotic on its face and disgusting to boot. Sure, someone at The Federalist was undoubtedly limbering up their hands to produce their next hot take but c’mon. It’s The Federalist.

This, of course, was like daring the universe to prove me wrong. I may as well have stood on a mountain and declared that God has shitty aim.

On Wednesday, I was coming back from a lovely trip to the UK to see friends. After a nine hour enforced vacation from the Internet, I turn on my phone to discover that New York Times contributor Ross Douthat picked up the Baton of Stupid Arguments and ran with it.

So we need to talk about just what’s so mind-bogglingly wrong with the argument that the problem with incels is some sort of “sexual inequality.”

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The Trouble With Incels

April 30, 2018 by Dr. NerdLove Leave a Comment

When Alek Minnasian drove his van into groups of pedestrians, the world went looking for answers. A post on his personal Facebook page – one where Minnassian referred to incels, the Incel Rebellion and hailing “Supreme Gentleman Elliot Roger – seemed almost too perfect.

After all, 4chan boards like /pol/ have a long history of spreading hoaxes and misinformation after every recent tragedy and mass shooting. Faking a post – or an entire Facebook profile – for someone accused of the crime is well within the typical modus operandi of such groups.

Facebook confirmed that the post was real. Subsequent investigations found that Minassian was indeed part of the incel (short for “involuntarily celibate”) community – like Elliot Roger and Chris Harper-Mercer before him – and his rage led him to commit atrocities against innocents.

Since then, the media has been falling over themselves to discuss the incel community – who they are, what the existence of the incel community means for men, what drives them to such lengths, and so on. Many people have been asking what we can – or should – do about them.

The problem is: too many people are asking the wrong questions. We let ourselves get distracted, taking the name and their self-description at face value and, as a result, miss the real issue underneath.

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Post Mortem: Why Do Women Have All The Advantages In Dating?

November 13, 2017 by Dr. NerdLove 409 Comments

As my long-term readers know, I get a lot of letters from readers for my weekly Q&A “Ask Dr. NerdLove” both here and over at Kotaku. But, occasionally, I’ll get a letter from a reader that requires a deeper and more thorough dive than the usual request for advice. Sometimes the answer is more nuanced than normal or requires cutting through a Gordian knot of related issues. These are the Post-Mortems, where we dissect a letter and dig through the remains in order to get to the heart of the issue.

Post-mortems are rarely pretty. Many times, we’re having to liberally apply the Chair Leg of Truth to a lifetime of beliefs. But, while the love may be tough, at the end we’re going to know exactly what went wrong and how we can do better next time. So scrub up and snap on the gloves; it’s time to get all up in them guts.