Why do almost all 'incels' blame their situation on looks?

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First off, what makes you think NDs don't identify with various subcultures? It's true that many autistic people are extreme introverts and hence averse to participating in groups of any kind whatsoever, hence not likely to identify with any subculture. But there are also many autistic and otherwise neurodivergent people who aren't extreme introverts and who are, if anything, over-represented in the freakier subcultures, the freakier the better. I say this based on my memories of the people I knew in various oddball subcultures.

Second, involvement in a subculture is tied more to needs for "belongingness" and "love and esteem" than to needs for "self-actualization." Self-actualization has more to do with things like individual creativity.

It's hard for anyone, NT or ND, to exercise one's creativity to its full extent when one is feeling like a lonely, despised outcast. It becomes much easier when there are fellow oddballs who understand you, care about you, and are willing to help you succeed -- even if you don't actually spend much time in the company of said fellow oddballs.


Actually, a model based more on the kinds of friendships I myself have had over the years, which formed in ways different from the ways NT friendships typically form. But I know that even my experience is probably not representative of all or most autistic people either. I'm inclined to believe that different autistic people have different natural ways of making friends, and that many autistic people have not yet discovered their own natural way of making friends, because they've been pressured to try to make friends the NT way. (For example, many of us have a hard time with the kinds of chit chat that most NT's consider essential to their process of making friends, but I think many of us -- though not all of us -- can more easily make friends in the context of highly focused discussion with someone who shares a special interest.) I'm also concerned that many autistic people may have gotten turned off to the very idea of making friends, as a result of too many failed attempts to make friends by imitating NTs.


I certainly am not convinced that all or most autistic people have this nonverbal "natural bonding process" that you speak of.


I enjoy walking with my friends too -- but I don't see that as a reason not to call them "friends." It seems to me that you associate the word "friendship" with the typical NT trappings of friendship, rather than with the essence of friendship. (It's also not unheard of for NTs to enjoy walking/wandering with their friends.)

What you've described is an important part of the problem, but not all of it.

Another issue is the way that movies and popular love songs have popularized the idea of "love at first sight." In a movie, and even more so in a love song, there just isn't enough time to portray how a relationship develops in any reasonable way. So, "love at first sight" is a natural bit of dramatic license, which too many people have taken seriously. Thus people are encouraged to make snap judgments about potential partners. And snap judgments are inevitably based primarily on looks, since there just isn't much else they can be based on.

I see no reason to reserve the word "friendship" for the first variant, which is not part of any definition of the word "friendship" that I've ever seen.

Both videos portray something that exists only in the modern world and could not have existed before the 1920's or so. There was no such thing as a "star" in the modern sense before the advent of the mass media.

In any case, even today, not all girls go to massive concerts and scream about some guy on the stage. I certainly didn't. Nor did my older sister, who I remember being rather puzzled about screaming Beatles fans, though she herself enjoyed the music of the Beatles.

I think NDs do participate in subcultures (I certainly do), but I won't identify with the subculture as such rather with selected opinions/ideals of (potentially many different) subcultures. This is why I think that while NTs do identify with various subcultures, NDs are more prone to select their own ideals individually from many different contexts/subcultures instead of buying complete identities.



Certainly. However, for me, the most important component of not feeling lonely is not belonging to subcultures, not having friends, but having contact with somebody you have loving feelings towards. It doesn't need to be cohabitation, not even regular conversation, rather it could be really small things that happen regularly. A mind-to-mind connection is certainly enough.



I agree.



I don't think all have it, but many probably do. I recently discovered that my ex from 30 years ago, which is likely ND too, also could involve in it.

Besides, I think at least some professionals that diagnose autism is aware of this. I remember when my daughter got her ASD diagnosis that he wondered if she and I had some invisible communication. At the time I had no idea about mind-to-mind connections so his question was a bit surprising and odd. OTOH, I had previously been her "translator" when the school had no idea what she thought about different things in school. I just gave them her opinion that I could read-out directly from her, and when we came home she would never complain that I was wrong (she talked at home but not at school). I didn't know how that worked either. It just worked.



I don't know if we should use friendship for things that are not friendships to the typical NT. There is a risk of misunderstanding of what we mean.

I think you can get neurotype too in a snap judgment. I use the ND eye-contact pattern to judge if somebody is ND or not, and I think it is highly reliable. I wouldn't bother with a potential partner that did this wrong. NTs probably notice this quickly too (but in other ways).

The "Incel" community does use that term to describe itself. It has been around for about twenty years, during which time it has morphed into something very different from what it originally was intended to be. Originally it not the all-male misogynistic thing it is now.

Originally it was just a support forum for people, both men and women, who had difficulty finding partners for sex and/or relationships. The women would advise the men on how to make themselves more interesting to women, while the men would advise the women on how to make themselves more interesting to men. Then the founder -- a woman -- succeeded in getting into a relationship and lost interest in running the original forum anymore.

Then a bunch of unmoderated Incel forums sprang up, and that's where the trouble began, apparently. One thing I've noticed over the years is that any large unmoderated forum inevitably gets taken over by trolls. In the case of the Incel hangouts, they got taken over by men with highly misogynistic ideologies.

Some articles about the history of the "Incel" subculture:

- The woman who founded the 'incel' movement
- Our incel problem

Regarding the misogyinistic ideology that has taken over much of the "Incel" community, see Incel, the misogynist ideology that inspired the deadly Toronto attack, explained. (Of course this is an outsider's perspective.)

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 07 Aug 2019, 4:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

I am certainly not convinced that there is just one "ND eye-contact pattern." Different autistic people have different issues with eye contact.

I rather think that different autistic people have different coping mechanisms in regards to eye contact based on what they have been subjected to. That doesn't mean there isn't an innate eye contact pattern that everybody shares. At least, several autistic girls on autistic gatherings have shown this pattern when poked with it, and so I think this is quite reliable. At least a lot better than ignoring it when seeking compatible people, and especially potential partners.

An ongoing problem that is not going to go away by simply ignoring it. It is similar to the mass shootings, everything else is being blamed instead of the guns. Gun control and restricting access to guns will help reduce violent crimes through out society. Important things like social status, education, hobbies, location all impact social networks.

This phenomena existed since the Elvis and the Bee Gees days. I dunno about pre 1920.

People do not show any empathy towards lonely men and their common situation. If the lonely guys were lonely females the white knight males would flock to the females and act sleazy and creepy. The advice provided to random lonely guys is mainly insults and ridicule and does not change anything in their life. It is best that guys keep their issues to themselves and be silent strong men and never discuss their feelings online.

That's why suicide rate is higher among males.
But "I'm so lonely" is quite a common pickup line in my culture.

What scary and sad, is that the first person who ever told me anything resembling the Incel ideology was a THERAPIST.

In 1996, I was 13 or 14, I told her about having trouble getting dates. She said: "Right now, you're having having trouble meeting girls. And it bothers you, it gets in the way. But you're a nice guy. [Gee, great observation, Einstein!] When you get older, like 30, women will be glad to marry you, because you're going to be a wonderful husband." [with a victorious smirk on her face, thinking she persuaded me]

I don't know why, but being called "wonderful husband" felt like a backhanded compliment, if not a put-down. Even at age 13. I never called her out on it, because I was afraid to. I just changed the topic, by faking anxiety about an upcoming math test.

And now that I think about what Those We Don't Speak Of say about women's attraction instincts, what the therapist told me wasn't much different.

Last edited by Aspie1 on 07 Aug 2019, 7:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

That's not always true, but I think we do generally get less empathy than a woman would in the same situation.

Even if people are empathetic, that's all well and good, but if it doesn't change our situation, ultimately it can only be any good for temporary emotional relief.

I don't think suggesting that us men should bottle our feelings up is a good idea. There are pockets online where people are more empathetic. It is wise to consider which sites are more likely to garner favourable responses when posting your feelings online though.

I tried to reply to this yesterday but it looks like it didn’t go.

The most important part of my post was that I defer to RDOS on this subject.

I cited him in my graduate thesis and consider him to be one of the best minds in the area of autistic versus neurotypical dating/mating/grooming/whatever practices. He has read the current literature and the last I heard was doing good observational legwork. This stuff you guys are talking about seems to be his wheelhouse.