On The Subject of Emasculating Oneself
Yesterday I talked about a fragile and likely naive spark of hope with regards to the immediate future of my dating life, so today it only seems fair to reflect on the barren wasteland from which that flame may hopefully grow.
It’s been a really long time since I’ve been in a serious relationship - about 4 years. And given that that relationship started when I was a teenager, I’m reluctant to even place it into the ‘serious relationship’ category in the first place. Equally, it’s been a long time since anything even remotely exciting happened in any intimate context; at the expense of eliciting undesired pity, I haven’t got laid in 18 months. While I can see the argument for complaining about that, it is obviously somewhat my fault, and porn scratches that itch enough to where it doesn’t really get me down. But there are other parts of the whole romantic experience that I have not partaken in the last 18 months either, it’s just they’re unmanly and I’m a little ashamed to admit them - they make me feel somewhat pathetic.
It’s similarly been 18 months since I made out with someone, or cuddled on the couch and watched Netflix with someone, or just since I felt really wanted by someone. It’s those feelings that I ultimately miss and crave, but equally those experiences are the most difficult to ask for and hardest to talk about.
And ultimately, it’s not having those things in my life that get me down and lower my esteem and confidence. I suspect it’s the same for other men too, but it is beaten into us not to talk about. On holiday I was briefly accused of not doing enough to combat ‘incels’ because I am allegedly part of their community and do not stick up for women, after I said that I can understand why some men end up having those beliefs. I think that for many incels, they feel the same way that I do, except rather than admit it to anyone (or themselves), they simply take the red pill and choose to blame women rather than understand the problem lies within. But, at the expense of being an apologist, these people feel a very real pain, and to some degree I can identify with it.
I like to think I am a little more grounded in reality than most incels, so I choose not to persecute and objectify women in quite the same way, and am far more comfortable instead turning my malice on myself, hence at least one joke I made on holiday about cutting my own dick off. As with all my self-deprecating comments, there is of course some truth in it; it’s a thinly-veiled cry for help. I’m not really going to cut my own genitals off, but it’s far easier to joke about that than to say “I’m really lonely and it’s causing me a lot of pain, please help”, but to the keen observer they broadly amount to the same thing. Even the most bitter and callous human being wants to be loved, as observed by Douglas Adams, in that regard the incels and I are one and the same. It’s going to take some time to go from not talking about these feelings at all, to making them a joke, to articulately expressing them, but hey, one day I’ll get there.