Understanding that women have more "power" in dating apps isn't being an incel. You're only an incel when you choose to respond to current dynamics by hating women, blaming them for things, refusing to take responsibility for your side of the coin, and lashing out.
The people behind OKCupid were very open that women were having a much more successful time on dating apps. At least, until they were bought by tinder.
Reality is that the majority of men in dating apps get passed over while the majority of women in dating apps find dates but dislike them. I don't know how to fix the situation. You can't convince women to sign up for these apps without giving them a safe and self controlled environment, and when given the option they seem to pick roughly the same "top" 20% or so of men and then be unhappy with the resulting dates. I do not suggest they would be happier with the other 80% of men, we have our own issues too, we just don't get to go on dates. I personally found love through Bumble, so maybe the extra limits/self selection for that is the trick.
Yes, I do agree that it's territory of "incel" but you are isolating incel-ness with the alienation from the lonely people, there is definitely an intersection and it's huge.
The loneliness crisis is definitely a superset of the incel subset, but they can be independently treated because incels could be psychologically unwell.
The past two years increased the number of people pushed into this loneliness crisis well, and sadly it is not good for anyone.
But the main topic here is talking about men, so it is legitimate to talk about the "incel" problem. And definitely the writings are there, lonely angry men are both a danger to themselves and society.
Even if the remove the "incel-ness" of the "incels", you still have lonely men who could join the large superset of loneliness sufferers. And the economy is another factor in the equation why there is this crisis.
But a large group of men are definitely lonely, that's for sure.
single rates have increased regardless of gender, but at a faster pace for men; In 1990, a woman was more likely to be single than a man, now a man is more likely to be single than a woman
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2021/10/05/rising-...
It doesn't speak to loneliness, but according to this Pew report, there is a substantial gap in single-ness by gender in the 18-29 group [1]. 32% of women versus 51% of men. Women in that cohort are slightly more likely to not be looking, but it's close (6% more women are not looking than men).
I think single-ness has increased for both genders, but not at the same rate, and I have no idea what causes that. I can think of a few things that might cause it, but it would require extraordinarily fast demographic shifts that seem unlikely. I.e. it could be increases in polyamorous or LGBTQ women, or differences in birth rates or immigration by gender, but those have historically been small demographics. They would have to grow by something like an order of magnitude to have an effect this large.
It's weird. If anyone has seen any actual studies on how that effect happens, I'd be curious to read them, because it doesn't really make sense to me.
Sorry I can't hear you. You're not 6'3" and jacked with solid self-worth and sufficiently secure familial models and a lack of major trust issues. :) Kidding, but..
Human society isnt static. It can also be affected by a thousand cuts. The cuts in this case would be untruth. So many false things have become proliferous while people have forgotten ancient meanings of some of the most basic yet important terms like love. It's no wonder people are wandering around and blundering. We need a simple teaching to guide us. Humans got rather arrogant in the last 80 years.
Don't forget that the word incel means involuntary celibate. It does not posit a mechanism or cause or blame necessarily. I would say some of the greatest philosophers, and thus perhaps some of the truest men in our history, were incels too. It was not because they misunderstood reality. They lived lonely lives due to being sincere when others couldn't match their level. Even Buddha begged people. He wandered countries looking for someone who wanted to stay near him and to learn. He wouldnt have had to be on the move otherwise. Scholars have rewritten this blatantly with their own subconscious projections in "records" that he was surrounded by hundreds of learners or that his begging was somehow an opportunity for the lay people to accumulate virtue by supporting the work of the Buddha through supporting his life. (Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Zen, made it rightly clear to the emperor of China that supporting Buddhism does not implicitly build virtue and as a result of being ejected from other places Bodhidharma got to stare at a cave wall for years while we "revere" him today.) What if the alms means something else as well: that Buddha was wandering and begging for people who actually wanted to know. Shakyamuni had a wife but the discoveries he made also meant he had to take a virtually entirely platonic role much like that of a modern therapist but to the entire world. Personally I think he knew the tradeoff he was making and was trying to make a point for the future of humanity that even that is what humanity is really like. The real story of humanity is us discarding the sincere people who think highly of us. This is actually a very great teaching. Perhaps the greatest one he could have left for us. Even though it looks similar to a grudge, and though it is easy for monks to use as a story to cover a personal grudge, in Buddha's case it was an act of love. But I would still probably categorize him as an incel bc it's clear he would rather not have had to leave his family and to open his mouth and live in alienation only to die in a "park" by the road. it was a sacrifice he made because people have limitations and he had a job to do.
