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> I got absurdly lucky when I found my wife, but I spent every day without her more or less miserable. It’s arguable she’s the only reason I’m able to be happy

• throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >having a romantic and sexual relationship is not a requirement for a happy life. It is for many, many, many people.
  • edgyquant 5y ago
    Yeah people who say this are so wrong, companionship and a significant other is a required for a fulfilled life for a majority of people. We evolved to have this, and most people need it. You shouldn’t depend on one for happiness, but there is nothing wrong or weird about longing for one.
    • Pfhreak 5y ago
      On the flip side, however, no one owes you companionship or a relationship (platonic or not). If you are struggling to fulfill that need, it's on you to improve yourself through building skills, seeking therapy, finding appropriate medications, or whatever else. Pushing the blame outwards to some other group for not bending to fulfill your needs is a real problematic stance.
      • toomuchtodo 5y ago
        Totally, but most people are not emotionally well adjusted or in a place where they an introspect and build themselves up to be the better version of themselves. A lot of folks would be helped by therapy and having someone to talk through to work through this (but that's a healthcare conversation, which we don't have to devolve into here). I unequivocally do not condone folks who go off the rails in ways that cause harm to others (self destruction and harm is similar, but a different conversation), but I've seen enough mental health challenges and crises to understand why it happens. In general, life is hard, and no one is coming to save you except yourself.
      • edgyquant 5y ago
        Indeed, you shouldn’t based your identity around it or blame others (e.g. incels) but at the same time you shouldn’t be made to field there’s something wrong with you for wanting it. Like most things there is a balance to be found. I think the stars every day that I failed my way into relationships for most of my life and I can’t imagine the struggle of these individuals.
        • dnautics 5y ago
          I don't think the identity of inceldom is necessarily blaming others for being lonely (though probably most incels do), but being angry at society for trying to sell an incorrect narrative of relationships.
      • scarmig 5y ago
        On the flip flip side, no one owes anyone anything (except bodily integrity). You aren't entitled to a partner who does a certain number of hours of chores; you aren't entitled to a specific or any job title; you aren't entitled to a particular lifestyle; you aren't entitled to respect and admiration. That doesn't mean the only valid approach is to criticize people who systemically have a harder time reaching those things and feel frustrated by it. We can simultaneously tell individuals to work on self-improvement to get themselves out of tough situations while also recognizing that society can do things to make life fairer and better for everybody.
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • YinglingLight 5y ago
    Happiness comes and goes with the wind. Greet it openly when it visits you, but it will be gone tomorrow. Seek contentment instead.
  • AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    I don't think that is true, but that's because I think there's a huge difference between what people think will make them happy and what actually will. The former tends to be an ever moving target, the latter requires a change in perspective that takes quite a bit of effort and doesn't make anyone any money.
    • NickM 5y ago
      Not sure why you're getting downvoted; others may not agree, but I think you have a very valid opinion. It is an incredibly common human experience to think "I would be happy if only I had X," only to find that achieving X does not actually make one happy.
  • flatline 5y ago
    I believe everyone is capable of being happy in their own company. It may take a lifetime of work for some people to achieve this. We are social creatures and human interaction is essential for our well-being, but that doesn't mean you can't have your own personal goals and interests or just simply enjoy time with yourself: you are a human being in your own company, too! Frankly without that ability you are not going to have healthy relationships with others no matter how good looking or successful you are. I know so many unhappy couples that put on a good front. I was part of one for years. In the West in particular we are crippled with insecurity, anxiety and doubt. Are we masculine/feminine enough? Do we fit the image we have of other people's desires? We have incredible wealth and abundance and feel like shit. It's a societal ill as well as a personal one. It is possible to practice contentment, gratitude, and self-compassion and acceptance, these are just things that are not taught or idealized in our culture. I do think the mindfulness movement, commercialized though it may be, has something to offer to modern secular society.
  • tachyonbeam 5y ago
    That's one bitter truth about life: (almost) everyone needs some amount of physical intimacy to be happy, but it's not something anyone is entitled to. Those of us who have access to that are privileged. I agree with the author though. IMO the existence of so many "incels" is some expression of a real societal problem. Many young men are suffering, and we don't acknowledge their suffering as genuine. We just tell them that they suck, call them names and walk away. This can cause them to become more radicalized. I was raised by a mentally ill single mom, on welfare. In many ways, my emotional maturity really lagged behind that of other guys. I didn't know how to make friends, let alone how to approach women or form a healthy relationship. I did eventually manage, but it took me years of learning during my 20s. When I was a young man, I struggled with some pretty bitter feelings myself, and I feel like society didn't make it easy to overcome them. Even today, the not so ambiguous message that society sends to young men is: if you can't get women, it's entirely your fault, because you are not enough. It just adds insult to injury, particularly when you're really missing closeness and understanding, when you feel alone and wounded. IMO, the modern discourse around gender only really goes one way. We hear about women's issues everyday, but even in 2021, it's no more okay for men to talk about the challenges they face than it was in the 1950s. Men are told to just suck it up, and that's a huge part of the problem. If feminism is really about gender equality, then it needs to allow some room for men to talk about their issues and concerns as well, without fear of judgment. I would also like to see words other than "toxic" being used to describe masculinity.
    • benlivengood 5y ago
      At least in the bay area there are plenty of cuddle parties for platonic physical touch. Feminism has a pretty convincing answer to the problem like I edited my original comment to include. Toxic masculinity is the social exclusion of deep emotional relationships between men, including the "suck it up" culture. The key is that only men can really participate in that healing because it's entirely a problem between men. Women, as I've observed, seek out deep emotional friendships with other women and have most of their emotional needs met that way. Men, for the most part, do not do that with other men.
      • 5y ago
  • 74d-fe6-2c6 5y ago
    So are sugar, TV and status symbols.
  • deleted 5y ago
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• jvidalv 5y ago
  As a lone wolf I totally disagree. I think that we are engineered to have sexual and romantic partners by default. And there are some, like me, that somehow we can live without one and not fall into addiction traps ( drugs, party, videogames... ). But we all have friends ( most ) that are not like this, the difference for most of them between being single or not is big, and I don’t agree that they are depressed its just human nature.
  • throwaway98797 5y ago
    Most people need comfort for the misery of their lives. some choose food (obesity), some choose crazy partners (tend to be great in bed but bad in life), other choose video games (sense of accomplishment), and others try to help others as a way of hiding from themselves. most people are running, some though are doing it in a socially acceptable way. but the root cause is the same.
    • deleted 5y ago
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• treesrule 5y ago
  > having a romantic and sexual relationship is not a requirement for a happy life. I don't have the all data off hand (see some citations below) but I believe they say married men live longer, commit less crimes and are happier. So yes in some sense, can you be happy if you are not married however, is it almost certainly harder. I assume you would find similar data for not having a romantic parter. You, a human, are not an island and almost certainly would benefit from close personal and romantic connections. I would say that there is a way of expressing this towards your partner -- especially too early in a relationship -- that can be very draining. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/sampson/files/2006_criminology_laubwimer_1.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/sampson/files/2006_crimino... https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/marriage-and-mens-health https://www.health.harvard.edu/mens-health/marriage-and-mens... https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-marriage-really-make-us-healthier-and-happier https://ifstudies.org/blog/does-marriage-really-make-us-heal...
  • burlesona 5y ago
    The correlations are clear but causality less so. What if it’s not marriage that makes men happier, less prone to crime, and longer-lived - rather it is that women select for partners who are happier, less prone to crime, and healthier?
    • whatshisface 5y ago
      It's weird to try and explain this from a sterile alien-studying-humans perspective, but since that's the HN theme I'll do my best. Marriage and having dependents carries with it a lot of economic cost. By revealed choice theory, that implies it has significant benefits, or else nobody would ever do it.
      • joshuamorton 5y ago
        Does marriage have economic costs? Dependents sure, but marriage seems to be economically beneficial: taxes, fewer bedrooms, etc.
      • NickM 5y ago
• tryonenow 5y ago
  >This is basically a red flag for any relationship. If the only thing making or allowing a person to be happy in life is their partner then something is wrong. Mental health is no joke and not being able to enjoy life is usually a symptom of an underlying cause. Depression is probably the most common but anxiety disorders can be similarly hard. This is nonsense. The instinct to reproduce is inescapable for the vast majority of people. Without it humans would not exist. There is only so much social conditioning that can be done to override the innate drive for partnership and sex. Ignoring this basic drive, which is implicit in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, disenfranchises young men who are disproportionately driven by evolutionarily derived instinct to seek romantic female companionship. >A partner is not a replacement for the natural circle of close friends humans are supposed to have No, more like friends are not a replacement for intimacy.
• nicoburns 5y ago
  > the best explanation that I've heard for the feeling men have of basic unhappiness without romance and sex is toxic masculinity; the general societal rejection of deep emotional relationships between straight men. Lonely? Make strong friendships! Spend your time with other men who like you and enjoy your company and validate you I'm not sure I buy this. I'm a man who has lots of close friendships (many of which are with women, but some of which are with men), and I still feel like it's not enough and that I want a romantic/sexual partner. A partner is not a replacement for a close circle of friends, but neither is close circle of friends a replacement for a partner.
  • benlivengood 5y ago
    > I'm not sure I buy this. I'm a man who has lots of close friendships (many of which are with women, but some of which are with men), and I still feel like it's not enough and that I want a romantic/sexual partner. A partner is not a replacement for a close circle of friends, but neither is close circle of friends a replacement for a partner. I think the difference is between wants and needs. Aside from a very small number of people most of us need friends and family who care about us and meet our emotional needs. Children need this unconditionally but adults have to take responsibility of their emotional needs and fulfill them in a healthy way by making and keeping friends. I think sexual and romantic desires are not needs; they are very strong desires and their fulfillment is definitely wonderful but life can be happy and fulfilling without them.
    • hombre_fatal 5y ago
      I wouldn’t be so fast to dismiss it as a want for most people. I would wager most men feel like emasculated failures if they cannot attract a mate when surrounded by single women. It seems unlikely that a large portion of men only view romantic success as a mere cherry on top.
      • watwut 5y ago
        But that is basically wanting trophy wife. So you have her, do that you can show off to other guys. And I mean, she will eventually figure out and resent that.
• Supermancho 5y ago
  > This is basically a red flag for any relationship. If the only thing making or allowing a person to be happy in life is their partner then something is wrong When you get older, a partner (or children) are important to keep you going. Your body will fail you. Your mind will fail you. Your life will end and (statistically) it will be a long downward slope. Binding yourself to the right person keeps that slope more even, for longer. People who think being alone is great are right, until some point after the slide begins that has slowly eaten away at your own ability.
  • the_af 5y ago
    You have a point, but in this case the author of the article says: > I was a bit of an oddity in that I was anticipating marriage since early adolescence; that outsized-value for relationships came with what I feel were comparably overgrown feelings of loneliness. I got absurdly lucky when I found my wife, but I spent every day without her more or less miserable. It’s arguable she’s the only reason I’m able to be happy. So it's not old age, but youth in his case that was unhappy until he met his wife. That does look like a red flag to me. Suppose his marriage goes south, will his (ex) wife now be responsible of not only ending the marriage, but also of ending all possible happiness in his life? That's an unreasonable burden to place on her.
    • Supermancho 5y ago
      > So it's not old age, but youth in his case that was unhappy until he met his wife. Some people feel the existential dread before it is realized. This is shared by both sexes and sometimes expressed at absurdly young ages without prompting.
      • x86ARMsRace 5y ago
        Yes, that's absolutely correct. In my case at least I remember occasionally waking up when I was very young in hysterics because of general existential dread related to death.
        • 5y ago
• thekashifmalik 5y ago
  I'm not sure I follow; sex and sexual activity are a part of the first level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Note, it's not intimacy but sex itself. Intimacy lies on the 3rd level.
  • ayyy 5y ago
    You might be confused because Maslow thought sex was on the same level as food and sleep. Of course, today, the idea that men need sex simply because they are alive is repulsive.
    • andi999 5y ago
      Why is this idea repulsive?
      • thatguy0900 5y ago
        I think they are conflating needing sex with deserving or being garunteed sex.
        • ayyy 5y ago
          Yes, I've conflated the idea of "needing" something with the idea of "deserving" something. For example, some people need food, but they don't deserve it just because they're alive. We call that hunger. Other people need housing, but they don't deserve it just because they're alive. We call that homelessness. Some need sex, but they don't deserve it just because they're alive. We call those people incels.
          • QuercusMax 5y ago
            Why don't you think people deserve housing and food, in the richest country in the history of the world? Our society could absolutely provide them, it just doesn't because they're "not worthy".
            • 5y ago
• the_jeremy 5y ago
  > having a romantic ... relationship is not a requirement for a happy life Do you think having friends is a requirement for a happy life? It's not strictly necessary, but they are a positive factor, and most people will not be happy entirely devoid of friendship. Having a partner is a friend you commit to and are closer with than other friends (generalization, sure). I have friends who I would not support through depression, but I would support my partner through depression. Needing someone like that is not unhealthy. It will be difficult to find someone willing to give the same commitment to your friendship as to their partner (generalization again).
  • tonyp2121 5y ago
    Why would you not support your friends through depression?
    • corty 5y ago
      Because supporting depressed people is depressing and often futile. Mental illnesses can be transmissible that way. Also, supporting a depressed person needs lots of time and effort, and while they are depressed they give nothing back except bad vibes.
      • DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
        I'm very glad we're not friends. edit: I just found this meme: https://i.imgur.com/WCzNW77.png https://i.imgur.com/WCzNW77.png and I decided to link it here. People think friendship is something that is built over years because it takes years in order to have finally made it through enough hardship and shared struggle so calling each other friends is justified. This is the literal meaning of having a friend. You know they'll help you even you got nothing to give and without expecting anything in return from them.
        • corty 5y ago
          > You know they'll help you even you got nothing to give and without expecting anything in return from them. I cannot decide if that is more abusive or more romanticized. If you expect your friends to be there for you without you returning anything, you are abusing them. That isn't friendship, that is exploitation. And if your friend is there for you even though you are incapable of returning anything, it is incredibly romantic. But also usually very limited, because that drain on your friend has consequences and needs to either be equalized by something (not you) or suck your friend dry until he himself is incapable. Which is a very un-romantic ending, because it leaves the world with 2 emotional cripples. For me, friendship is also very much about knowing the limits of what i should make my friends suffer through.
• mustafa_pasi 5y ago
  What a banal comment. You understand precisely nothing and you start proclaiming solutions that make no sense and then you even have the gal to psychoanalyze the health of the author's relationship. A perfect example of the attitude of some that refuse to even try to empathize with others. Your problem is that you just have no ability to comprehend a situation that is not very similar to your life. So for you, anyone who acts in a way that you do not understand is obviously acting up and doing it wrong, rather than acting in a way that makes sense given the person's circumstances.
  • Apocryphon 5y ago
    Agreed- not only is it overly judgmental and presumptuous, it’s also a nitpick of a single passage from an entire article. It’s not off-topic, but it really swerves discussion into a tangent.
  • alex_smart 5y ago
    100% agreed.
• tomc1985 5y ago
  EDIT to add: the best explanation that I've heard for the feeling men have of basic unhappiness without romance and sex is toxic masculinity; the general societal rejection of deep emotional relationships between straight men. Lonely? Make strong friendships! Spend your time with other men who like you and enjoy your company and validate you. A partner is not a replacement for the natural circle of close friends humans are supposed to have. I'll be honest that I'm not the best at doing this, to my own detriment, but I think it's basically the solution. I don't agree with this. The desire to bone isn't 'toxic masculinity' and isn't something easily substituted with more friends (unless they are of the "with benefits" variety). In me, at least, it is a distinct and real feeling of need without easy substitutes. More friends may lead to more romantic opportunities, sure, but that is indirect and subject to circumstance.
  • cushychicken 5y ago
    >The desire to bone isn't 'toxic masculinity' and isn't something easily substituted with more friends (unless they are of the "with benefits" variety) Wow, that's two turns of phrase that erode your point in one sentence.
  • DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
    it's also a question of age I think. what I recall from my time in my 20ies my desire to be sexually active was a lot more dominant and in charge of my higher faculties than what it is today nearing 50. biology determines how strongly we feel we need to be with a partner I think. I accepted much more toxicity and negativity just to not be alone (allowing control by my partner over my emotions and was far more ready to compromise) than what I'm today. Today any potential relationship needs to be solid on a mental level first before I'd even consider going further. That certainly wasn't the case in my early 20ies. Also I'm today able to spend time by myself (and not just get by but really enjoy my own company, thoughts etc ...)
    • tomc1985 5y ago
      I think that varies highly between individuals. I consider myself high libido and it's something I have to deal with fairly often, otherwise it starts screwing with my faculties. And the desire has not changed much since my 20s, even if I've learned to be more comfortable in the things that intersect with it The concept of a dead bedroom absolutely terrifies me. Like, why bother with a relationship if the one person you can have sex with doesn't ever want to have sex?
• DavidVoid 5y ago
  I think it's normal to be happier when you're in a relationship than when you're along, but you certainly shouldn't be completely miserable on your own. There's a quote I read when I was younger that helped me realize this and come to find peace with my own loneliness at the time. "Until you get comfortable being alone, you'll never know if you're choosing someone out of love or loneliness."
• LarryDarrell 5y ago
  I remember growing up in the 90s, and in the AOL Instant Messenger profiles of my friends, was commonly the quote: "You have to love yourself before you can love another." Also a lot of DMB song lyrics... it was a different time. I remember there being a few hopeless kids in high school, but looking back there was also a lot of undiagnosed asperger's and who knows what else. What I'm really curious about is if the number of Incels is increasing through the years, or if now the underserved mentally ill just have platforms to espouse their misery. The Incel seems to be singularly focused on sex. Companionship, shared interests, mutual respect don't seem to get any daylight in their psyche. I would like to blame the consumption of instant, abundant hard core pornography. But I don't have any data to back that claim up. I'm just thinking of a difference from the 90s (I know porn existed online back then, but come on, everyone was on dial up) versus today.
• nemothekid 5y ago
  >Lonely? Make strong friendships! Spend your time with other men who like you and enjoy your company and validate you. The author has a great followup comment that should really be part of the original article that addresses this line of thinking exactly. Pasted below: ----- I want to have a dialogue about this, because I think it's important in a couple ways. To start, I agree in sort of generic terms that a lot of the Incels must be whining without doing anything to fix it; that's just necessary. But your scenario here for them, parsed, seems to be making a lot of assumptions I'm not sure are true. One thing I get told a lot when I talk about dieting/obesity is that everyone WANTS to be thin; if it were possible/doable/easy then we'd expect to see a bunch of obese people losing weight, and we don't, so it would be wrong to treat all obese people as lazy fat slobs. Basically that they deserve sympathy and the assumption should be that even if they aren't trying real hard at the moment, that what they would have to try is real hard, and it's more complex than just writing them off as voluntarily broken. In this case I'm not sure what you are doing is the same, but it feels similar. It's something like "Yes, there's a problem - why don't they just change their personality, looks, and conversational abilities?". If that's easy, great; if that's even something someone can do, fine. But I'm not sure it's that simple; I don't know that many people who have drastically upgraded their personality successfully (read: I don't know any people who have done this) and I don't know many people who have ever made themselves more than marginally better looking (read: I've known some people who have done this, but not many). There's probably some dudes out there who are romance-marketable if they just start showering more, dress a little better and make some token effort at not being rancid assholes, but it's relevant that we think about whether those guys are the norm, or outliers. I say this because, like, the solutions you propose besides that are A. Something that's expensive, stands a good chance of getting them sent to jail and only solves a small part of the problem most of them have B. Something that's expensive, slow and that we'd only expect to fix the underlying problem if the underlying problem is entirely them - i.e. if the stats I posted above are completely the un-loved faults, with no "market" problems they are getting screwed by. If you are a guy who isn't a capital-I Incel seeing those suggestions, I'm suspicious that it's not that unlike seeing someone complain about their obesity and how society treats the obese and saying "Well, stop whining, bucko - it's hard to have any sympathy for you when "eat less, exercise more" is an option - do you even have a gym membership?". If it's anything like that, it gets really easy to imagine this lower-case-i not-yet-toxic incel turning to some community somewhere that will give him some level of sympathy. What I'm saying is, we have an option to have sympathy for the generic condition without having sympathy for the bad behavior, something like "Hey, I get that it's hard out there and that this might not feel like or even be something that you can just 'fix' in that way. I feel for you, that's terrible" so they have some other option at all besides "listen, man, I'm going to explain 100 ways women are whores and this isn't your fault at all". And the normal stuff with escalating problems applies - this is a problem that got almost twice as bad over the last couple decades. Right now, nobody is paying any real attention to it; some people acknowledge that those stats above exist, but nobody is seriously looking into why or what societal trends are pushing it. If we get down the road another 20 years and suddenly 50% of everybody in a certain high-energy-high-rage age range is relationship-less and the only people who have been sympathetic to them at all are terrible people, we can't act surprised when there's suddenly a much larger terrible-person cohort on the ground instead of the much larger sad-but-not-ruined group we might have had. ------ https://residentcontrarian.substack.com/p/on-incels-dead-bedrooms-and-the-hard/comments#comment-1889934 https://residentcontrarian.substack.com/p/on-incels-dead-bed...
• thepasswordis 5y ago
  >This is basically a red flag for any relationship. No it isn't. My grandparents, who were married for 60 years had this mentality. My wife's grandparents, who were married for a similar amount of time, also shared this mentality. My wife's parents still share this mentality (and are obviously completely devoted to one another, which you will notice if you spend about 5 seconds with them). My parents divorced, which has had an incredibly destructive effect on my family, almost certainly as a result of my father's belief that he needed a life that was independent of our family, and that he could somehow live "independently" and still fulfill his role with my mother as the leaders of our family unit. Go talk to some elderly people: the ones who have been in marriages that have lasted the entire lives are generally completely devoted to one another, and as an extension their families. Unsurprisingly, those families seem to be generally full of happy, healthy people in their own happy, stable relationships. There is a bizarre (and imo destructive, and toxic) idea that seems to be running through tech especially that devotion to your partner is rooted in "jealousy". It usually leads to "maybe you guys should become polyamorous. What are you jealous?" And then, predictably, that leads to relationship collapse, heartbreak, and bitterness about 100% of the time. Shocking.
  • xxpor 5y ago
    Both this post and the OP strike me as "if it works, it's great, but if it doesn't, it's bad". Different things work for different people, and generalizing too much leads to suggestions that aren't useful for any particular individual situation.
  • NickM 5y ago
    I would argue that a high level of devotion is not the same thing as codependency. I'm not sure you and OP are actually disagreeing with each other here. It's entirely possible to have an enduring, meaningful, devoted, monogamous relationship that brings a great deal of happiness to both partners without that relationship being a requirement for the people involved to experience any amount of happiness or fulfillment in their lives.
    • thepasswordis 5y ago
• baby 5y ago
  Sorry but I’ll have to downvote this, there’s something about humans that is either cultural or genetic, but we travel and live in groups and we settle with partner(s). Being alone might be OK in a tribe, but as we moved to more isolated and individualist ways of living being alone means something completely different. On top of that every song you hear is about love and every movie you watch has a love story. You go out and you see happy couples around you, conversations most often revolve around dating. My theory is that behind every violent crime or act of terrorism there is a huge amount of frustration that built up from not having that someone.
  • hannasanarion 5y ago
    Your choices are not limited to "being adhered to a codependent sexual partner" and "being totally disconnected from society trying to live as a Randean ubermench ascetic". It is the belief that those are the only possibilities that makes people incels, not the lack of a chick.
    • baby 5y ago
      Isn’t the point of incels that they want something that is majorly important in society, yet can’t get it. It’s a bit like telling poor people that they should not care about money.
      • hannasanarion 5y ago
        They want something that they think is important in society, but isn't. Nobody gives a damn if they have a sexual partner or not, and it is not anybody's obligation to be theirs so that they can achieve their misguided idea of personal fulfillment.
• smooth_remmy 5y ago
  > This is basically a red flag for any relationship. If the only thing making or allowing a person to be happy in life is their partner then something is wrong. Mental health is no joke and not being able to enjoy life is usually a symptom of an underlying cause. Depression is probably the most common but anxiety disorders can be similarly hard. There is a great amount of neuro-diversity in the human species. Some people are wired to be rugged individualists who could enjoy living by themselves in a cabin in the woods. Other people are wired to need to be around their family. For some people, its not a choice, its how their brain is wired.
  • ironman1478 5y ago
    I think the issue is how extreme the statement "It’s arguable she’s the only reason I’m able to be happy" is. I think there is nothing necessarily wrong with that if you find a partner who is comfortable with providing this author's needs. In my mind though that statement signals a codependent relationship which are generally not seen to be a great thing. I'm not saying they are in a codependent relationship as an FYI, but it sounds like something people in that type of relationship would say. Like can the person not be happy at all if they were not in a relationship? Can they not find satisfaction in their job, hobbies, volunteer work, etc? yes it might not be fulfilling as being in a relationship, but to have a binary happy / not happy state based only on being in a relationship seems extreme. This is just going based on how the author worded it. Maybe a better way to have written their statement would be "less happy".
• Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
  >It’s arguable she’s the only reason I’m able to be happy. ...then something is wrong. I don't think work life balance and societal expectations are given enough discussion in these matters. Having a toxic job or no balance is going to breed problems in even the most well adjusted people. Likewise, men are taught by society at large to providers. Men are expected to get great jobs so the wife can stay at the mcmansion with the kids and that anything less than this is a failure of their person. I'm obviously exaggerating, but these messages still abound in pop culture. I don't know what the solution is, but I think it starts with employees taking more control over the work they do, how they work, and what happens to the profits they create.
• fellellor 5y ago
  This sounds pretty ignorant and insensitive. What someone wants or needs to live a happy life cannot be generalised. While I don’t think people owe you more than some empathy and politeness, they shouldn’t also be allowed to make sweeping judgments about your character on the basis of what you hold valuable or not.
  • corty 5y ago
    It can be generalized. Sex drive is a biological imperative. To suppress it takes a lot of effort and adaptation. Workarounds take a lot of effort. When you buy certain species of pets, you will only be able to buy them in pairs. Holding them solo is considered animal cruelty. I do consider holding humans solo cruelty, and people advocating things like "the world doesn't owe you a companion" cruel. Maybe the world isn't able to provide, but it should endavour to.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• fnord77 5y ago
  inceldom is a form of covert narcissism.
• slver 5y ago
  > This is basically a red flag for any relationship. If the only thing making or allowing a person to be happy in life is their partner then something is wrong. Vast majority of people are only happy when they're in a relationship and have a circle of friends. We've evolved this way. If you have no friends, you focus on your partner to get this social interaction. When you have no friends, no partner, then you turn to poor substitutes for social engagement, like online forums. If you ask me that's the red flag (using Internet a lot).
• scarmig 5y ago
  > having a romantic and sexual relationship is not a requirement for a happy life. This is a bit silly: either it's trivially true but irrelevant, if the claim is that there exist people who can live happy lives without (sexual) relationships; or it's flatly false, if the claim is that everyone can be equally happy without relationships as they would be with them. Relationships bring significant happiness. People who are in relationships self-report more happiness. They're richer. They live longer lives. You might say that I'm mistaking cause and effect: maybe happier/richer/healthier people are more likely to enter into relationships? This is probably part of the effect, but not the majority of it. If someone randomly ends up a widower from their partner experiencing a sudden, tragic accident, their happiness doesn't remain level. In fact, it substantially decreases: widowers have some of the highest suicide rates of any demographic group. Relationships aren't some crazy random idea that just happened to develop in 2020 USA. They exist universally, across all cultures and times. All of them consider a relationship as a good, important goal (even as the typical attributes of relationships do vary). It's hard to name any facet of culture as universal as that.
  • rafaelero 5y ago
    Not disagreeing with your main point, but twin studies show that marriage status account for only 1% of variance in happiness. So maybe the idea that most people need a romantic relationship to be happy is a little overblown?
    • scarmig 5y ago
      Do you have a particular study you could point me to? I do find twin studies useful. I found https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3629371/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3629371/ which addresses a variation of the question. The unpaired half of twins with discordant marital status show significantly (in the case of men) higher rates of depression; women also seem to too, but because there were so few twins of discordant marital status in general, the test is pretty underpowered and so the confidence intervals are huge. Given that, it's actually pretty impressive that it was able to find any significant differences at all.
• matheusmoreira 5y ago
  > having a romantic and sexual relationship is not a requirement for a happy life That's for each person to decide. For incels, it's clearly required. They want it. It's a fact that interpersonal relationships and sex are part of being human. If you tell them to just give up on this and find other ways to be happy, you're telling them to accept a subhuman existence, that part of their humanity is worthless and should not be exercised. > basic unhappiness without romance and sex is toxic masculinity No. It is normal to want relationships and sex. It is normal to be unhappy if you are constantly rejected by everyone. You can have strong friendships and still want this. There is absolutely nothing "toxic" about this.
• mschuster91 5y ago
  > Lonely? Make strong friendships! Spend your time with other men who like you and enjoy your company and validate you. A partner is not a replacement for the natural circle of close friends humans are supposed to have. I'll be honest that I'm not the best at doing this, to my own detriment, but I think it's basically the solution. I agree with you in that this is the best solution, but modern employment is making that hard. When you have a 1h single-way commute, an 8 hour regular work day with an hour of lunch break, another hour of "expected" overtime and "expected" taking part in socializing events to "fit to corporate culture", you lose 11-13 hours each day to work and are probably exhausted. Add another one and half hours to make breakfast and dinner and 8 hours of sleep, that doesn't leave much space for any activities. And God may help you if you're one of the persons who has to take on a second or third job to make rent. Boomers always complain my generation are "snowflakes" and depression ain't real... yeah no. Depression is real and these people had the luxury of being able to afford two kids, a house and a decent car on one person's salary without ridiculous overtime. Times have changed and not for the better.
• deleted 5y ago
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• keerk43 5y ago
  I think in this context it's not about toxic masculinity, but simply biology. We're merely animals with big brains, and most individual animals have a deep desire to reproduce. So it's not exactly weird that historically everywhere in the world young men unable to find a partner have been frustrated and a source of social problems, especially as with men troubles finding a partner tend to correlate with lower socio-economic status in general.
• BurningFrog 5y ago
  > having a romantic and sexual relationship is not a requirement for a happy life. This reminds me of rich people who think that money isn't that important. In reality, loneliness is one of the leading causes of suicide.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
  > having a romantic and sexual relationship is not a requirement for a happy life. A romantic and sexual relationship is very much like having money. Money is not a requirement for a happy life. However, having enough money sure does make it much easier to have a happy life. It is the same with romantic and sexual relationships. You can be happy without them, but having them is such a happiness multiplier that most people want them for very good reason. Also it has important societal features. If people are poor and they see all the happy, rich people, and they don't think they have any way of getting money, all the psychology self-help telling them that they should be happy being poor, is not going to work. Eventually, a certain proportion will get resentful. I think it is similar with singles, especially singles who want to be in a relationship but can't. Telling them that they don't need sexual relationships to be happy is not going to work, and will eventually lead to a lot of resentment.
• irrational 5y ago
  Yeah, no, you are wrong. We are social animals. We haven't evolved to be happy alone. My wife is my best friend. I am absolutely the most happy when my best friend is around and the least happy when she is away. I love doing things with her, talking with her, etc. I have tons of hobbies and interests that don't involve her. I could easily fill my days with those things. But frankly they aren't on the same level as my wife in terms of generating happiness, not by a long shot. And I don't think it is co-dependence. It's just best friends enjoying being together.
• rayiner 5y ago
  > This is basically a red flag for any relationship. This is a very odd western view of things. None of my Bangladeshi aunts would find it at all controversial if a young man said he was sad because he was chronically unable to find a relationship. Humans are supposed to be in intimate relationships of some sort, for the purposes of making children. Friends and hobbies aren’t a replacement. I find the ease with which people throw around “codependency” similarly perplexing. I don’t doubt that this situation exists among some people. But normal healthy marriage involves a large degree of codependency. The idea you need to be a standalone individual who would be happy with or without their spouse is inconsistent with how people actually work.
  • electrondood 5y ago
    I think the criticism was that the post's author expressed being deeply unhappy with himself to begin with, and the relationship was more like a bandaid that only covered up the underlying personal issues.
    • rini17 5y ago
      But it can equally well be the other way around: loneliness causes the unhappiness. That's very unfortunate tendency how everyone here first assumes some clear-cut cause and effect, and then goes on from there to interpret someone's expressed feelings.
  • alex_smart 5y ago
    Yup, I am from India and the experience of men from South Asian countries completely negates the argument in the original comment. Most men in these cultures have no problem finding strong friendships and family bonds, but can still struggle with loneliness and self-esteem when they fail to find intimate relationships.
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• mancerayder 5y ago
  >I think that's the strongest criticism of incels as well; having a romantic and sexual relationship is not a requirement for a happy life. Strongly disagree, unless you have low testosterone. Nowhere on Earth except in possibly some religious circles do people mentally push away and control to the point of elimination from awareness their sexual desires and not suffer for it in some form. You don't need to be a Freudian to know that the drive exists and gets out, somehow. If you have a low drive, then it makes sense that it would be viewed as optional.
  • rafaelero 5y ago
    I mean, if you apply this same reasoning, then "eating this big mac is extremely necessary unless you have one of these weird genes that makes you not crave these type of foods" becomes also a valid argument. It's not about what humans feel they need, it's about what they can live without without tearing their lives apart.
    • imbnwa 5y ago
      Not analogus at all, there's a wealth of consumable objects other than a Big Mac to sate your hunger. Setting aside fetishism, there's really just one object that sates sexual drive and that's a human being. Or do you think a sex doll is an adequate substitute with no second-order effects?
      • rafaelero 5y ago
        Me wanting to be famous can only be satiated by other people considering me an enjoyable person. But would you consider that I would be unhappy if I failed at being famous?
• seryoiupfurds 5y ago
  If you are lonely, your feelings are invalid and you are guilty of toxic masculinity. Can you imagine why lonely people might not be receptive to this argument?
• alex_smart 5y ago
  >Lonely? Make strong friendships! Spend your time with other men who like you and enjoy your company and validate you. Men can feel lonely and unhappy and unfulfilled when they are involuntarily celibate even after having strong relationships with other men and with their families. This has been my experience talking to hundreds of men in India. India has a strong family culture and a strong culture of strong friendships between men (sometimes even involving completely platonic hand-holding which is perceived as weird by the West) but not much of a culture of dating before marriage. The dating pool has a huge under-supply of women, so most men that do want to date would never find a girlfriend. In my experience, many of these men really struggle with loneliness and self-esteem. Eventually, they give in to the family pressure and just agree to an arranged marriage.
• ergot_vacation 5y ago
  I agree with most of this (though "Toxic Masculinity", like "Triggers," "Privilege," and so many others, is a phrase that used to be useful and has now been utterly destroyed by the socially fashionable). The general "response" to the incel phenomenon seems to be to diagnose (and dismiss) them as the sexual version of anorexics: people who have an unrealistically negative view of their sexual appeal and potential and end up harming themselves as a result. If they could just stop being so hard on themselves and relax, they'd be fine! This is a problem for two reasons. First, a lot of people genuinely are seriously, perhaps even hopelessly impaired in terms of finding a sexual partner. Appearance, money, and the ability to navigate a host of social and psychological interactions are vital to the process, and some people lack enough of these that their ability to find a partner is slim to none, and will not be improved by a few personal tweaks. The situation is similar to depression: everyone has felt down at some point and gotten over it with simple coping strategies, so they inevitably suggest these strategies to depressed people, not realizing they're dealing with a much deeper problem. But second, the real issue, as demonstrated in the discussion here, is that a large portion of the population has an unhealthy obsession with having a sexual partner. They view it both as an unqualified good and as a necessity, and are thus terrified of going without it for any significant period of time. For these people, you are not complete as a person unless you're in a relationship. This is a profoundly unhealthy and destructive way to live life, even for ordinary people. Relationships CAN be good. They can also be bad. On the whole, they generally end up creating almost as many problems as they solve (and sometimes more!). Having a partner is optional. It isn't like air or water or good nutrition. You have to find peace within yourself, with yourself, before anything else. Trying to fix that with any outside thing, including sexual or romantic partners, is a recipe for disaster. This thread is full of people continuing this warped line of thinking. Relationships aren't evil, they can be good and they can have positive effects on people. But they aren't necessary, and they won't fix you. Only you can fix you. In short, our culture very clearly has an addiction to sex and romance. Not in the dopamine sense, but because we believe the answer to our problems lies in someone else. In people with the ability to feed this addiction you get mild to moderate problems. In people without that ability, you get incels. Incels are just the most extreme symptom of a deeper disease.
• srean 5y ago
  This depends on the attachment style of the person. An avoidant would say 'I want to be independent and no one should take a dependence on me. I feel suffocated if someone does. Nobody likes it". The other extreme is anxious attachment style. The extreme forms of both are considered personality disorders. I have lived a significant part of my life being independent, without a partner. But now that I have, I enjoy the interdependence. It is very fulfilling.
• ufmace 5y ago
  > I think that's the strongest criticism of incels as well; having a romantic and sexual relationship is not a requirement for a happy life. Let me take this in another direction than most of the other comments: Say you're talking to a homosexual person in a deeply homophobic society, one so bad that you risk becoming a pariah at the very notion that you might enjoy relations with someone of the same sex. Would you tell that person to basically get over it and figure out how to be happy anyways because it's "not a requirement for a happy life"? If that feels like it would be wrong to say, ask why it feels wrong to tell it to that person, but okay to say it to the subjects of the article. I'm not really sure what should be done offhand. I know the situations aren't exactly analogous. But if you think it's bad to call homosexual people nasty things and they should be allowed to love, then how can it be okay to just casually dismiss straight people who have trouble finding love as being bad people and tell them to get over it?
  • rafaelero 5y ago
    There is a world of difference between being allowed to love and being guaranteed love.
  • benlivengood 5y ago
    I agree with a fair portion of the original article and my comment was almost off-topic because it relates more to the author than the article. The common feeling the author identifies with incels is the intense loneliness and unhappiness. By no means am I criticizing anyone for their feelings. What I am saying is look for the primary underlying cause and dealing with those feelings which is to a) deal with mental health issues. b) focus on building a strong support system for healthy emotional regulation to alleviate loneliness especially. Life should be enjoyable with friends and hobbies, not miserable. I also want to point out that what a lot of incels want is not a healthy relationship with a woman, but a glorified sex slave or sex worker in exchange for treating them with basic dignity. This is a far cry from gay people oppressed by homophobia. Nonetheless, for the sake of incels who understand what healthy relationships are like and want that: I'm trying to be pragmatic. I'd advise a gay friend to escape their strictly homophobic society and help them leave. If there's no where to go then I can only offer emotional support and try to fix the society. Likewise, I think introspection about the true source of intense negative feelings is the best thing for anyone who feels intensely unhappy about life for any perceived reason. I have felt intensely unhappy in the past and I have a lot of evidence now that it was mental health and not circumstances like whether I had a partner or not, despite it feeling like the cause sometimes. Love and sex can mask a lot of negative mental health, too. Pragmatically what else can we do for incels? They feel very bad, none of us (speaking for the men) can give them what they want, and the only way forward for them that I see is helping them find coping skills and support systems to become emotionally healthy. Most of them have unrealistic expectations and will be disappointed until they correct them. The others will have to wait to find the right partner while otherwise enjoying their lives.
• screye 5y ago
  >Lonely? Make strong friendships! Poor? Get rich? Self-fulfilling prophecies are futile. > romantic and sexual relationship is not a requirement for a happy life We have proof of various intelligent animals, domesticated and wild, that display signs of depression, loneliness and self-harm when separated from their bonded partner. If anything, the need for intimacy and romance are central to life as we know it.
  • BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    Do they display those distress behaviors before they have any bonded partner or do they only emerge in grief after the loss of the partner?
• zozbot234 5y ago
  "Deep emotional relationships" are based on trust, of the sort that's only really possible with a handful of people at any given time. A relationship that boils down to "spend your time with others who like you and enjoy your company and validate you" is pretty far from "deep", by definition. At that point, you're probably better off just getting a dog.
• a_puppy 5y ago
  Hi. I'm a guy who has, for my entire life, had difficulty forming romantic relationships. For most of my life, I also had a lot of trouble forming close friendships. So this is a topic that is very personal for me, and please listen carefully to what I have to say. First: close friendships are not a substitute for romantic relationships. Friendship and romance are two distinct needs. Not every human is wired to need romance, but _many_ people are. At this point in my life, I'm fortunate enough to have a circle of close platonic friends, but I'm still single, and I'm acutely feeling the lack of romance. That being said, you have a valid point that romantic relationships are not a substitute for close friendships. Some incels want to get a girlfriend as a substitute for making friends, and I agree that's a bad idea. But telling them "make strong friendships" is not helpful! Most people in this situation will struggle to form to close friendships for the same reasons that they struggle to form romantic relationships. So how _should_ the problem be fixed? There are no easy solutions. And there especially aren't easy solutions that the sufferers can implement on their own; if there was an easy way out, they would have done it already. I believe this problem will continue until _society_ changes how it treats socially awkward people. Society needs to be more sensitive towards people who lack social skills, and stop demonizing them. For example, there's a tendency to conflate "incels" in the sense of "misogynistic assholes who use terms like Chad/Stacy/femoid", with "incels" in the sense of "any man who's lonely and complains about it". The former group is a tiny fraction of the latter group, and conflating them is very unfair to the latter group. This needs to stop.
• johnnyanmac 5y ago
  In the same way that it's not required to be rich to have a happy life. In theory, yes. In reality, many doors open or close (ESPECIALLY once you're 40+) based on your marital status. for a few of the many examples: - Not having a spouse may be fine, but being excluded from social outings mostly from your friends who are married may start to affect your social circles. - Not having a spouse may be fine, but paying higher taxes and more rent due to the rise of the housing market expecting two-incomes may in fact financially affect you. - Not having a spouse may be fine, but receiving all your societal worldviews and mentalities from your same sex friends exclusively may lead you to have some problematic views in the long run. It can affect a lot, and goes much deeper than sex. Even in some world where prostitution was not only legal but societally encouraged, these above issues from sexual intimacy wouldn't disappear overnight.