I wish I could tell you there was a single moment — a sharp turn, a door I walked through, a mistake I made — that led me into the belly of the beast. That would make it easier to explain. Easier to blame.
But it wasn’t one moment. It was dozens. Hundreds. A constellation of small, stupid, seemingly insignificant choices that, when connected, spelled out a life I didn’t even recognize.
It was 2015. I was sixteen. And I felt like I was disappearing.
At school, I was the kid who couldn’t keep up — not because I wasn’t smart, but because my brain played its own game. ADHD, undiagnosed. Autism, same story. At home, things were worse. My mom drank. Not in the sitcom way — not in the clumsy wine-mom meme way — but in the real way. The kind where I’d come home to her passed out by noon and two younger kids staring at me like I was the adult in charge.
I was a ghost. No one saw me. Until they did.
Until they did.
It started with videos. “Feminist Owned” compilations, stitched together by guys who styled themselves as truth-tellers but acted more like playground bullies with YouTube channels. The videos were everywhere. You’d click one, just for the cringe — but then you’d click another. And another. And pretty soon you’re not laughing. You’re nodding.
They said everything I wanted to hear.
“You’re not the problem. They are.”
“You’re not broken. You’re just ahead of the curve.”
“You’re not alone. You’re one of us.”
And god, I wanted that. I wanted someone to see me — to hear me. And they did. At least, they pretended to.
The incel world is built like a bunker. The walls are high, the lighting is dim, and the air is thick with the smell of stale frustration disguised as enlightenment. And everything — everything — is dressed up in intellectual cosplay.
Quotes from Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. Pseudo-academic rants about “evolutionary psychology.” Mistranslated samurai wisdom from Musashi. It wasn’t just toxic — it was toxic in a turtleneck.
And if you questioned any of it? If you dared suggest maybe, just maybe, your life would be better if you took a shower and went outside? You were a traitor. A simp. A bluepill cuck. Whatever the insult of the week was.
There was one phrase I’ll never forget:
“See you in six months.”
That’s what they said when someone posted about meeting a girl. It wasn’t encouragement. It was a warning. A curse. A reminder that any happiness, any attempt to claw your way out of the pit, would end in disaster.
Because if you got better, if you grew, if you changed — you proved the whole thing was a lie.
The lie is the whole point.
Because if it’s all about your face, your height, your skull shape — then it’s not your fault. If dating is a rigged game and women are mindless bots programmed by society, then it makes sense you’re alone. Then you don’t have to try. Then you don’t have to risk.
I saw average-looking guys call themselves monsters. Guys with decent social skills who convinced themselves they were genetically doomed.
It’s easier to swallow the black pill than it is to admit you’re scared. That you’re lonely. That maybe the world isn’t rigged — maybe you just never learned how to play.
I wasn’t just in the community. I was the community. I became one of the elder statesmen, the ones who post long screeds filled with bitterness and faux-wisdom. I gave advice. I quoted Seneca without knowing who he really was. I lectured others on how love was a scam and marriage was state-sponsored slavery.
It was a mask. I wore it like armor. Underneath, I was a kid who’d seen too much and hadn’t healed from any of it. A kid still flinching from hands that weren’t raised anymore. A kid who just wanted someone to care.
So how did I get out?
Not with a bang. Not with an epiphany. With a thousand paper cuts of kindness.
A friend who listened without judgment. A stranger who said something nice. A coworker who asked how I was and meant it. A diagnosis that made me feel seen instead of defective. I didn’t leap out of the pit. I climbed. Slowly. Bleeding. But I climbed.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped hating women. I stopped hating men, too. I just started seeing people.
Do I still hear that voice? The one that says it’s all bullshit, that no one really cares, that the world is out to humiliate you?
Sometimes. But now I know it’s a ghost. I let it pass.
If I could talk to that 16-year-old version of me, I wouldn’t yell at him. I wouldn’t shame him. I’d sit next to him, quietly, and just say: “You’re worth the effort. You don’t need to be a king. You just need to be okay.”
We need to talk about this more. Not in Reddit threads buried under karma, not in academic journals no one reads — but here. Out loud. In real life.
We need community. We need connection. We need boys to have mentors who aren’t avatars with anime profile pics and rage boners. We need to stop pretending that shame is a cure.
We need to remember: The opposite of radicalization isn’t punishment. It’s empathy.
And for god’s sake — we need to teach lonely kids how to love themselves before someone else teaches them how to hate the world.