Conversions with the Incel-Adjacent, Part 2

Hearing from people who struggle romantically, but do not consider themselves hateful

Welcome to the CHH Conversations series- I’m aiming to do one a week, detailing a person (or people) who belong to an interesting group which is either part of the current zeitgeist, typically unheard, or just something I find super interesting. Note that my interviewing someone doesn’t mean I agree with them or approve of what they say—in fact, I may strongly disagree with many of the people I interview! I do, however, appreciate that anyone gave me any amount of their time, so be nice.

In this piece, everyone described themselves and we used those prompts to generate DALLE images of them.

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In this conversation, I reached out to people (I was open to all genders, orientations, etc. but most respondents were straight men) who considered themselves “incel adjacent.” This means they are not necessarily virgins or never had partners, but they are struggling to get dates or meet people and are generally “involuntarily celibate” in the literal term, as opposed to “incels” who are usually associated with a specific Internet subculture that tends toward misogyny. This interview series excludes people who regularly date but can’t find a long term relationship; some degree of romantic isolation is required.

In the very near future, I will be doing a piece specifically centered around women struggling to find long-term relationships.

The folks in this piece all openly and happily bared their souls to me, treated me with respect and politeness, and I encourage anyone reading to treat them with some degree of compassion, even if they say things you disagree with.

Phil, 30, researcher

On his current dating situation:

I'm 30 now and still a virgin, and I've only ever had 2 proper girlfriends, so yeah I'd say I'm one of those "lonely young guys". I've been on dates with quite a lot of women over the last decade or so (something like 45 separate women I think) but very few of them have ever got very far. I think I have gotten better over the past couple of years but it's still a slow process and dating in this day and age is horrendous - I worked out that for roughly every 100 women I like on Hinge, only 2 actually match and like me back, and then only about 10% of matches I end up actually meeting up with. It's quite frustrating that I've done so well career-wise in my 20s but romantically I may as well be 17 still.

On his ideal partner:

So looks-wise I don't really have many dealbreakers. I mean obviously I have a type (basically pale with dark hair) but I've dated quite a wide range of women when it comes to looks. Probably the big thing for me is that they're not fat. I'm fairly slim myself and while it doesn't matter if they're a tad overweight, anyone that's obviously obese is a big no for me.

Personality tends to be more important. I'd say I look for someone that is quite intellectual and also emotionally stable, so quite similar to me. I tend to go for the bookish types rather than the party girls.

On his ideal relationship:

I suppose my ideal relationship would be one where we're both just as much in love with each other and that we do things together obviously but also have our own things too. Going on holiday together would be nice. Also I don't want kids.

On why he’s struggling:

I think there’s several reasons:

1. Low self-confidence as a result of the bullying in school

2. I’m fairly introverted and don’t go out a lot, also I don’t drink alcohol at all

3. As a result of 1 I didn’t even start trying to date until I was like 21, so I think I missed out on a crucial period

Eleanor, 23, VFX freelancer

Note: Eleanor provided the above image in lieu of an AI-generated image.

On her dating history:

I don't think I've been on a date. Like, I've hung out with people in ways that maybe toed the line with a certain amount of ambiguity in what those relationships were, but not dates. I've been attracted to many girls as far back as like preschool but the first girl I asked out was in 9th grade and she wasn't interested and I couldn't easily get over her, and not being in control of that really freaked me out and I got really weird and anxious about the whole thing…So since then, I've asked a few people out or admitted feelings, but more often I've just funneled them into art and spoke directly or indirectly about my crushes without any real intent that speaking about it would mean anything.

The next girl I explicitly asked out was four years after my first, in freshman year of college and it was kind of a weird circumstance with a kind of parasocial dynamic and she wasn't available. Had this other weirdly parasocial dynamic with another girl (I think being in college during the pandemic exacerbated some of that) where I was kind of hung up on her off and on for a few years without ever really doing more than exchanging a few DMs now and then..I've been on dating apps since my first semester of college but I've always been kind of picky and then it never seems to go anywhere and it's never progressed past the app, but often as much because of me and my anxieties.

On dating as a trans lesbian:

I think having started transitioning in Spring of 2022, when I was 21, I've been in kind of a weird place where I'm still figuring a lot of stuff out and I haven't really felt ready to try to pursue other lesbians because I feel kind of half-formed at this stage in my transition. Feminizing HRT is often known to cause women to lose their libido and I had that (mostly irrelevant here) but the drug progesterone is often cited as bringing it back and I recently started feeling its effects and it's a very different sort of attraction and desire than I'm used to. That change corresponded with my developing feelings for one of my lesbian friends though when I told her, she said she wasn't really in a place where she was looking for a relationship.

I've struggled a lot with how to draw the lines between a desire to have someone in my life as a friend vs wanting them in a romantic way, which was especially hard when I didn't think I was sexually attracted to people, but even now it's hard because I still don't see myself as like physically compatible with other people in a sexual way. I'm mostly just looking for someone romantically in the same way I'm looking for friends, someone who shares my interests especially in film and with priority for people who work in creative fields. But one extra difficulty with romantic/sexual attraction on top of that is that I'm looking for someone tall since I've long been dysphoric about my height (I'm 6'3") and I can't really imagine being physically intimate with someone who is significantly shorter than me which is the case for most cis-women, including many of the ones I have been really attracted to.