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THREAD: As a victim of man box culture, I entered young adulthood with brutally low self esteem. I was utterly unable to meet any of the cultural expectations for being a sexually appealing man. The ideal guy was a football captain type. I was late to puberty, deeply anxious. /1
In the last part of high school, I had a girl friend but I was unable to communicate with her (or she with me) and it didn't last. After graduating, I stayed drunk most of the time. I had no skills, didn't enter college, became a dishwasher in Austin, Tx. Not a prime catch. /2
For a few years there I know I was an awful, weepy, beggy man boy to be around and even when women chose to be with me, however briefly, I was forever apologizing for who I was. Forever drunk and talking non stop about how messed up I was. All true, this. /3
Had incel culture existed then, I would have been a prime candidate for induction but for one thing. /4
I didn't blame women for my sexual isolation. I blamed my family, myself. I blamed the shitty world I grew up in, but somehow blaming women never entered my mind. And to be an Incel, you have to believe that women's collective role in society is what's causing your isolation. /5
Not only do you have to blame women for what incels call "pursing high value men," you have to project a version of yourself into the future as never ever having this weirdly transactional form of "value" in relationship to women. /6
You have to say, I'm not what they want and then you have to skip two major developmental landmarks of maturity. #1 you have to skip self reflection. "Where did I get these transactional ideas about women (and ourselves) because they are deeply dehumanizing." /7
Women, like men, are a vastly diverse population. There is no universal set of behaviors that represent any of us. At most we want to be seen and understood, respected and loved. After that, its wide open. How humans define that and how they seek it varies widely. /8
If you instead choose to use a biological argument, or a social generalization to say "all women want high value men" (as defined by transactional incel thinking) then you have stripped women of their individuality, their agency and their independence. /9
Yes, human beings want a "high value partner" but each of us defines that DIFFERENTLY. Which brings me to the first major step that the incel mindset requires you skip. Self reflection. After a few years of crying in my beer I had to ask myself what was my role in all this. /10
Self reflection means asking ourselves what do I need to do for me. To get rid of all this insecurity and anxiety. Out there in the future is a version of me that I'm not ashamed of. Out there is a version of me that some person will see as "high value." (Hate that term.) /11
To get to a place where I blame all women, I have to skip the self reflection step and blame an external population for my isolation and my loneliness.
Believe me, I get it. Self reflection sucks. It's goddamn painful. It feels like leaning into every pain we've ever felt. /12
Believe me, I get it. Self reflection sucks. It's goddamn painful. It feels like leaning into every pain we've ever felt. /12
And there is the second step we skip. You have to skip the step where you question your anger. For any of us who were battered by the world, anger is the likely result. It resides right there under the surface all the time. It took me five decades to fully question my anger. /13
Questioning the anger that bubbles up over and over, is very very difficult. I arrived at this statement. "When I get angry, I lose. Every time." No matter the context, the interaction and justification, when I get angry I am losing my autonomy, my balance, my independence. /14
The next time someone encourages you to grow your anger instead of question it, ask yourself what's in it for them. There are many powerful influences in the world that benefit from validating and directing your rage and grief. But they don't give shit about you. /15
I feared what was driving all my anger. I called it the basement. Something was down there and it was ugly. It was a little kid who got fucked over and I was afraid to go down there and deal with him. Don't make me go back to that place. I don't want to feel that again./16
For me, my story was that whenever anyone on my life challenged me too much or asked me to be accountable too much, I would lean into that little boy story and say "I'm doing the best I can, but I guess I'm just not enough. I guess I suck." I now call it "taking a hostage." /17
I would take a hostage (me) and threaten to beat that hostage bloody unless my partner, family member etc. agreed to back off. Turns out my victimhood was my weapon, my drug of choice. I wasn't afraid of what was in the basement, I was using it to control others. Nice, huh? /18
The ways in which we leverage our trauma and use it to control others is entangled with our histories and our shame. Men and women both do this. We avoid self reflection and blame others for our circumstances. We stay in our victimhood because if offers us some kind of power. /19
And yes, some men and women are absolutely transactional in their relationship choices and decisions. No one is denying that. Some men and women are, in fact, looking for the ugliest most shallow markers of success and sexual power. But they are not the whole human story. /20
To fixate on the most confused and shallow among us, and define your life in opposition to that model of being human, is a tragic waste of your greater human potential. Many of us have struggled for years to find love and meaning. But we find it. This is the journey. /21
Incel philosophy lets us skip over dealing with all those frightening goddamn questions. Instead we get to feed on our anger, beat the hostage bloody. But understand, there are people who want you to beat the hostage. They want you to hate on women. They want you trapped. /22
We do the work to grow as human beings @mankindproject and in other men's groups. If you're tired of losing to your anger, if you feel stuck, lonely, join us. There are men waiting to help you deal with your trauma and find your joy. There is a community of men who can help. /23
Peace. /24
Mark Greene is the author of Remaking Manhood and The Little #MeToo 
Book for Men. "First, see the culture. Then, change the culture." /25
Book for Men. "First, see the culture. Then, change the culture." /25
