Jyvur Entropy's Blog, page 57
March 22, 2020
What in the fuck feminism-on-model-airplane-glue did I just read?
2/5 stars (and I’m definitely being generous here)
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So, I have a Master’s Degree in English Literature. I hope that doesn’t sound braggy. Trust me, it’s nothing to brag about. I mean, yeah I’m middle class and my career is A-okay, but I’m not smarter than anybody for having that. For real, I think my degree made me dumber. I can analyze any work of fiction through a feminist, Marxist, post-colonial lens ( I wish I was making that up), but I don’t think that makes me any smarter. It often makes me sound like someone locked in a windowless room with nothing but Judith Butler to read and a bunch of model airplane glue to sniff.
My point is this: academia is ridiculous. It’s stupid, but it’s a special kind of stupid: the pretentious twat flavor of stupid. The same flavor of stupid that Phillips’ ‘The Need’ is.
I was browsing in my public library when I stumbled across this novelized fever dream. The title is great. I love titles that are “The blank” format. I just find them really cryptic and they always grab my attention. Then I read the blurb and it sounded…weird. Weird in a good way. A sleep-deprived mother hears footsteps in the next room and at first she thinks she’s hallucinating. The intruder turns out to be real and she “slips down an existential rabbit hole where she must confront the dualities of motherhood.”
Hmmm…I thought to myself, this is either going to be awesome or so stupid I have to waste a Sunday trying to put the pretentious fuckery into words.
Guess which one it turned out to be?
The plot is nonsensical. Spoilers ahead. But don’t worry, they are stupid spoliers. I’m sorry if I spoil a stupid book for you.
The intruder turns out to be an alternate version of the main character Molly. The archeology site where she works turns out to be a “seam,” a split in reality where multiverses collide. Molly had already found several artifacts mixed in with the fossils that didn’t make sense. A coke bottle with the letters just slightly different than a usual coke bottle, an Altoids tin just slightly different than a usual Altoids tin, and then, a Bible where God is referred to as “she.” This part is, of course, very much harped on. One of the artsy-fartsy five sentence chapters ends on the line “the divine pronoun.”
Ooohh…ahh…mother is god to a child…how clever…not. This is some r/iam14andthisisdeep shit.
That stupid trying too hard to be impressive with symbolism really backfired on Phillips though. In the reality where God is a woman, Molly’s children are dead.
Feminism=the death of motherhood?
[image error]Photo by Ksenia Chernaya on Pexels.com
I feel like that’s not what the bald, glaring woman on the book’s back jacket flap was trying to say. Her weird artsy-fartsy-ness wasn’t thought through (spoiler alert-it never is with artsy-fartsy literary writers).
When the alternate version of Molly (Moll) first shows up, she rises up out of the trunk in the middle of Molly’s living room wearing a deer mask. It is later explained to us that Molly’s husband made her a deer mask for her birthday. Why? Who the fuck knows? These characters don’t seem like eccentric weirdos who’d make each other paper mache masks for holidays, even going so far as to ensure the mask is “the right size.” Nothing in the book points to them being this quirky.
I think the author just wanted an edgy surreal visual, but without putting in any of the work for that chilling imagery to make sense. You want a Donnie Darko-esque visual? Then put the fucking work in!
[image error]Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com
Then there’s the fact that nothing happens. Moll shows up. There is tension. There is an ambigious ending. We’re all supposed to stand here and clap, because otherwise we’re the square dummies who just didn’t get the book’s brilliance.
I hate literary fiction so fucking much. Can you tell?
The chapters were all about two paragraphs long for no reason. So many of the chapters could have been combined. She ends chapters mid-scene and then the scene picks right back up in the next two paragraph chapter.
Now, for the only compliment this writer will get from me: she is a talented writer. Her descriptions and imagery are gorgeous. Her prose draws you in. Her writing is good. It’s the story itself that fucking sucks.
I think it’s very telling that this book is so highly-praised in ivory towers and the surrounding communities. The snooty more-literary-than-though types love this book. But if you look at the book’s average rating on goodreads, it’s absolutely abysmal. There’s a real disconnect between what the critics say about the book and what the average person says about the book.
But if books are meant to move the human spirit, should you really need a fancy degree to see the value in it?
2 out of 5 stars. Helen Phillips could be a brilliant writer, if she’d stop trying to be so impressive and literary and just write a meaningful story.
Ninth House: I Wish I Had Written It
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Oh, Ninth House. Delicious, dark, mysterious, murder-mystery-wrapped-in-a-low-fantasy-dark-academia Ninth House.
Fuckkkk….this is the kind of fantasy book that I YEARN to write. You ever read a book soooo good that you’re just like, ‘Yes, everytime I sit down to write, this is what I’m trying to do.’
Most of the readers who give a crap about the books I write are probably familiar with the saga that has been ‘Timestorms and Tourniquets.’ I wrote a 120k word book in three months. I had so much fun writing it. And then spent the next year attempting to rewrite it to fix the worldbuilding issues. And now after throwing out two entire rewrite drafts of between 80-100k words (literally, right into the trash), I got a wonderful review from Emily S. Hurricane, a writer that I greatly admire, and decided, you know what? I don’t need to fix a book that people already love.
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Still, while I’ve decided to stick to minor revisions with Timestorms, there’s obviously something I wanted to do with the book that didn’t get done. I’m not as happy with it as I could be. The world isn’t lush and dark enough. The magic system isn’t detailed and layered enough. The tone isn’t compelling enough.
And when I read Ninth House, I had this overwhelming feeling of, “THIS is what I’m trying to do! This gorgeous mystery that unravels bit by bit!’
But the fact is, I’m not Leigh Bardugo. I’ll keep trying to write a fantasy this good. But I’m a long way off.
In the meantime, I’ll just sing her praises and tell you that Leigh Bardugo is the fantasy writer that I aspire to be. Minus the weird ghost rape scenes and shoehorned feminist talking points, but we’ll get there.
By the way, spoilers start now. If you don’t want them, just know that I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars and I can not wait for the sequel. Now go binge this book. Unless you need trigger warnings. In which case, this book has all the trigger warnings and is not for you. I mean, I hate the entire concept of trigger warnings and even I was kind of “triggered” by a graphic rape scene of a middle school girl…by a ghost. Not just child rape, but child rape perpetrated by a ghost. I’m all for edge, but Bardugo lost me a little there. Too edgy for me.
What I lurrvved!
The setting. High fantasy (fantasy set in a brand new world, like GOT, Stormlight Archive, WOT, or the wattpad hit The Unseen Hand) dominates the fantasy genre. I don’t like it. I don’t like learning a brand new world, new continents, new species, or if you’re flipping Brandon Sanderson even new freaking plant species! I know many consider Sanderson the absolute Goat and I’m trying to get more into his stuff, really I am. But every other paragraph the story stops to explain crap like rock polyps and spren and…gah! Just stick magic in the real world because reasons! Harry Potter that shit!
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And that’s exactly what Bardugo has done. She took a real world place, Yale, and put magic there, because reasons. The worldbuilding is still impressive as hell and I loved learning all about how the different aspects of magic worked together or against each other. The nexus’s, the tombs built over them, the elixir that allows people to see ghosts, gluma, hellbeasts, magic potions…ah! I loved it. but I didn’t have to learn a whole new world to get that. Please, fantasy community, give low fantasy (sometimes I see it called contemporary fantasy) a fair shot! It’s so fun to see our own world twisted by magic. I don’t need to travel to Tar Valon. We can have magic and mystery right on the campus of Yale.
The characters. I’ll admit that Alex Stern does have a few moments where I felt she was a little too cool for school. When she intimidates other characters so easily and has such clever well-timed quips, it definitely reads as very Mary Sue-wish fulfillment to me. I could have done without that. Still, overall I really connected to her. Her tragic backstory made me sympathize with and root for her. I loved her relationship with Hellie. I loved that she was real and raw and made mistakes.
Then there was Darlington. Poverty inside of a mansion. I feel like there’s a metaphor there. Maybe a better blogger than I will find it. His motivations were so interesting. Preserving his family’s legacy was so important to him and I loved that.
Tripp and Turner were both super entertaining. Dawes was great.
The only character I have a real problem with is Blake. He’s a cardboard cutout of a feminist talking point.
As a recovering radical feminist myself (no lie-I used to lecture people on the evils of makeup and heels), I know how my next point will likely be interpreted by current feminists, but just know I’m not your enemy. I don’t hate feminists. I was one for the majority of my life. It’s just that I realized the feminist ideology is based on a tower of lies. Most antifeminists (with the exception of ShoeonHead and a couple others) started out as feminist themselves. We were involved in the feminist ideology long enough to figure out it’s a load of bullshit. One such piece of BS is the myth of rape culture. Rape is horrible and rape happens. I’m not disputing that. But we don’t have a rape culture, and most frat-house rape scandels have turned out to be hoaxes perpetuated by the liberal media (if you had ever told me ten years ago those words would one day come out of my mouth…).
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Anyway, that’s my issue with Blake and the frat house of rape subplot. It’s a shoehorned feminist talking point and one without much basis in reality. Look into yourself if you don’t believe me. The statistics that “prove” rape culture were collected in dubious ways that no academic with integrity would ever get behind. Now that 1 in 5 statistic has been repeated so often that people accept it as gospel, without looking into how the data was collected, how they defined “rape”, or whether or not their sample size was large and diverse enough to prove anything.
Blake was annoying, a stereotype, a ham-fisted feminist talking point that the book would have been much better without, but the book was so strong that I was able to (mostly) look past this.
Lastly, I loved the incredibly unique premise. A murder mystery in a low fantasy setting is something that I’ve never seen. I can not wait for the sequel! I’m not even usually a murder mystery person, but the way the clues were revealed and the mystery became more and more complex; this is a book that tugs you in slowly and then all at once. The pacing and tension are sublime. I’ve seen some people say that the slow-burn style didn’t work for them. I felt it was delicious. Gorgeously done. The book couldn’t have worked without the slow burn pacing.
The only aspects of the book I didn’t care for were Blake and the frat house subplot, Alex being a little too cool at a few points (the ‘you can’t just!’ scene comes to mind), and the scene where Alex is raped by a ghost as a middle schooler on the day of her first period. I don’t enjoy seeing children brutalized. If the story needed that subplot then I could forgive it. However, the book would have been fine without that graphic, disturbing scene. She could have been a drug addict just because of how scary it is to be followed around by ghosts all the time. Also, it was never explained why that ghost was able to touch her. That plot hole bugged the fuck out of me.
In short, a few issues, but overall a very strong book. This is my first Leigh Bardugo book and she has surely gained a new fan. I’m off to check out the infamous Six of Crows series, while I wait for the Ninth House sequel.
How did you feel about Ninth House? Tell me in the comments! I’m always up for hearing some opposing viewpoints. Did you hate it? Tell me all about it! Did you love it? Let’s fangirl together. See ya!
March 10, 2020
Incel: Chapter 10; Young People Styles
He turned in front of the full-length mirror. It hung from the back of his parents’-well, his mom’s bedroom door. He took in his reflection. Scrawny. His shoulders were too narrow. His neck was too long. His hair was too thick. It was getting too long and unmanageable too. He was starting to look like Ronald McDonald.
He had been scheduled three whole days off in a row, a truly rare occurrence. And he kept thinking about that advice he’d read in the IncelsWithoutHate subreddit. Be Interesting. Watching anime and playing video games weren’t enough to get a girlfriend. Meeting people is just a matter of odds. He couldn’t spend all of his time inside if he wanted to meet girls. And here he was, with three whole days off. He had a plan. He’d go to the library, then the park to read whatever books he got. If he saw a pretty girl and was feeling very brave, maybe he’d go talk to her…It was a big maybe.
But first things first, he was gonna take care of his shit appearance once and for all. Taking a good long look at himself, he decided that the three things he needed to focus on most were clothes, hair, and skin. He needed some new clothes. He was still wearing stuff his mom bought him in high school. His jeans were old and faded. Sonic the hedgehog on half his t-shirts probably wasn’t helping him any. He’d just got his paycheck. He could afford to drop some money on new dudes, and a haircut too while he was at it. He decided to go down to the Pheasant Lane Mall and pick out some cooler clothes. Then he’d go get his haircut and go checkout the library.
He’d never actually been to the library. He wasn’t sure he even liked to read. Other than mangas, he’d never read for fun. Oh well, it was something to try. If anything, he just needed a book to hold at the park.
He gave himself one last disgusted look and sighed. Meet a girl at the park? What a stupid idea. Apparently, he thought he was living inside of a chick flik or something. If only he looked like Richard Gere…
The bedroom door swung open and he gave a startled jump. His mom swept in, a distracted look on her face that quickly twisted into a frown when her eyes fell on Adam. She placed a hand on her hip and tilted her head.
“What are you doing in my bedroom?”
He jerked his head in the direction of the now-open door.
“Just using your mirror.”
He didn’t want to admit that. He felt like a pussy, checking out his reflection like he was a chick.
Mom pushed into the room and set down the pile of laundry she held on top of her bureau. Then she turned to Adam, an amused little smirk on her purple lips and her eyes lit with amusement.
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“You thinking of a make-over?”
He shrugged and thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans.
“I dunno, Mom. I thought I’d go get some new clothes and a haircut…”
He trailed off, his cheeks reddening.
Mom approached him, with a curious look in her eyes.
“What?”
She reached out and shifted a tuft of hair out of his face. She eyed him skeptically, tilting her head one way and then another.
“Mom, speak. What?”
“I could come with you and help you pick out a new haircut.”
“Uh…I don’t know.”
She dropped his hair, and took a step back, planting her hands on her hips.
“You haven’t changed your haircut in years. I think a change would do ya good. What do you think you’ll do different?”
Adam shrugged.
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“Come on, we’ll go see my stylist, Lindsey. She can help you out. She knows all the young people styles these days.”
She turned on her heel and snatched her large purple bag from the wicker chair by the bed.
“Give me a minute to put on my lips and we’ll go.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Mom, I don’t know…no offense, but I don’t know if I want to get advice from someone who says ‘young people styles.’ You get it, right?”
She pulled her tube of lipstick from her back and shut the door partway to apply lipstick in front of the mirror.
“It’s fine, Adam,” she said after running the lipstick over the edges of her lips. “Besides, when was the last time we did anything together?”
“Guess it’s been awhile…”
Not that he really wanted to spend time wth her. Lately he’d been so angry at her. She was so rude to Dad all the time, just because he lost his job. It was like without bringing in money, she didn’t even love the guy anymore. It made Adam feel…weird…
[image error]Photo by Elina Krima on Pexels.com
Mom slapped her tube of lipstick back into her purse and then gave her short gray hair a fluff.
“You think I should go back to dying my hair?”
Adam snorted. “Are we giving each other hair tips now?”
“Oh, I was only asking,” she scoffed, turning away from the mirror and adjusting her purse on her shoulder. “Thought I was ready to let it all go gray, but I still can’t get over this strange old lady I keep seeing in the mirror.”
“You look fine, Mom.”
“Oh, shut it, you liar. Come on. I’ll treat you to breakfast, since you’re up before noon and all.”
“Fine,” Adam sighed. “Guess you can help me.”
He followed her out of the room and down the stairs. This might be fun. Old or not, she was still a female. Maybe she could help him choose a better look. And if she couldn’t, her stylist friend probably could.
At the bottom of the stairs, Mom stopped. She peered across the small entryway and into the living room. She released a short grunt and cut her eyes.
Adam’s mood fell, only a little, only enough for him to register it. His foot landed on the last step and he looked over his mom’s head. Dad was on the couch in his bathrobe. He held a cup of coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other.
“You don’t need to look at the classifieds,” Mom snapped. “They put all those job postings online now.”
“I know that, Bev. I haven’t started my job search for the day. I’m catching up on the news.”
Mom shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“We’re going out.”
“Have fun.”
Adam’s mood dropped further. His heart thudded slowly.
He followed his mom to the front door and hazarded one last glance back at Dad. Poor old guy. Unshaved, unshowered, his eyebrow furrowed and his eyes glassy and blank. He looked…lost.
‘He’s like an old version of me’ Adam thought to himself. But why? Why were they both so lost? Why did they both have that same dead look in their eyes. Adam knew he had it too. He’d seen it himself in the mirror. He looked nothing like his younger self. His eyes had shine back in high school.
He climbed into the passanger side of his mom’s minivan.
She adjusted her mirror and then looked at him with her mouth tight.
“Don’t end up like your father,” she snapped. “Grow up and be a man who provides for his family. You be a good man.”
And he was disturbed in that moment in a way he’d never been. But he didn’t know why.
And anger flashed brightly, spinning and bobbing with each thud of his heart. The too-thick coat of lipstick, uneven around the edges of her thin lips. Her yellow teeth. The sagging skin of her neck, giving her the appearance of jowls. It all made him so angry.
So angry that he shut his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to see her.
So angry that he kept his lips shut tight to keep from yelling.
[image error]Photo by Ivan Bertolazzi on Pexels.com
Incel: Chapter 9; If He Had Someone In His Corner
The blackpill? What was that?
He typed his question into google.
Huh…there was that word incel again. A number of the responses to his post had called him an incel. Maybe that was what he should be googling.
What is an incel?
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Unable to find a romantic or sexual partner? Well that sounded like him. But what was that Urban Dictionary bit? He didn’t think women were shallow….did he? They did always seem to go for the better-looking guys. He clicked the Urban Dictionary link.
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Oh…fuck all that then. He wasn’t a sexist. He didn’t think women owed him sex. He was just sad and lonely. He wanted to figure out how to get a girl interested in him. How could he approach them? He wanted that girlfriend experience more than anything. Yeah, he still had to figure out his life. But it might be easier if he had someone was in his corner. Right now it was only him. All alone….
He didn’t know why he kept going, but he did. He went back to Reddit and he searched for incels. If they really did have terrible attitudes and hate women, he’d ignore that. Right now, he just wanted to feel like he wasn’t alone. Posting in r/lonely had only made him feel worse than ever. Get a better attitude…it’s your fault…take a shower….it’s easy. But it wasn’t easy and he took showers plenty and he felt less understood than ever.
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Wow…these guys were…a lot. Okay, he was looking in the wrong place. This was some kind of crazy group. He decided to look elsewhere.
He typed “lonely communities” into the searchbar and scrolled through the results.
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Incels without hate…that was interesting. Did that mean it was guys who couldn’t get girls without all of that weird stuff? He clicked the link about the Joker movie.
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He opened up the first post, hoping to find some tips.
He read through it.
There were some good tips. He was overwhelmed by the thought of trying to enact some of them. Take himself on dates? Go out into public and go on adventures?
He guessed he could do that. Where would he even go though?
The part that struck him the hardest was the part about not talking to people because you find them hot or want something from them. Did he do that? He wasn’t entirely sure. He did know that when he was talking to women, he was usually thinking of fucking them or wondering what his chances were if he asked them out.
He could give some of this a try. He could become more interesting. He had to admit, he didn’t have a lot going for him other than his vidya and anime. He could find something else. Become more well-rounded…
He scrolled down to the comments and read.
He didn’t understand most of it. First there was someone saying all of the advice was the usual normie advice. Then a long thread between what Adam assumed to be an incel and someone from “IT”, whatever that was. The user from IT said that they hadn’t known incels who weren’t hateful, condoning rape and other horrible things, existed (hadn’t Adam just found them within five minutes of googling? Psshh..) Then a bunch of the incels said that IT existed to bully and harass incels. Braincels was mentioned (the same sub that commenter had mentioned?) and the braincels’ users defended. It was said they hate women because of their own awful experiences with women.
The IT user asked them to summarize the blackpill philosophy.
[image error]This is an actual post from r/incelswithouthate. I wanted to let the incels speak for themselves now and again throughout the book. A female humanoid organism like myself can only paraphrase so much without losing some of the spirit of the original arguments.
Fuck. If that was the blackpill, then Adam had swallowed it whole. He saw a lot of truth here. Women were always hooking up with criminals and thugs, abusers, drug addicts. If he had muscles, women dropped to their knees.
He’d known this for years. His neighbor’s kid, R.J, in and out of jail. He was a twenty-four-year-old deadbeat who’d been convicted of the second degree murder of his own kid. The details of the day were sketchy. Somehow the kid had been left in the crib while a suspicious fire started. R.J and his girlfriend ran out of the house, leaving the baby to burn to death. There was a nasty rumor that he’d once referred to the event as a “late-stage abortion.”
That sack of shit pulled more pussy than anybody Adam knew. He had prison tats and rock-hard abs. He always had side-chicks for days.
And Adam was nice. And Adam was funny. And Adam would treat a girl right.
But he was a ginger with an ugly face.
Maybe this guy was right.
It was a superficial rat race.
And that race had been rigged against him from the start.
Incel: Chapter 8; Take The Blackpill
He’d never actually posted in Reddit. He’d dropped a comment here and there. He made use of the upvote/downvote system. He’d never written a post. But here it was, three-thirty in the morning and he was still awake, still jittery, still wondering what in the ever-loving-fuck was wrong with him. He was a virgin at twenty-three years old. A fucking pathetic virgin at twenty-three years old. That wasn’t normal. Couldn’t be normal.
Even if he ever managed to get a girl interested, what was she gonna think about him being a virgin? She’d probably think something was wrong with him. She’d probably think he was a total freak. If he did ever get a girlfriend, maybe he should pretend he wasn’t a virgin. Maybe he should act like he had all kinds of experience. Would he even be able to do that though? He knew how sex worked in theory, obviously. Like any other dude with an internet connection, he’d been known to fap to degenerate shit on pornhub. Just because he’d seen other people do it, didn’t mean he’d know exactly how to do it himself when the time came. If the time came. He shoved that thought aside. When. When the time came, he didn’t know if he had the option to fake experience. He might mess up, do something wrong, have to ask the girl for help.
This terrifying thought had kept him up. He’d paced the basement. He’d gone upstairs and cooked up a second helping of hot pockets for the night. He’d downed them with one hand and completed several missions in Red Dead Redemption, and then shoved his greasy plate into a corner by the couch and paced some more. The worry crushed his bones. The sorrow pounded in his torso, tore at his blood, and rattled his brain. He would never be happy. He didn’t know how to be happy. He hated who he was.
He hated who he was.
He wrote a post on Reddit.
He read the responses. Deep into the night and as the morning light hit the dark sheet of sky, he read each and every one of the responses.
r/lonely
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So lonely and so worried something is wrong with me Posted by u/thrwawytehdude
First time posting…been lurking foreva. Basically I need to get this off my chest. Maybe tis is more of a vent but if you got any advice for me lay it on me. I am twenty-three. No girl ever looks at me. Anytime I have a crush on a girl, I try to figure out if she is interested and she never is. They always go with the tall muscle head guys. Like this asshole I work with. His brain is nonexistant. He’s this absolute moron who only talks about protein powder and lifting. He has this weird potbelly too. Dude lifts but still has this fat gut and girls still like him because TALL because BIG ARMS. Well I don’t have any of that. I’m avergae height, below average face, and ginger. I look gross. My job sucks. I’m so socially reatrded I’m basically autistic.
I am a virgin at twenty-three and the only gf I ever had was back in high school. I was sixteen and she was fifteen. Never had any chick notice my existance after her.
What can I do to fix this? If I do ever get a girl who likes me will she be disgusted right away that I’ve never had sex? Is she gonna think something’s wrong with me?
Can I fake it? Can I pretend I know what I’m doing?
How do I stop being such a social recluse loser??!!
Somebody help me please! I hate myself and everything about my life.
* prochoicespagetti 63 points
First off, you have to learn to love yourself. You know what RuPaul says “If you don’t love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else.”
kenya43 14 points
Don’t think that’s how the quote goes
onionshrek 3 points
Most over-rated quote of the century
* panama-anal 54 points
You sound like an upstanding guy. Why are you judging someone just for taking care of themselves? And you don’t seem to have a very respectful view of women. If you did, you’d know that women all have individual preferences. If you don’t have any women who like you, it’s a you problem.
* lamamama 51 points
Found the incel!
thrwawaytehdude score hidden
What is an incel? If it is my problem I want to fix it. Idk how.
* lamamama 55 points
Sure, buddy. You don’t know what an incel is? Nice larp. I look forward to the screenshots posted to braincells.
* throwawayworry 37 points
Have you actually approached any women? You can’t expect women to know you like them if you aren’t talking to them.
fantasticman score hidden
This. Despite what women claim, they want an alpha. You have to walk up to them and claim what you want. Extra points if you act like a dick. They love that.
* princeofpussy 33 points
Listen, dude, you don’t sound like a confident guy. Women aren’t all that complex. Just go talk to them, ask them on dates, that’s about all there is to it. If you’re ugly, go for ugly chicks. And make sure you shower.
gumarka876 72 points
And leave your waifu at home. Can’t have the ladies getting jealous of each other.
*missesme 20 points
I’m getting such neckbeard vibes from this post. It’s probably the fact that women can sense the desperation in you, and if you don’t like women they can sense that too. Focus on yourself. Have good hygeine. Work out. Go out and build a social life. The right woman will walk into your life when you are ready for her.
* uglyloser 19 points
Funny how everybody on this thread is calling OP out, telling him to shower and change his views on women. Try giving real advice! And yes OP women will be turned off if you tell them you are virgin. Keep it secret. If you manage to get a woman naked, maybe you can tell her then. But probably better to not tell her or you could ruin your chances.
* anonymousdweeb 14 points
Well duh women don’t like you, daywalker. Ya got no soul!
* lawler15 10 points
Women don’t care about looks. Men don’t understand that. We care about personality, character, integrity. If you’re a decent guy, you shouldn’t have an issue getting a girlfriend. And NO! No women in the world care if a guy is a virgin.
ihgyskayyyy 2 points
HAHAHHAAAAAA!! Oh man women don’t care about looks? Nice virtue signaling. Good foid. Here’s a cookie.
* lawler15 11 points
Can you all just go your own way already? All you MGTOWs keep brigading this sub and getting your panties in a twist anytime a woman tries to give real advice.
* superiorwino 8 points
23 is really old to have never had sex. If I met a guy who’d never had sex at that age, I would have to stop and wonder if something is wrong with him.
* skippitydooodah 4 points
Bruh, just go find some drunk chick and smash. Once you get your dick wet that first time it ain’t nothing.
cheeseandricesuperstar 3 points
Exactly. Too many dudes making it out to be some big thing. Have sex and then go forth and be regular.
* blackpilledandpudgy -5 points
ǀ Average Height
Cool, then it ain’t over for you. It’s only over for men under 5’8. How tall are you?
thrwawaytehdude score hidden
5’8 actually
* blackpilledandpudgy -3 points
What the fuck are you crying about then? You made the cut. Go slay some pussy.
Adam kept scrolling. He kept reading. A lot of people seemed mad about the way he talked about Josh. They told him he was jealous, that not all fit guys were jerks, that he was projecting, that he was a misogynist, that women could sense this ugly attitude on him.
They told him to be confident. They told him to ask girls out. They suggested places to meet women. They told him to take a shower. They told him to give up anime. It insulted and saddened him that they’d rightfully guessed he liked anime.
And then there were some women encouraging him, telling him they found shy guys cute. Telling him they found gingers cute. That height didn’t matter. That looks didn’t matter. That a man’s job and money didn’t matter.
And at the very bottom of the wall of text, comment after comment built up over the course of the night, the very last comment, having accrued so many downvotes it wasn’t visible and Adam had to click on it to reveal the text and the accomponying irate responses.
* mogspeople -57 points.
Take the blackpill
And that was all it said.
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March 9, 2020
Incel: Chapter Seven; People Like Us
Emily spent the rest of the night making pointed comments about him and Becca.
“She was cute, huh?”
“I guess.”
“Don’t gimme that,” she prodded. “I saw the way you were making eyes at that goth girl. You two would be cute together.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about a girlfriend. When was the last time you had one?”
“I’m gonna start packing up the hot case. It’s slow enough.”
“Adam, I asked you-”
“I better get started. We might actually get out of here at a decent hour.”
“Oh, okay…”
[image error]Photo by Egor Kamelev on Pexels.com
Driving home, Adam fumed over Emily’s interest in the situation. He must have been so obvious, the fact that Emily had said something. Becca must have been totally creeped out by him. And the way Emily couldn’t wait to see him paired up with someone else. She’d probably noticed it the times Adam had crushed on her too! She thought he was hideous and annoying, and she wanted to encourage him to go after someone else. She was basically saying, ‘Please go bother that girl. I sure as hell don’t want you.’ And what girl in her right mind would? Stupid ginger with a shit job and no future in sight. Why the fuck should anyone want him?
He reached over and turned up the volume of the car’s stereo. He nodded his head in time to the beat. The Glorious Sons’ Sawed-Off Shotguns blasted through the still of the night. He put his window down and let the warm night air flow past him.
“They shut the lights off, the took car and, I bought a sawed-off shotgun.”
He sang along and drove through the empty roads of Merrimack, abandoned at this hour. A small New Hampshire town, rarely a car was seen after ten-thirty. A fleeting sense of peace settled over him. He reveled in it. His blood cooled. His muscles relaxed.
“I’d rather be crazy than to take these pills. I’m sick of being okay against my will.”
He was sick of being okay. Faking it every day. Pretending to feel okay. Dragging himself through each day. But in this moment, the night was serene, the air was warm and languid, and he fucking loved this song. Happiness, like a shiver up his back. Happiness, like a spray of froth off the ocean. Refreshing and surprising. And gone. Gone as quickly as ever.
He never could hold it.
It wasn’t his to keep.
[image error]Photo by Renato Mu on Pexels.com
He veered off Route 101, turning down the dark winding road that led to his suburb. No streetlights. Only the glow of his headlights shone through the shadows.
“I don’t know who to trust…Maybe people like us…”
The words of the song hit extra heavy that night. If he wanted to trust and open up to somebody, did he even have a ‘people like us’? Who would relate to a pathetic existence like his? He was a loser. He was a pussy. He was an idiot. Loser. Pussy. Idiot.
Loser.
Working retail.
No education.
Pussy.
Weak-ass pussy.
He thought a lot about how lonely he was, but he hadn’t tried to ask a girl out in ages. What a fucking pussy. What a pathetic sack of shit.
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Chapter Five: Incel; Cyclical Cynicism
He drifted through the next two weeks. Every day was some variation of the same, work and customers and coworkers and then coming home to the dark, lonely basement.
Adam missed having friends. He’d never made any strong connections with coworkers. There was a couple once, a woman who worked in the deli with him and her boyfriend who worked in receiving, they’d invited him over a few times to drink and party. They’d been nice enough, but gave him weird vibes. The woman, Renee, used to chop up pills and snort them, and she always touched all over Adam like she was trying to flirt, even though her boyfriend was right there. Other than them, Adam hadn’t really made any friends at Wal-Mart, even though he’d worked there for years. He missed the group he’d had in high school. Sometimes he felt so distant from everybody else. He didn’t know the last time he’d really felt connected to someone. There probably wasn’t one person out there in the world who thought about him. Maybe people thought of him in passing. That was it.
He didn’t matter to anyone.
He didn’t matter.
He used to matter.
[image error]Photo by Victor on Pexels.com
Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he’d only convinced himself he’d mattered.
Back in high school, he’d had some decent guy friends. Most had been girls. Girls liked to talk to him. They always said he was a sweetheart. Yep. Sweet and sensitive. That was Adam. He hadn’t minded it in high school, especially since Monica had dated him for awhile. He might have been friend-zoned by most girls, but at least one had seen him as a romantic prospect. What had changed since then? Why couldn’t he get a female to give him the time of day?
His thoughts tumbled over themselves, crashing and rolling, colliding and careening. That’s why he didn’t notice that he’d been slicing the Blackforest ham for far too long. He moved his arm back and forth, back and forth. The repetitive movement was soothing, dreamlike. For a long, drawn-out, internal moment, he forgot he was standing on the greasy brick-colored linoleum of the deli, a line of customers on the opposite side of the glass display case, the smell of oil from the fryers. That oil permeated the air. The customers muttered to one another and looked down at their watches. Time, time, everything was time. It moved, it slowed, it stilled. It kept on going, even though Adam never went anywhere, never did anything. He wasn’t progressing. He wasn’t-
“Adam?”
He started, narrowly missing the spinning blade zipping by beneath the blade-guard with the tips of his fingers. Emily stared at him with wide eyes. She nodded in the direction of the waiting customer on the other side of the glass, a balding Indian dude with a pointed nose and oversized glasses.
“I think you have enough there,” Emily suggested with a tight smile. “Zoning out over here?”
Adam turned off the slicer and snatched a deli bag to wrap the meat.
“A little,” he muttered. “Just tired today.”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “You seem sort of out of it. You want to take a break?”
“Nah, I’ll take my fifteen when Rick gets back.”
He gave the sliced ham to the visibly-irritated customer, who stalked off without a word, and then tried to find a way to salvage the extra meat he’d sliced while spacing out. It was about a quarter of a pound. He wrapped it in cellophane and then stuck it to the end of the ham husk, and then wrapped it all up together at the cellophane-wrapping station.
Just another busy Saturday. Another boring, pointless Saturday. Emily and Rick were on shift with him, although Rick would be leaving at seven, as usual. Closing alone with Emily again. He used to like closing with her. He used to like talking to her. Maybe he’d been holding out, thinking something might happen between them. He was always an idiot like that, getting stuck on women who didn’t know he existed. Well…Emily knew he existed, but only because she had to close the deli with him so often. Women only noticed him when they had to.
And he was getting up there in years too. Twenty-three. If he hadn’t gotten a girlfriend yet, not ever a serious adult relationship anyway (did a few weeks back in high school even count?) then maybe he never would. No education. No prospects for a good job. No hope. No future.
No attention from any females ever.
They didn’t see him. He wasn’t worth it.
Oh sure, they could use him for a ride home. They could be friends with him. Like Christina sending him stupid messages on Facebook, complaining to him about her relationship problems. Chicks could cry to him, come to him for some sympathy and attention, but had one ever actually liked him? Even Monica hadn’t seemed super into him. He’d always had the sense that she was dating him because they were both the only singles in their friend group. She’s only kissed him a handful of times. She’d never seemed super into it. He couldn’t even blame her. He had such an ugly fucking face.
He fell back down into the abyss of his thoughts, swirling about like water being sucked down the drain. With the current lull in customers, he took the opportunity to wipe the counters a bit. Not that there was any point. They’d get dirty again, and he’d still need to do the deep clean once the deli closed.
Swirling a wet rag over the shining metal counter, smooth, concentric circles, his thoughts mirrored his physical movements. Ruminations. Cyclical cynicism, round and round until it made him dizzy. He wasn’t tall enough to get women to notice him. Five feet eight inches. That was nothing. His face was ugly. His nose was too bulbous, squished almost flat with nostrils that flared out too wide. His eyes were too far apart. His skin was shit. He didn’t have a chin. He’d cover that mess with a beard if he could, but he couldn’t grow more than a few pube-y looking patches, no matter how long he went without shaving. But the worst curse of all; he was ginger. Most girls didn’t dig ginger dudes. He wasn’t even the carrot-orange kind of ginger that the few chicks with a ginger fetish might go for. He had dark red hair, red with a brownish tint. No Ron Weasley fangirls for him. Just ginger enough to turn off basically all females.
His break couldn’t come fast enough. He tossed the rag back into the bucket and fucked out of there the second Rick was back.
Adam didn’t smoke, but sometimes liked to spend his break in the smoking room. The guys in receiving were always chill to talk to and all of them smoked. In the regular break room, he usually ended up talking to the cashiers. The chicks who worked the front end seemed to be under the impression that he was one of the girls. They liked to rope him into conversations about their boyfriends and which bras fit best. It was fucking embarrassing. ‘Course he was too much of a pussy to actually say anything about it. So, he ended up sitting there like a dip-shit talking about girl stuff. He didn’t know why women didn’t see him as a real man. He was a man. Had a dick and everything. They shuffled him into some kind of ‘gay best friend’ category, even though he wasn’t gay. It fucking sucked and he didn’t have the energy for it today. He’d hang out with the smokers. They were so chill they never even asked him what he was doing in their break-room.
[image error]Photo by Jhefferson Santos on Pexels.com
He wound his way through the store, bobbing between harried mothers with babbling children, old women with Karen hair, and middle-aged men in sweats and ill-fitting Red Sox shirts. The Saturday crowds were out in full swing, but Adam knew the best paths to cut through the store without getting stopped. He cut through grocery, which was the path of least resistance because it was the quickest way to the back aisle of the store, but there were a bunch of people in the dairy section, so of course he got stopped to direct traffic along the way. Beans in aisle fifteen. Condensed milk is over in aisle twelve. The shoe department is over that way, at the back of the store. Tires that way. Yeah, the sale is still happening. Give ‘em the coupon before they ring you up. Otherwise it takes forever to re-ring it. You’re welcome. Of course. You have a good day too. Fuck all of you and learn how to read.
At the back of grocery, he hooked a right and plodded through the back of the shoe department. He made it through those six aisles without incident and finally reached the entrance to receiving. He pushed through the thin, swinging door, breathing a sigh of relief as he left behind the harsh fluorescent lights and customer chatter of the sales floor. He didn’t have the energy to be here today. He didn’t have the energy for anything today. Every action felt so pointless. It was all a long slow drag towards nothing…
“Adam, hang on a sec!”
He paused, mood plummeting ever further. The voice of the HR lady was followed by the patter of her heels over the concrete. He turned around, shoving his hands into the pockets of his black Dickies work pants. He drug the toe of his boot over the scuffed ground.
Cheryl hurried towards him, her brightly-dyed red hair bobbing at her shoulders. Why could women pull off being ginger? They even did it voluntarily. No dude would ever dye his hair red on purpose.
Behind Cheryl, a girl Adam didn’t recognize trailed behind. She had jet black hair and bangs. She had a real cute nerdy girl sort of thing going on. Large plastic glasses covered most of her face. Adam couldn’t see her eyes, because she kept them on the ground. She wore a baggy black hoodie with skeleton ribs on either side of the front zipper. As Cheryl bounded over to Adam with one of her hallmark cheesy fake grins, the new girl shuffled behind, not looking at anyone and tugging at the ends of her sweatshirt sleeves. Adam smiled softly. She was a nervous thing. He felt for her. He could be nervous a lot of the time too. Except she was so pretty. There was never any reason for pretty girls to be nervous.
“Adam, this is Becca,” Cheryl said with a flourish. “She’s a new hire about to start in your department. Can you bring her out to the deli and introduce her to everyone?”
Adam almost said no. He almost said that it was time for his break and he really needed one. Cheryl was such a phony bitch. Always riding him and pushing him around. She knew he was about to start his break. Why the fuck else would he be coming back here? She thought she could walk all over him. People always thought they could do and say whatever to Adam. He was quiet and didn’t make a fuss. If a dude wasn’t being a loud dick-bag half his life, everyone assumed he was a pussy.
Then again, maybe he really was one…
Becca glanced up at him then. Light brown eyes filled with hesitation, trepidation. The corners of her eyes crinkled and she gave a quick smile, before her cheeks flared pink and she was staring down at the ground again. Fuck, she was cute. How did someone that shy even get hired? The deli’s Karen customers were really gonna tear her apart.
Well…he could always stick up for her. He’d help her out. Teach her the ropes.
He smiled and waved, praying his hair didn’t look too nasty from hours spent sweating under a hairnet.
“What’s up, Becca? I’m Adam. I can show where the deli’s at if you wanna come with me.”
She glanced up at him shyly and smiled.
His heart exploded with a tidal wave of emotions.
He actually felt alive again.
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Chapter Six: Incel; Sickening
“The deli’s this way. It’s a cool place to work. Everybody is really chill. You workin’ opening, close, or mid?”
Becca kept her eyes on the ground, shuffling through the store beside him. She’d brought her wrist up to her mouth and had started chewing on the end of her sweatshirt sleeve.
“Dunno,” she squeaked. “I’ll work whatever they tell me.”
Adam rubbed the back of his neck, as they left the shoe department and veered into grocery. He clenched his teeth, heart hammering. He had to make a good impression on this girl. She was pretty, but awkward as hell. Her lack of social skills might give him an actual chance. If he could just get a girl to look twice at him, maybe he’d actually feel like a human. He didn’t feel like anything or anyone most of the time.
“You got open availability, huh?” Adam pressed on. “That’s cool. You in school or anything?”
She shook her head quickly, causing her straight black hair to swish around her face.
“No. I’m not starting college until the winter semester. I have free time until then.”
“Cool, cool,” Adam replied. He darted through a congested gaggle of shopping carts in the center of the dairy aisle. He paused and looked back over his shoulder. Becca tugged at a strand of hair and moved between the shoppers. Every movement was jerky, filled with hesitation.
The corner of Adam’s mouth twitched. She was so cute and shy. All he wanted to do was wrap her up and protect her. He had to get to know her better. He just had to figure out a way to get her out of her shell…
They reached the end of the aisle and Adam pointed through produce to the deli counter.
“That’s our department. Rick and Emily are on shift now. You’ll like ‘em.”
Emily nodded and shoved her hands into her pockets. Adam frowned, looking over her attire and realizing she couldn’t step behind the counter dressed in jeans and a hoodie. Steve, the grocery manager, was making the rounds today and he was such a dickhead for dress code. He remembered the day Emily had come in wearing dark brown pants instead of black pants. He’d sent her home and left Adam to close by himself. That night had sucked. He’d had to argue with Steve to give him clearance to pull Chuck from seafood, so he could get coverage for his lunch break. Not that Adam would have minded skipping his break. It was just that the “can’t go over five hours” policy would have gotten him written up. Steve hadn’t let him pull Chuck until he’d brought that up, snapping, “Steve, if you don’t let me pull somebody for coverage, how am I supposed to keep from going over five hours? I’m the one who is getting written up if I don’t take a break, but you are actually preventing me from taking a break. What do you want me to do here? ‘Cuz when Cheryl pulls me in the office tomorrow, I don’t know what to say except for ‘Steve wouldn’t let me pull coverage.’”
Out of all the power-tripping, ex-jock, peaked in high school, mid-level Wal-Mart managers, Steve was the worst, and he wasn’t gonna let this new girl come behind the counter in skinny jeans and a hoodie.
“Hey, you supposed to work at all tonight?” Adam asked. “You aren’t in dress code.”
Becca shook her head without looking at him.
“No. I’m out in ten minutes. Cheryl just said I should see where the deli is. I still have to do all my training tomorrow.”
“Ah, that’s right,” Adam murmured, leading the way through the tables of fruit over to the deli counter. “They make all you new hires do like fifty hours of shitty videos in the back.”
She nodded, scurrying along a few paces behind him.
“Yeah, you didn’t have to do that?”
“Nah, it was like…I don’t know…probably ten hours worth of videos back when I started. I’ve been here a few years. They added a bunch more training videos about unions and theft. Oh, and that active shooter training. They did make us all do that one when it rolled out. You’re about to see some award-winning acting, get ready.”
She shot him a shy smile. “That bad, huh?”
He hazarded a quick grin. “It’s not great. And they don’t even tell ya anything useful. Someone comes in with a gun, fucking run. Gee, thanks Wal-Mart. None of us retarded wage-slaves would have figured that out for ourselves.”
She barked out a high-pitched laugh. It was short, exploding out of her, before she clapped a hand over her mouth and bent her neck further, hiding her reddening face with her hair.
He smiled softly. He didn’t get why such a pretty girl would be so shy and anxious. She had nothing to be anxious about.
“Come on,” he said. “Let me introduce you to these guys.”
They paused in front of the counter. There were only three customers waiting. Both were standing at the far end of the counter, in front of the prepared hot foods. Rick was waiting on them, cracking corny jokes and laying on all that old man charm as usual. It was incredible that he could get away with that winking, sly shit, without coming across as some kind of dirty old man. If Adam tried to pull any of that, he was pretty sure he’d end up talking to Cheryl, getting lectured on sexual harassment and all that.
Juan had landed himself in hot water with Cheryl just for making a joke. They got so many white trash, nasty looking meth-head women in this store, and they all dressed like they had the looks of a Kardashian. One came in wearing tight-fitting white yoga pants, totally see-through when stretched across her copious fat rolls. Juan had laughed about it in the smoking room, saying, “Bitch, get outta here with all that. Ain’t nobody want to see your labia. Maybe if you lost about a hundred pounds, I’d want to take a look.” And one of the girls from the front end had turned him he. Made her “uncomfortable,” that was how she put it.
Adam drummed his fingertips on the counter and watched as Rick winked at the middle-aged soccer mom and asked her if she and her “sister” wanted anything else.
“Oh, you knock it off!” she howled, giggling as the surly teenager beside her glowered and tapped away at her phone screen.
With a smile, she reached over and took the box of popcorn chicken from his hands, allowing her fingertips to brush over the back of his hands ever so slightly.
Rick’s mouth twitched. “You folks have a real nice day. Come back in and say hello sometime.”
“Oh, I’m sure we’ll be back,” the woman tittered, and off she strolled with a far too pleased-with-herself expression on her aging face.
[image error]Photo by Rene Asmussen on Pexels.com
Rick turned to the next customer, an old white guy with a beer belly jutting out from beneath a stained, ill-fitting, white t-shirt. The old tomcat’s demeanor changed immediately. His smile switched from lecherous to one that was barely friendly.
“What can I do you for, friend?”
And the fat guy rattled off his order, a large one with more calories than any human should be digesting one sitting. If Adam could be thankful for anything, it’s that he wasn’t fat. He might be below average in looks, but at least he wasn’t a fat slob. There might still be some hope for him after all. He wasn’t a buff Adonis-looking guy, but his body wasn’t a disgusting mess either.
His gaze shifted to the shy, pretty girl beside him. She looked around, craning her neck to see from the big vats of fryer oil bubbling away cooking up fried food, to the glass-encased spinning rotisserie chickens, to the long table of slicers, one roast beef, one cheese, and two for all remaining meats.
The plastic door that led into the kitchen swung open and Emily came bustling through, her arms clasped tightly around four honey hams pressed into her torso. She shimmied past Rick and around the wrapping station in front of the fryers. She dumped the hams down on the slicing counter and then glanced up, catching Adam’s eye.
He smiled and gestured to Becca.
“This is our newest coworker. Cheryl asked me to introduce her to you guys.”
Emily smiled warmly and approached the counter.
“Hi, I’m Emily. How’s it going?”
Becca gave a jerky wave. Her head snapped up for barely a second, before she looked back at the ground.
“Hey,” she squeaked. “Becca.”
Emily raised her eyebrows and gave Adam a look.
“Well,” she continued. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m a closer. So is Adam. Rick over there is the shift leader, but he only works mids. There’s no opening or closing shift leader.”
Rick had finished up with his customer and noticed the three of them talking.
Emily smirked and raised her voice as Rick approached.
“That’s why you need to get on closing with us. No boss men hanging out here after six!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rick chuckled, coming to stand beside Emily and placing his elbows atop the glass case. “We all know you and Mr. Goffney here like to raise the roof once the sun goes down. Adam, what kind of trouble y’all get up to in here?”
“Loads of trouble,” Adam joked. “Sometimes we take the slicers apart five minutes to close.”
“That’s a write-up, young man,” Rick chuckled, waving a finger in his direction.
Adam grinned and looked over at Becca. She was smiling and her shoulders had relaxed a bit. Her eyes darted back and forth between Rick, Adam, and Emily.
“Nice to meet you,” Rick said. “What was your name?”
“Becca.”
“Welcome aboard, Becca. When you starting out here with us?”
“I dunno. I have computer training tomorrow.”
“Ah, Cheryl’ll keep you busy with corporate red tape for the next eight years, I’m sure.”
Becca giggled and pushed a strand of hair out her eyes.
[image error]Photo by Elina Krima on Pexels.com
“Okay,” she murmured. “I’m supposed to go clock out now. Thanks for meeting-I mean, it was nice meeting..” Her face reddened, as she tripped over her words.
“It was nice meeting you too,” Adam interjected.
She shot a quick, grateful smile.
“You want me to walk you back to the break-room?”
She shook her head. “No, I remember where it is.”
He rubbed the back of his neck and shifted from one foot to the other.
“Great, well, have a good night…”
She gave an awkward, jerky nod of her head and then twisted away.
Emily smirked and called out after her. “See you around, Becca!”
Becca waved over her shoulder, then jammed her hands into her pockets and scurried off.
Adam watched her retreat back through grocery, slipping around the displays of bananas, kiwis, and peaches. Her hunched shoulders and dark hair disappeared down the dairy aisle.
“She’s a nervous little stray cat, isn’t she?” Emily laughed.
Adam nodded. “She might have trouble with the customers.”
“We can put her on prep if she works open or mid,” Rick suggested. “But she’ll come out of her shell if she works here long enough. Remember what you were like when you first started?”
Rick fixed him with a knowing look.
Adam chuckled. “I know. I was a shy dude back then.”
“Eh, you’re still kind of shy,” Emily teased.
Shaking his head, Adam replied, “No, you didn’t know me when I first started. I used to panic when talking to the customers. I used to go to Rick for help with everything.”
Rick waved a hand absently. “You were fine. You opened up and started to talking to other people after…oh, I don’t know…about a year of working here?”
Adam laughed. “Shut up, old man. It wasn’t that long.”
“It was awhile.”
“Excuse me.”
Adam started at the sound of a sharp, female voice behind him. He twisted to his left to see a stout woman with a baby on her hip looking back at him with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. He fought back a flash of irritation. She was acting like she’d been standing waiting for ages, but he knew that couldn’t be the case. Rick and Emily were facing in her direction and would have said something. She must have just marched up, but because he was smiling and chatting she had to get all pissy. It was like customers hated being reminded that employees were actual human beings who might stop to have a conversation from time to time…
“Where do you keep the pool chemicals?”
Adam pointed towards the front end.
“If you go down that way, past all the cash registers, it’s aisle thirty-four, about halfway down-”
The woman heaved a great sigh and tapped her foot. Her heel clacked against the linoleum.
He turned back in her direction to see a look of great irritation marking her plump features.
“Can you show me?” she snapped. “I don’t have all day to run around this store.”
“Sure,” Adam intoned with forced politeness. “Come with me.”
He turned away from the deli, not before catching Emily’s eye roll and look of commiseration. They’d probably drag this lady when Adam got back to the deli. Emily hated rude customers just as much as he did. She was always going on about how people lost basic human decency when they entered a store.
He walked the shopper through the store and over to aisle thirty-four. Of course, once they reached the aisle, that wasn’t the end of it. Then she wanted him to walk him over to the bay of pool chemicals and help her find the specific item she needed. Ten minutes and a ridiculous number of inane questions later and Adam was finally heading back to the deli. Just in time too. It was about time for Rick to clock out.
As he crossed in front of the main entrance, his eyes widened and a strange warbling feeling filled his chest. Becca was leaving. She walked right past him, without even noticing him. Why would she notice him? What about him was worth noticing? She giggled, her eyes alight, and walking beside her: Josh. The six-foot-three jacked asshole from produce. Such a massive cocksucker. He was always picking on Chuck and messing with him. He was mean as hell, but girls liked him because tall. He was self-absorbed and probably sat around sniffing his own farts for fun, but chicks threw themselves at him because muscles.
Becca smiled and looked up at him. He was going on about how much he could dead-lift and she was eating it up.
She looked him square in the eyes. She put her hand on his arm.
Sickening. Even the girls who acted so innocent and sweet, could be so fucking sickening.
[image error]Photo by Jhefferson Santos on Pexels.com
Incel: Chapter 4; On a Commodore 64
Another day. Another like the last thousand or so that came before it. He was falling into a funk again, one of those dark clouds that came down and swallowed him every once in awhile. They hadn’t started until after high school. Back then, he’d had a lot of friends. He still did, he guessed. He hung out with a lot of people from work, and sometimes his friends from high school would come back into town. Most of them had gone to college. That could be the reason for this latest funk. A lot of them had just graduated in May. His best friends from high school, Christine and Dan, were off traveling Europe together post-graduation.
Everybody was moving to the next act of their lives, and he was still a loser working at Wal-Mart. That wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Sometimes he thought about going to school. There were a lot of Voc programs at the community college down the road. He liked cooking. He’d once thought of going for culinary arts. It wasn’t like he super minded the food industry. He’d gotten some experience in the Wal-Mart deli. He knew about safe food practices, and prep, and how to work in an efficient way so that he wasn’t stuck closing until midnight. If he buckled down and did the two-year program, then he could transfer those skills to something that actually mattered. He could be a chef in a real restaurant. He’d make more money. He wouldn’t have to live at home. He wouldn’t be seen as some kind of Momma’s boy loser, living at home, aimless, a man-child. He knew what people thought about him. It hurt.
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It’s not like he hadn’t tried to figure it out. He was still trying to figure it out. Maybe he would sign up for the culinary program at NCC eventually. It was the smartest move on his part. What else was he gonna do? Slice meat and mop the deli floor into his thirties? Nah, the time to get started was now, while he wasn’t too far behind everybody else.
But when he thought about going back to school, his stomach convulsed. He felt weak and dizzy. He didn’t want to sit in a classroom again. He knew he needed some kind of an education. High school had really been a nightmare though. He’d had a good group of friends. He’d always been the quiet, sort of funny guy. He’d had the one relationship with Monica. He hadn’t been cool, but also hadn’t been a total loser. His problem hadn’t been the kids. It was the teachers, and the books, and the tests.
Adam had never been great at school. Sitting in a desk, staring at a chalkboard had bored him stiff since first grade. Even if he wanted to pay attention, it was like he couldn’t. His brain wouldn’t stay on track. He always felt like as soon as he understood whatever in the fuck the teacher was talking about, they were on to something else. He’d barely figure it out, and then the struggle to comprehend started over. And that was if he figured it out at all. Lots of times he didn’t, and his test scores showed it. Sometimes he gave up and stopped torturing himself trying to get it. He accepted that he was going to fail the test and stared off into space. He thought about mangas, and video games, so that he wouldn’t have to think about what a moron he was. He was the only one who couldn’t keep up. Math was the only subject he was decent in. The rest of the day was a jumble of confusion.
English class was the worst. So many rules. So much stuff he didn’t get, symbolism, motifs, themes; what? Stories were just stories to him. Fun to read, especially when you could relate to a character and root for them. All of the other stuff, it was like trying to run Windows 10 on a Commadore 64. English class was software not compatible with his brain’s operating system.
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Teachers never liked him. A few even called him out in class for daydreaming. Getting extra help didn’t do anything to help his idiot brain. The end of high school had been a relief. He’d always thought he’d go back to school, eventually. Chuck was about to start his first semester at NCC. Mom had gotten on Adam’s case to join his younger brother. “Get your act together. It’s like you got no start button!” He’d do it. He would do it. In his own time. School sucked and he didn’t want to go back to feeling like a moron all the time. It was stressful. It made him feel like crap.
These moods of his came and went. He’d been on this cycle of feeling semi-okay for a few months and then falling into a funk for the past five years. It started slow, feeling a little down, a little low energy. He’d just sort of have this general ‘what’s the point of functioning’ sort of feeling. Everything he did, he had to talk himself into. Going to work. Showering. Even waking up. It was all a chore with no reward, another step in the slog of a life he didn’t want and felt like he hadn’t chosen. His life had happened to him. He was here, but he hadn’t picked this path.
Numbness would creep in, until he started to feel like he was almost detaching from himself. Everything he did felt distant, almost like an out-of-body experience. And that made it all a little easier, a little less exhausting. He grew more and more tired physically, but that distant, not-really-him, feeling kept him from feeling too….how could he describe it?…emotionally exhausted.
The cloud lifted and the phased passed eventually. It always did. And the cycle had repeated itself so many times now, that he could recognize the transition from apathy to depression. He wasn’t exactly sure if that’s what it was, and he knew if he said anything about it to his mom she’d tell him he was being dramatic. Probably use it as an excuse to get on his case more. Blame him for feeling that way. He could hear her now: “You’re depressed because you have no goals! Get a goal. You’re a grown man!”
Better to keep it to himself. He tried not to think about anything, while he showered and readied himself for another pointless day at the Wal-Mart deli. Better to keep everything to himself.
Life was a series of scenes to drag himself through.
Get up, go to work, get disrespected by bitchy customers, come home, watch anime, sleep.
Get up, go to work, get disrespected by bitchy customers and asshole bosses, scroll reddit, sleep.
Get up, go to work, try to flirt with co-workers and fail, remember what an ugly ginger loser he was, eat frozen food, sleep.
Get up, go to work, get shit on by management for clocking out three minutes late, try to explain that he was with a customer and if he tried to walk away he’d still be getting shit on, get ignored and talked over, drive home fuming, sleep.
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Day off. Don’t bother getting up.
Sleep.
Sleep.
All day, just sleep.
The cloud was on him, but every day he left the house, he did a nice job of keeping it all to himself.
Incel: Chapter Three; Rekt
He didn’t get home until one in the morning. He usually got home at eleven-thirty. He didn’t know why he let people walk all over him. He should have told her to find her own way home. He’d done all that driving for nothing. It wasn’t like he and Emily had made some great new connection. They probably never would.
Adam parked under the blue tent next to the house that served as his car-park and then trudged up the brick walkway to the door. He wasn’t surprised to see the glow of the flickering light in the front window. His dad was up late watching TV again. He’d been on a weird schedule ever since losing his job four months back.
“Hey, Dad,” he muttered, closing the front door behind him.
His dad looked over the back of the couch, peering into the dark entryway to wave at Adam.
“How was work?”
“Same as ever.”
And with that, he hustled into the kitchen to make his dinner. He’d never had a lot in common with his dad. Their conversations were usually on the shorter side. His dad was one of those guys who told jokes that weren’t funny, but then got mad if people didn’t laugh. He was the type of guy who’d answer, “I didn’t find the bag of hundreds,” with a shit-eating smile, each and every time a cashier asked him if he found everything alright. His dad was okay, just generally speaking, not his kind of person. He never had been, even when Adam was a kid. Not that he liked his mom any better. He’d always felt like an intruder in his own family. Chuck was the only one he had any sort of connection with, and that was flimsy at best.
Plate of hot pockets and frozen french fries nuked by the microwave in hand, and Adam was heading down to his basement bedroom. Being the oldest had its perks. He had his own space, completely separate from the rest of the family. Before moving down here, he’d had a small bedroom upstairs, and Chuck and their youngest brother, Chris, had shared a larger bedroom next door. Those two had fought all the time and woken him up in the middle of the morning when he was still sleeping. And Chris with his trumpet. Kid had insisted on joining his high school marching band. He was about to start his Senior year and he’d been practicing on that cursed instrument all summer. Adam had spent the last two years wanting to throw the stupid thing out the window. Of all the hobbies in the world, why pick trumpet-playing? Adam had always had more in common with Chuck, even if they weren’t super best buds. Chuck was a WOW and just general MMO kind of guy. That was a hobby Adam could get on-board with. Compared his two older brothers, Chris was such a normie.
Adam descended the stairs, coming into the finished basement area that now served as his bedroom. A couch and the family’s old television set served as the living room. Beyond that, there was an alcove with a fireplace, a rocking chair. A half-wall partition to the right of the fireplace separated the portion of the space that was Adam’s bedroom. There were three other rooms in the basement, but those were the unfinished portions, where they kept the washer and dryer and stacked the cases of water from CostCo.
Adam’s mom had been the one to insist on getting the basement finished. She’d had this idea to rent out the basement space. Adam didn’t know what had ever come of that. It was like they’d both stopped talking about it one day. Although, the family was still in debt from the basement remodel. Adam knew that. Because it was one of the first things Mom had brought up the day after Dad lost his job.
Setting his plate down on the end of the desk, Adam fired up the computer, an old Mac from 2012, and plunked down in the stained rolling chair with a sigh. He’d really thrown his night off driving Emily home. He was too nice sometimes. Always giving in and doing favors for other people when he didn’t really want to. Emily probably knew he liked her. That was why she’d asked. She hadn’t even offered to pay for gas. Women always felt like they were entitled to everything.
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He spent the next ten minutes scrolling through his reddit feed and munching from his plate of soggy fries and hot pockets. He should start eating better. His acne was flaring up again, and it wasn’t doing him any favors. Maybe he wouldn’t ask out Emily. He wanted to ask out somebody though. It was a desire that came and went, but lately that desire had been getting stronger and stronger. Maybe it was because he was turning twenty-three in a week and it was suddenly dawning on him that time might be running out on him. He hadn’t had a girlfriend since high school. His job sucked. He didn’t know where he was going or what he was doing. More than anything, he was lonely, and nobody would want him with zits shining on his face.
He read a few stories of entitled karens. He popped over to r/nostalgia and laughed a few old video game memes he’d forgotten. He jumped onto his favorite reddit knockoff ‘saidit.’ He’d never liked Voat. That place could be a little like the wild west. He watched a few funny ‘rekt feminists’ videos and then decided to turn it in for the night.
He changed into his boxers and clean t-shirt, shut off the lights, and then set his laptop at the end of the bed. He could never just fall asleep. He always propped his laptop up on a pillow by his feet and put an anime on, usually one he’d seen a thousand times before. He decided on My Bride is a Mermaid. He lay his head on his pillow and shut his eyes. He drifted off, listening to the voices of the characters he knew so well.
Above his head, he heard the steps of his father padding from the couch to the bathroom. Poor old dude didn’t know what to do with himself now that he didn’t have a job. Adam could relate, even if the two of them would never talk about it. He did have a job, but he hated it, and he didn’t know what else to do with himself. His life kept moving, time kept surging forward, and he didn’t know how to lift his feet and keep up.
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To be continued…
