I Almost Became an Nigcel Because I Couldn't Get a Girlfriend
It’s ok to be a sucker for love, it’s not ok to be a monster.
When I started this newsletter, I hoped to use my past experiences of failed relationships and poor decisions as a filter to discuss important issues—things like music, politics, consent, rape culture, entitlement, and whatever else came to mind. I was hoping to do it in a way that would encourage men to assess how many of us view and engage with women, and maybe do some personal reflection while they were at it. I’m not sure how effective I have been in these ambitions, but in the time writing these essays, I have learned a lot about myself. That’s the beautiful thing about writing. You start off trying to say something, and to have words with weight, you need something to pull from. Some people draw from their lived experience, others from their imagination.
I have always found inspiration from the chaos my mind creates while trying to navigate the world. Each post is my small attempt to make sense of the questions, concerns, fears, anxieties, and triumphant moments that take place in everyday life. I try to use that and then filter it through things that I care about and topics that bring me joy. Sometimes in reading my work, it can be hard to find the joy, but that’s because I truly believe you must sometimes navigate through pain first to see the rainbow.
It’s in that journey of literary exploration that I have discovered a familiar stranger, myself. Writing and reflecting have allowed me to see myself in ways I didn’t know were possible, like the time in my life when I was dangerously close to being everything I fight against. And like most of my stories, it begins very simply with a girl.
The Girl:
Three women defined my adolescent and young adult years. There was my first ever girlfriend, Jeana, my long-term but never revealed crush on my next-door neighbor, Desire, and my junior high and high school crush, Samantha Mendez. Samantha was a short Puerto Rican girl who lived on the edge of East New York. Our relationship started contentious because, as a 12-year-old with an unreliable relationship to deodorant and self-esteem issues, I was committed to making fun of her and her friends for their obsession with boy bands. I did this while secretly loving all of the same bands, but being too afraid to admit it because people might call me gay.
By the end of eighth grade, I realized that it didn’t matter what I did; people would make fun of me regardless, so if I was going to be bullied, I might as well get bullied for things I enjoyed. No longer shackled by the opinion of others, I started discussing my love of Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, O-Town, and 98 Degrees. Sam took a liking to this, and before you knew it, we were friends. Initially, I wasn’t interested in her romantically. I was just happy to have a friend of the opposite sex who liked me for me, not because I got high scores in our Global Studies class. However, the more I got to know her, the more my feelings started to evolve.
In hindsight, I think it's pretty easy to see what drew me to her. She was a bubble of energy with a wicked sense of humor, elite skills in the art of petty, and an ear for music that went far beyond bubblegum pop. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was in “love” with her. Like most of the women I fell for back then, I fantasized about what our relationship could be before I ever considered telling her how I felt.
A relationship between me and Sam made so much sense when I fantasized about it; I never considered that she wouldn’t feel the same way. But she didn’t. While she also felt like we had a lot of chemistry and she cared for me, her feelings were platonic.
I was crushed by her rejection, but had just finished re-watching the early 2000s classic, “10 Things I Hate About You.” Instead of accepting reality, I decided to use friendship as a Trojan horse and trick her into falling in love with me. That plan also failed miserably. That second rejection hurt more than the first, and I think I spiraled a bit. As an insecure teenage boy with low self-esteem, I spent a lot of time living inside my head. Reality sucked. I was poor, depressed, and lonely. After spending the earlier part of my life in a home where physical and verbal abuse from my stepmother was the norm, my dad finally clocked into his parenting duties and moved us out. Unfortunately for him, that meant breaking up with said stepmother. A woman he loved so intensely, I suspect he held some resentment towards me for being forced to part ways with her. But enough context, let's get back to the story.
I was dealing with the fallout from that traumatic experience in my formative years, and while I didn’t know it then, it colored my relationship with women in ways that I’m still unpacking today.
The Breakup:
After the plan to trick Sam into falling in love with me crashed and burned, we continued our friendship. As a result, she did what most attractive and single people do: date. I couldn’t handle this level of open disrespect and immediately began to lash out. I would purposely start arguments to upset her, flirt with her enemies to make her jealous, and threaten her boyfriends. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, she refused to love me! I didn’t know how to deal with that level of consistent rejection.
I was doing everything in my power to show her that I was the one, and she just wasn’t interested. I would leave school every day with a pang in my chest while fighting the urge to cry. I felt small, unimportant, and hollow; it was a set of feelings I was very familiar with, because that’s how my Stepmother used to make me feel.
When I realized that Samantha’s treatment made me feel the same way my stepmother did, I started to resent her (Sam). I didn’t know what to do with this newfound rage, so I went to my usual outlet, music. With the help of Limewire and an ungodly amount of Blank CDs, I started crafting playlists full of angry songs to help me cope with the pain. Eminem, Papa Roach, Eamon, and Limp Bizkit were the only things I would listen to, and their lyrics were raw, angry, and very, very violent. Sam noticed the shift in my behavior and, with the help of our guidance counselor, organized an intervention, an act that may have changed my entire life.
The Mixtape:
I don’t remember how the actual “intervention went, but I do remember Sam expressing to me how much she loved me and how worried she was. She told me that I was becoming increasingly angry in ways that didn’t just scare her but others as well. Thankfully, I was smart enough to listen. I was 16 years old, sitting in a small conference room with my guidance counselor, a handful of friends, and the girl I tricked myself into thinking I was in love with. Something had to change, so I did.
The lesson:
“According to Beyonce’s internet, an Incel is a member of an online subculture who defines themselves as unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one. They’re often characterized by resentment, misogyny, misanthropy, self-pity and self-loathing, racism, a sense of entitlement to sex, and the endorsement of violence against sexually active people.” I was becoming that, but the Black version. A Nigcel.
Here’s another fun fact about Nig/incels, “At least six mass murders, resulting in a total of 44 deaths, have been committed since 2014 by men who have either self-identified as incels or who had mentioned incel-related names and writings in their private writings or Internet postings.” Why is this relevant? Well, I grew up in the late 90s and early 2000s, and had limited access to the internet. If I had discovered an online space like this before Sam’s intervention, I absolutely would have identified with the people in this subculture. As shameful as it is to admit, I was headed down a path that was full of hate for women, myself, and the world.
And sure, not everyone in the Incel community is trying to murder women, but I would bet all of the money in my wallet that they are more susceptible to violence towards women and folks in the LGBT+ community. And sure, I had some particular issues at home that impacted my mental health. But my idealization, and then subsequent resentment of women, is not abnormal for young boys, or even grown men. It is the norm. It’s a terrifying reality that we (men) have a responsibility to face head-on and do the work necessary to protect women, save little boys all over the world, and finally save ourselves. It’s ok to be a sucker for love; it’s not ok to be a monster.
Thanks for sharing your story. I’ve been listening intently to the discourse surrounding men. I have a number of observations and a few questions came back to kind as I read your post. First is where does this sense of entitlement to sex come from? Yes young teenage boys are waking up and want sex. It seems to me though that previous generations saw it as their mission to persuade females to have sex with them. That was the game. I’m wondering when did interest in the game turn into entitlement. How does a whole generation of young men become known as incels? BTW, it seems that most forms of hatred stem from a sense of entitlement.
My next question is what about the middle & high school stage has such a grip on men? For a long time, I’ve wondered this. Over the years I’ve heard several men (grown, grown men in their 40s & 50s) speak to heartbreak as a teenager and how it cemented their views on women and commitment. I also hear guys who have gone on to greater accomplishments still revel about high school. Women seem to revel in their college days. It seems like the developmental milestones are different and the high school stage is more impactful for boys.
dawggggg! you write so beautifully honest. Sometimes i hate how honest it reads. I’m like damn! did he really just write that?!!
but i felt every emotion of your pen. Felt like something you always wanted to get out.
curious, how did it feel after writing this?