Inside Incel

Last week's quasi-terrorist attack in Toronto struck a nerve in an unexpected way. In a world where these types of attacks are becoming all too frequent, I felt something oddly personal about Alek Minassian. He was a lone wolf and an angry, misguided soul. Alek was also part of an internet subculture that spoke to his frustrations with women, but in a way that was anti-social at best and morally heinous at worst. It led to a moment of self-evaluation.

Am I an incel?

Dating has not come easy for me. Social awkwardness has always put me behind an 8-ball. I can count the number of girls I asked out in high school on one hand. My first kiss was a serendipitous move by a friend during the homecoming dance my senior year. I don't think I realized until after I graduated high school how little I socialized with my peers, which likely explains the lack of strong relationships that came from that period of my life. I was semi-aware that I was being excluded, but the advent of social media pushed my FOMO out of the subconscious.

I don't do online dating much, except out of boredom. Whether it was the old Yahoo Personals, POF, or OkCupid I often struck out; private messages and "flirts" would go unanswered 95% of the time. My DMs are veer into the generic, and its not something I've put much investment in. As for face to face interaction, it took me a long time to shake off the false notion of being out of anyone's "league." On many occasions I've convinced myself out of asking out a woman because there was nothing to indicate she was interested.

I go through long dry spells. My first real relationship was in college, and I don't think there's anything to say there that hasn't already been said. After that, the next five years were a smattering of first dates and coffee meetups. Then I finally made it to a second date with an older woman, but I was driven away by her neediness; she wanted marriage and children when I simply wasn't ready. We've stayed friends, but we keep each other at arm's length.

After that experience, I went through another five-year dry spell. The Chicago improv community offered the healthy social life that I'd been seeking for years, and I felt compelled to ask out other performers. It was a double-edged sword, though; the possibility of getting rejected also meant alienating another performer and being denied opportunities. I was cautious, asking out maybe 10 improvisers over the span of 2 1/2 years, but nothing came of it. One said yes to doing dinner; it ended somewhat abruptly because whether or not it was a date was not clearly defined. That was my fault. After that, my adolescent self-consciousness reared its ugly head again.

In 2016, to my delight and surprise I found myself in not one but two relationships. I met the first women via OkCupid; we went out for four months before schedule conflicts rose and we grew bored with each other. I met the second woman at a friend's party; it was an open relationship, and in spite of my spotty history I was okay with that. We went out for 14 months, until she realized I reminded her too much of her ex-husband. We've stayed friends, though I've been giving her space of late. I've been single now for almost six months.

What does that have to do with being an incel? I have never felt a notion of being violent toward anyone that rejected me, or treated sex like a god-given right. On a couple of occasions, I will attest that I have sent tersely worded messages if someone stood me up on a date, or backed out without telling me. The messages were not threatening, but I articulated how annoyed I was. These instances, four or five in total, occurred during those aforementioned dry spells. I was last stood up on a date back in February.

I don't condone what Alek did. His actions were beyond misguided and shortsighted, an instance of misguided anger gone dangerously haywire. His inability to take a step back and self-evaluate was one thing, but to lash out at a group of unsuspecting strangers is reprehensible. It also opened a dialogue into the incel culture and how the mistreatment of women still permeates our culture. For everyone else, think about the mistakes you've made (or could make) before you act.

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That Wonderful Year in Music... 2004

For this month's musical tribute I chose 2004, a year that featured a number of albums that were greater than the sum of its parts. Don't get me wrong, some amazing music came out five years ago, but many discs were stronger artistic statements than the individual songs. If there was a theme to '04, it was the year of the comeback; Green Day, Mission of Burma, David "Fathead" Newman, and even Loretta Lynn resurfaced from long absences to release critically-acclaimed albums. (R.E.M., not so much.)

Where was I in 2004? Well, it was my first full year at WDCB-FM in Chicago (my very first paying job), where I was given the Sisyphus-like task of writing playlists for a Sunday morning new age music show. I edited five shows and ten people at the old TV Tome (but not SNL or Letterman, believe it or not) while taking classes at the College of DuPage, where I was earning my associates in arts. 2004 was also the year I made my first (and so far only) trip to Canada, specifically Toronto, where I caught a Blue Jays-Red Sox game and visited the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Here's my favorite albums from 2004:

1. American Idiot, Green Day. At this point in time GD was AWOL after a string of hits in the mid-to-late '90s; two members of the band were raising young families while frontman Billie Joe Armstrong battled a personal demon or two. That made their return to form all the more shocking; most of these tracks trump anything they'd recorded since Dookie.
2. The Gray Album, Danger Mouse. This copyright-baiting fusion of Jay-Z and The Beatles is a marvel. DM's take on "Encore" not only puts a unique wrinkle on the Fab Four's "Glass Onion" and "Savoy Truffle" but puts Kanye West's original mix to shame.
3. Louden Up Now, !!! Catchy, fun dance-punk. "When The Going Gets Tough" and "S*** Scheisse Merde" are the stand-out tracks.
4. Good News for People Who Love Bad News, Modest Mouse
5. The College Dropout, Kanye West

6. Funeral, Arcade Fire
7. Bows and Arrows, The Walkmen
8. Get Away from Me, Nellie McKay
9. Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand
10. ONoffON, Mission of Burma. One of the more intriguing comeback albums of recent memory, courtesy of a once short-lived Boston post-punk outfit.


Honorable Mentions: Talkie Walkie, Air; Our Shadows Will Remain, Joseph Arthur; How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2.

Best Album of 2004 That I Incorrectly Credited on a Previous List as a 2005 Release: see #6

Best Jazz Album: Song for the New Man, David "Fathead" Newman. Earlier this year we lost one of the all-time great jazz saxophonists in Fathead, and this late-period outing with Curtis Fuller and John Hicks was probably one of the strongest efforts as a headliner. One of the better straight-ahead jazz discs of the past decade.

These are my ten favorite songs, not including tracks from the aforementioned discs:

"Somebody Told Me," The Killers
"Walk Idiot Walk," The Hives
"Take Your Mama," Scissor Sisters
"Now Here is Nowhere," The Secret Machines
"Maps," The Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"She Wants to Move," N.E.R.D.
"Over and Over," Nelly feat. Tim McGraw
"C'mon C'mon," The Von Bondies (if you watch the MLB Network, you probably hear this song about every five minutes)
"Banquet," Bloc Party
"Portions for Foxes," Rilo Kiley

My five favorite music videos from 2004:

1. "Walkie Talkie Man," Steriogram. You'll never look at yarn or clay the same way again.
2. "99 Problems," Jay-Z. The last single from what was supposed to be Hova's farewell album is a doozy. One "final" jab at urban race relations, complete with a shocking, violent ending.
3. "Pony Ride," Bumblebeez 81. An instance where the video makes the song... because the song makes absolutely no sense.
4. "Mr. Brightside," The Killers. Arguably the best performance of Eric Roberts' career.
5. "Ocean Breathes Salty," Modest Mouse. You were probably expecting to see an individual mention of "Float On," a magnificent song in spite of getting way too much radio play. In the video category, however "Float On" is no match for "Salty," a charming little clip about a little boy and a wounded bird.

Next Week: My 2009 baseball preview.