The idea that men should face constant rejection with aplomb and a winning spirit goes hand and hand with the idea that men should also face violence and experience violence with calm, readiness, and acceptance. This is believed by both the left and the right, and by nearly all women and most men.

Personally, I’d rather be punched than romantically rejected. I’ve been punched a whole lot and rejected a lot, too. I know which feels worse.

Just as men don’t realize how often women get harassed, I don’t think many women know just how frequently and sometimes how brutally men get rejected by women. Nearly every man alive has been rejected and then shunned by women they weren’t even in any way flirting with, nor approaching, sometimes just as a demonstration of a woman’s sexual power (usually to impress her friends or to make a point). Just like violence being far more common for men than women, experiencing a lot of violence and a whole lot of rejection and shunning is what men’s lives are. I’d bet that men experience at least a hundred times as much rejection as women. Perhaps a lot more than that.

I just don’t have the energy nor the inclination to be an incel (and anyway, I have sex so I by definition could not be one) and am not angry about any of it, but it is the way things are in the world. Denying it does not help.