🧴 Inflated Incel Ego

A few pre-pandemic years ago, I was mentoring a hackathon workshop, and one of the attendees suddenly asked me for my number in front of everyone. I didn’t know how to turn him down in the spur of the moment, so we ended up exchanging numbers. I was clinging onto every ounce of chill in me to play it cool inside.

The same-day confession that ensued over text ended in a quick rejection. Fast forward two years later, where I’m sitting in a campus building finishing up some work while waiting for my professor to come swipe me into our meeting room. The same guy walks up to me, and before he even begins talking, I immediately recognize his face. Oh, fuck no, I think to myself.

“Hey, what are you working on?”

“Um, nothing much. Just some grading.”

“What are you doing next week?”

“Not sure yet. I’m pretty busy.”

“With what?”

“You know, I think we’ve met before.”

“Oh really? I don’t remember.”

What the fucking shit you’re literally the one who asked me for my number two years ago how is it that I remember and YOU don’t?!?!!

“Anyway, I think you’re pretty cute. Wanna exchange numbers?”

“I think I already have your number. I’m kind of busy right now, so I’d appreciate it if you could leave me alone.”

                                                                                                            . . .

Let’s get this straight—there’s two things going on here. The first point I wanna address is this:

I had a conversation with my cousin about how men—especially those in the finance industry approaching their middle ages in China—are so desperate to find someone that they’ll propose to a woman two weeks into meeting them. Their dialogue is usually something along these lines:

嫁给我吧！我来工作赚钱，你在家里养孩子。
(Translation: “Marry me! I’ll make money and work while you take care of the kids at home.")

Sounds like an easy way out of the typical struggles of life, doesn’t it? You have someone who’s financially stable and can hold up the household fort while you get to take Instagram pictures of all the yummy Michelin star food you’re eating. Some people take pride in their dependency on their partner. It’s your life. I respect whatever decision you make as long as you’re happy with it. But I’m not gonna be one of those people.

Here’s the underlying issue I take with this kind of dialogue: It perpetuates the backwards-looking notion of women as subordinates who should depend on men for a living because they’re destined to be housewives for life. To be fair, this situation is perhaps less commonly seen in New York, and more so in China based on my cousin’s experiences. Anyhow, if you’re one of these people who thinks this way, I don’t know what century you’re living in. Women have had the capacity to be financially independent from men for decades, and sometimes, they make even more than you.

What I’m trying to say is that in echoing this sort of dialogue, you’re not making a convincing case for why she should spend the rest of her life with you. It just creeps her out. You don’t even know her. You just want a woman to assert control over, bow down on command, and satisfy you in bed. All out of your selfish ego to fulfill your own desires. You’re not even aware of how see-through your words are, because you’re so blinded by your old-fashioned mentality that you’re drowning in the waves of desperation you created yourself. It’s like when people scream for help in the pool water when their feet are literally on the floor. That’s how pathetic you look.

Say you move forward with this mindset and she concedes. What next? When she expresses any movement towards an independent lifestyle, you’ll use money to manipulate her. When she shows any interest in having agency, you’ll hurl threats against her. Because you’re so fixated on the falsehood of her being indebted to you, everything she does has to be catered towards you, you, you.

The future of the household is in your hands. At least, that’s what she wants you to think—until she leaves. Before you know it, you’ll do the same thing to someone else.

The second point I wanted to bring up is how some people really think they are on the same plane as you when they’re living in a totally different coordinate system. And they don’t know how to convert between coordinates, so they think they’re speaking the same language as you. It’s like submitting an entire Python assignment in C# hoping you’ll get a 100.

Looks, clothes, appearances… they’re not enough. In the end, these are just superficial qualities that anyone could learn to develop if you gave them the time, money, and resources to work on these things. I don’t need to recreate that scene where Elsa tells Anna that you can’t get married to someone you’ve just met. Some of y’all haven’t watched Frozen and it shows.

After all this criticism, you might be wondering, what’s her overarching point? I’ll tell you what my point is. I think people should start learning how to be comfortable with themselves rather than shooting a hundred darts that they think will land bulls eye when instead, they all fly off the mat. If you change your mentality of marriage as the end goal, identify the parts of yourself that you want to work on, and develop a greater sense of self-awareness… maybe women will start coming to you rather than you throwing yourselves at them. Just sayin'. ¯\(ツ)/¯