#systemic rejection

[former-incel]

How to treat disabled people regarding prom dates:

If a disabled person asks you to go to prom with them, you're allowed to reject them. You don't need a reason to reject them. And they must honor your rejection.

You're not allowed to go out of your way to say that you wouldn't go to prom with a disabled person who never asked you.

You're not allowed to discourage someone else from going to prom with a disabled person.

You're not allowed to tell a disabled person who asks you to prom that no one would ever want to go with them as opposed to just you don't want to.

If you ask a disabled person to go to prom with you, they're allowed to say no. They're allowed to have standards of attractiveness just like anyone else. They're not required to be grateful that someone is showing interest in them.

If you go to prom with a disabled person, you're not doing something nice. You and the disabled person are just two people going to prom together.

If you don't want to go to prom with a disabled person who asks you, don't. Don't go with them because you feel bad for them. If you do, you'd be showing them that no one could ever genuinely want to be with them and that anyone who chooses to be with them is doing it only because they feel bad for them.

[former-incel]

This is systemic rejection.

It is true that people shouldn't settle for someone they're not attracted to. And it is true that many women currently are settling and deserve to be reassured that they don't have to settle.

But you can't assume that someone is settling just because you don't find their partner attractive. You're not in the relationship. Your standards of attractiveness mean jack shit, even if your standards are considered "normal".

If you don't find someone attractive, you can choose not to date them. But you don't get to make that choice for someone else.

[former-incel]

Someone does something that requires you to like them. You stop them because you don't like them. They continue. They are harassing you.

Someone doesn't do anything that requires you to like them. You inform them that you don't like them. You are harassing them.

[former-incel]

When you feel like you're being wronged but don't fully understand it, it's very easy to misinterpret how you're being wronged, especially if propaganda from society exists. So it's important to understand specifically what parts of what happened are wronging you.

You're told that a girl likes you. You're overjoyed by that. When you approach her, you then find out that she doesn't actually like you.

You are definitely being wronged. But you're not being wronged by her not liking you. You're being wronged by the bullies lying about it. She's only individually rejecting you, while the bullies are throwing off your ability to read signs of interest and making it seem like it's funny for you to even consider the possibility that someone is capable of liking you.

If the bullies are her friends, then she is also wronging you. She still isn't wronging you by not liking you, but she is wronging you by associating with people who bully you. If she didn't agree with the bullies' actions, she would see it as sexual harassment for trying to trick someone who she doesn't like into approaching her. If she's okay with that, then it probably means she's in on the bullying.

[former-incel]

To understand the difference between individual and systemic rejection, think of how restaurants work.

You're allowed to choose which restaurant to eat at.

You're allowed to refuse to eat at a restaurant even if the owner has been nice to you.

You're allowed to instead eat at a restaurant with an owner who's less nice to you just because you like their food.

If the owner of a restaurant force fed you a food you don't like (or even a food that you like but don't want this one time), it would be an act of violence.

Even if the restaurant is in danger of going out of business, they still can't force you to eat there.

But if you're recruiting others to not eat at the restaurant, then it's no longer about personal tastes. You're allowed to not eat there if you don't like their food. But not liking their food isn't a reason to convince others to not eat there or try to get them shut down. In order to justify convincing others to not eat there or trying to get them shut down, they have to actually be doing something wrong that goes beyond your personal tastes. For example, maybe the food is improperly handled or cooked and gets people sick, or maybe the owner is an asshole.

Also, if you eat at a restaurant with an owner who's an asshole, you're not wronging the nicer owner of the other restaurant by not eating there. But you are wronging anyone who the owner is an asshole to, because eating there is being complicit.

[former-incel]

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This is systemic rejection.

There are rules about when it's creepy for someone to approach you to flirt with you. When you've already rejected them? Creepy. When you're clearly trying to do something private? Creepy. When you're in a place where it's unsafe to be approached by strangers? Creepy. When there's a significant age difference or other power dynamic? Creepy. When you're working or otherwise unable to leave? Creepy.

But an unattractive person approaching you isn't creepy simply by them being unattractive. You get to choose who must stop approaching you. But you don't get to choose who's allowed to approach people in general. Someone who you find unattractive should not be expected to know that in advance.

About the other woman's response at the end, in which she says that a woman should just politely reject a man who she's not interested in, it's understandable if you're afraid to reject him clearly so you give a fake phone number or otherwise find a way that prevents a strange man from potentially becoming violent. But that's not what this is about. This is about expecting unattractive people to preemptively reject themselves. Everyone, regardless of how attractive they are, has the same default rules for approaching people to flirt with them.