People like Elliot Rodger need positive role models, but I don't know where they are

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Do you fish? Well finding a good relationship is like fishing. First you have to have good bait. Then you must throw that bait into a place where there are alot of available fish. Then you must know the techniques to get your bait noticed, how to set the hook when you get a bite, and then how to reel one in. Once you real it in you need to be smart enough to decide whether its a keeper or not.

So, #1. Bait. Work on your looks. Work on your ability to hold a conversation.
#2. Join a singles group where you will get to be around lots of single women. Many churches have these or check out singles events in your community. Thats where I met my wife.
#3. If you do see the beginnings of a relationship, learn how to slowly nurture it and bring it along. Learn how to take a woman on a date. She must really enjoy the time she spends with you.
#4. Once your in a relationship be smart in deciding whether to stay in or not.

It is so amazing the “lonely” people I know who dont do the above.

Good luck!

22

I appeciate the advice, but I didn’t ask for it in my OP for a specific reason. I don’t consider myself “lonely”. “Alienated” is not the same thing as “lonely”, though I understand why people confuse the two. I’m actually quite so social for someone who is unattached.

Being paralyzed or being diabetic are also unhealthy and crippling conditions. Yet I can find happy positive role models with such unhealthiness, just in case I ever find myself in need of one.

23

Ultimately, I think this revelation of “I can be a cool guy without an SO” has to come from the inside.

People who feel alienated due to the perception that they are starkly different from others --regardless of what those differences might be (social skills, looks, intelligence, etc.)–can find themselves in a trap if they get in the habit of comparing themselves to others. Because no matter who they are looking at, they will often find a reason to see the presumptive role model as insufficiently similar to themselves. This is what happens when anyone derives validation from the outside.

So you could point to Issac Newton or Tesla to make a guy like Elliot feel better about his situation, and he’ll reject those examples. Maybe he’ll think these men were geniuses whose accomplishments in life more than compensated for their underdeveloped social life, which makes them outliers and thus irrelevant to him.

You see this with looks too. A woman who is confident she’s the fattest, most undesirable creature on the planet will probably not feel all that assured when you give her examples of obese women who are praised for their beauty. Because the role models you point to will have better hair, better hip-waist ratios, better teeth…better everything.

That said, I’m not saying there’s zero psychological benefit to having examples of people who are thriving despite not having all the social trappings and attachments that others seem to have. As social animals (even loners), we do need some external validation. But I think people who eschew comparisons to others probably live happier lives than those who judge themselves according to how different they see themselves from others. The “role model” quest promotes comparing behavior.

I’m in favor of encouraging young people not to care so much about what everyone else is doing and focus instead on trying their best to be the best person they can be. Our perception of difference is often an illusion; it’s an artifact that comes from only seeing the pretty and normal-looking outside of others while being way too aware of our own ugly and seemingly bizarre insecurities. If more people got this, there would be less people feeling like weird aliens.

24

monstro, I am so with you on this. While I don’t encounter the same set of difficulties you describe, I have my own, and they often lead to the same sense of alienation (and loneliness, at least for me). The saying “neither flesh, nor foul, nor good red herring” describes how I often feel.

I think we, as a culture, define ourselves by the stories that surround us, whether those stories are fiction or non-fiction. The ones that are told again and again are the ones that shape how we believe things ought to be, and when those stories have only a slim selection of main characters, those of us who don’t match are left out of the stories.

What do we do then? Well, clearly, Elliot Rodger identified with the idea that a) he was the hero of the story, b) as hero, certain things were supposed to happen for him, and c) when they didn’t, that meant he was betrayed, and he was justified in going on a wanton spree of destruction, murder, and mayhem. Like you, I don’t think there was necessarily anything that would have resolved his madness. I think he was the far, far distal end of human response while the rest of us cope as best we can.

There’s a scene from The Sopranos I often think about, where Tony is talking with a young Russian(?) woman he’s sleeping with. She’s an amputee, missing part of a leg, and she just doesn’t have any patience with Tony’s complaints. Americans, she tells him, think that everyone gets a happy ending. Russians, however, understand that for most people, life is a tragedy. I’m not ready to go that far, but I do think this idea that if you’re not completely happy then you’re not trying hard enough and the fault lies with you is a poisonous attitude, and I wish there was less of it.

25

Just curious if you think this applies to others who might benefit from a role model. If a a paralyzed guy expressed to you a sense of hopelessness about his life because he never sees other paralyzed guys out there making a go at things, would you tell him to stop comparing himself to others and figure out for himself how he can be a success? Or would you try to sympathize with what is a completely understandable feeling and assure him that he CAN do what he wants to do, just like Accomplished Paralyzed Guy Over Here has done?

Imagine how sad it would be for black women if we couldn’t turn on a TV and find ourselves presented in any respectable way. Now imagine a white male hearing their complaint and saying, “It’s up to you to find your own path to self-acceptance. Just like I have.”

Can you tell that I disagree with you a whole lot? :slight_smile: Sure, people can’t rely on others for their self-esteem. But if all the examples of “yourself” that you find are negative, then you can hardly be blamed for internalizing negativity. Your attitude suggests that a person who does internalize the negativity is at fault somehow…that they aren’t as strong as everyone else is or they are just looking for a reason to be down on themselves. I beg to differ. I wouldn’t leave it up to a gay kid to find self-acceptance all by himself. Nor would I leave it up to the kid who can’t manage to get into the relationship scene. Not when every message he hears from his peers is “loser!” That’s a huge source of pressure to overcome by one person.

26

Any guy who can relate to this should Google “MGTOW” (Men Going Their Own Way)
You will find a forum or two of men who are happily living life on their own terms (with or without a SO) and would be glad to discuss it with you.

27

I don’t think that guy really killed people because he didn’t get laid. Even if he did have sex with hot young blonde women, he’d probably just end up being like that Van Der Sloot fellow. He used women as an excuse for his attitude.

I truly believe people, at their core, are lazy. We want the most out of the least amount of effort. Of course someone single wants validation, because that takes zero effort. It takes effort to change and be a better person. I could have settled for a life like monstro’s, feeling like the only single, weird one in the room, with nobody to relate to except strangers on the internet. But I am not a special snowflake and I knew if I wanted to be treated better I had to step outside my comfort zone. So I became flexible and was willing to change and improve who I was.

Single lonely people don’t need validation because if they can’t relate to other people, aren’t willing to change their sad sack attitude then they are wasting the goodwill of others by being nothing other than Professional Victims. And being a victim is the easiest thing in the world, because you get to blame everything on the entire universe minus yourself.

28

My wife has two close friends (sisters). Both are absolute knockouts, almost as pretty as my wife :wink: smart, funny, geeky, kind, and very outgoing. And yet both are single, still live with their parents, can’t legally drive (in the process of becoming naturalized citizens) . If they defined themselves by their weak points, they’d come off a lot uglier and pathetic. But they don’t; they’re happy being single and living with their parents. They are total bookworms, but understand not everybody is into their hobbies and can carry a conversation with someone without feeling bored or alienated.

Thing is, they could spend all their time on the internet being sad sacks whining about how hard it is to not even legally be able to work or pay reasonable tuition fees for school, still live with their parents, are still unmarried/single/childless, how everyone else is valued by their education, relationship status, career, and independence and they have none of those things and can’t relate.

But they don’t do that. They own up to their situation in life. They haven’t met someone because they are picky and don’t want to settle for some guy. They want families of their own but also want an education and a career and aren’t in some rush to get barefoot and pregnant. They live with their parents because helping their family is more stable when you’re not even a US citizen and could get deported for getting pulled over driving a car with no license. It is hard, but they accept the challenges as a reality of the choices they make.

29

Sure… wishing you good luck in finding your loner and social outcast who is also a positive social role model.

30

I’m not talking about social outcasts (or at least, only social outcasts). I’m talking about people who are frustrated over their lack of sexual experiences. Or maybe they are perfectly fine with their non-involvement, but they still feel alienated about it. Neither of these would preclude someone from having friends or being otherwise normal people. Their only “sin” is talking about their situations on the internet, where people can point and laugh at them (or give them a tough love speech, even though they’ve not indicated they need or want such an approach).

And if you’re asserting that it’s not possible to be a normal person and be an adult virgin, then you are demonstrating the very unhelpful attitude being talked about in the OP. It’s an attitude that CREATES loners. And it makes others shy away from giving their own personal story about how to cope.

31

If you complain about it on the internet then you are willing to handle what people have to say. The internet is not a hugbox ave frankly I’m glad it’s that way because there is so much learned helplessness out there people don’t need to be encouraged or validated into being victims.

Ironically this “tough love” attitude you seem to dismiss is the most constructive thing you can do. My wife’s clients aren’t encouraged to be better human beings by getting a pat on the head and getting told “poor baby!”. They’re helped by being told what they are doing wrong and how they can change.

I’ve made plenty of rants and whines on the SDMB where everybody tore into me. Years ago I too was an adult virgin still living with my parents and I would complain about it. I complained about doing really mediocre in college, hating my job, not feeling independent, etc. And the best help the SDMB gave was pointing out I wasn’t doing enough on my end, I had unrealistic expectations of my friends and family, and I was still living at home (at the time). People, particularly posters such as Lamia, were quite blunt and I resented it at the time, but look back and appreciate it now. If I was so thin-skinned I wouldn’t have been here this long.

32

I can see some truth to that, but there are also posts like Urbanredneck’s #21. They’re rather like Monty Python’s instructions on how to play the flute (“Blow in one end, and move your fingers up and down the outside.”); technically true, but not especially useful.

33

There are a number of saints and martyrs who fulfill this role rather nicely. Along with many people who have risked or given their lives for non-religious reasons of social justice.

34

I see what you mean, and the flute analogy is cute, but I think it comes back to learned helplessness. A ‘flute’ analogy of my own:

I used to teach little kids how to play the piano. I encouraged them and their parents that students needed to practice every day (I set ‘30 minutes’ as a baseline, since that was the length of the lesson, but I was flexible about time). I had some students who wanted to do nothing 6 days after our lesson, then right before their next lesson they’d ‘cram’ by practicing for 3 hours straight, being exhausted and unable to focus. They complained that it was too hard, but couldn’t accept that working on it every day was more helpful (not to mention EASIER, in my opinion). Like I said, as long as they were practicing every day, the routine and consistency was the biggest benefit.

Anything worth having is difficult to attain, yet looks so easy from an outside perspective. I think that’s why people give up on things so quickly- once its not the cakewalk they thought it would be or magically fall into place they get discouraged and start blaming others for their shortcomings.

Relationships are the same way. A lot of people like to think they are “lucky” to be with their SO, but to me this feels like somebody being proud of winning the lottery; sure they attained it, but they didn’t really earn it. I consider myself happy to be with my wife, but her and I definitely deserve each other because we put the effort to get to this point.

35

I don’t see someone posting on a message board (one that is supposed to be a “hugbox”, to use your insulting terminology) and sharing their feelings in a moment of angst as “complaining”. A complaint is tinged with anger and begs to be tore into. A sad post about how life isn’t working out and about how every avenue seems dark and hopeless is another thing all together. The OP that inspired the thread is a 17 year old kid. A kid. Maybe I’m more sensitive and empathic than you are, but I can’t tear into a kid.

Without knowing a person and what they’ve already been through or what their capacity is, I don’t think a “tough love” approach is helpful. It’s way too easy to think that once you’ve heard one sad sack, you’ve heard them all. But no, they all have difference experiences. A sad sack who really has tried it all is in a different position than the sad sack who has tried nothing.

The teenager hadn’t done anything wrong, that’s my point. She laid out exactly why she felt down on herself, and there were all perfectly good reasons. Fortunately for her, there were a few people who remembered how it was to be a teenager with horrible acne and self-esteem and they did say “poor baby” before they laid into her about what’s she’s doing wrong with her life. But there were still plenty of people shaming her for not loving herself, without telling her how she’s supposed to do this given her adversities.

I’m glad things worked out for you, really. But you aren’t everyone. Your experiences are yours, not some other guys’.

I could have easily told the teenager mentioned in the OP to do as I did when I was her age, and just focus on improving her mind and stop looking at what the crowd is doing. Being a studious nerdygirl did do a lot for me. School gave me an outlet for my self-esteem and confidence. But if she hasn’t discovered this for herself, or if she’s tried already and it’s failed for her, then she doesn’t really need me to beat her over the head with this suggestion like she’s a big whiney dummy for not knowing it. What she needs to hear is that it’s perfectly normal to feel miserable because your peers are doing one thing and you aren’t. And it’s perfectly understandable to have a wrecked self-esteem because your face is riddled in acne and you’re dark-skinned and all the boys look at you funny. It’s normal to feel these things and yet overcome them just by enduring for a little while. “QUIT WHINING AND STOP COMPARING YOURSELF TO THE PRETTY GIRLS!” just isn’t helpful at all, when a person is truly down in the pits like she was (or still is).

36

Like I said before, I think there is some good that comes from having positive examples for reference. So if you think my point is that role models are useless as a rule, you’re misunderstanding me.

I just think the value is less than what you seem to think.

First off, you can express sympathy to someone without holding someone else up as a role model. These are mutual exclusive things.

And secondly, if I was talking to a paralyzed guy who was feeling hopeless about his situation, my natural inclination would be to highlight the skills and abilities that he has. I’d remind him that he’s got a sharp mind and that there are tools out there that he can use to compensate for his lack of movement. Maybe I would point out the existence of others who have found success despite paralysis, but I wouldn’t expect that awareness to lift his spirits as much as him coming up with a plan for how to make the most out of his situation, using whatever skills and resources he had. After all, not every paralyzed person will have access to state-of-the-art tools and a strong support system, and I wouldn’t want to make my friend feel like his happiness is dependent on X, Y, Z things.

Do you think this is problematic in some way? Because I don’t. There’s no formula to this stuff, so I feel like debating this is kind of silly. A guy who is lonely and feels like a loner because he’s an adult virgin may feel like less of a freak if he knows there are others out there like him, but self-acceptance comes from figuring how to work with what you have.

Hopefully you understand that I’m not saying that.

Consider this, though. Who was Harriet Tubman’s role model? She probably had people who she admired and maybe even emulated, but she was an unapologetic nonconformist.

Blame schame. I’m not talking about blame, I’m talking about coping. If all the "examples of yourself’ are negative, it very well might because you’re letting your insecurity define you (non-personal you, of course). That doesn’t mean you’re crazy for doing so; it’s what makes stigmatization the beast that it is. You start to internalize the negative messages out there and see your shortcomings as larger than life. This is part of the package.

I believe the reason it’s hard to find examples of happy successful “singletons” has less to do with them being rare (many people know the unmarried aunt or uncle or next door neighbor who was cool people and has stories to tell), and more to do with no one making news because of their marital status or lack thereof. As much as people talk about sex and marriage, when it comes to noteworthiness, these details are actually mundane. And also, marriage was less “voluntary” back in the day. It was just something you did regardless of your feelings or desires.

Lots of assexual loners are probably out there masquerading as “normal” because they were pressured to marry, but whether that would make a loner feel better, I don’t know. Doubtful if the loner is alone because they keep getting rejected.

37

The value is less to you. You may not need a role model, because either you’re the type of person who doesn’t need one or because you’re the type of person who doesn’t respond to external affirmation.

Of course. I’m not saying you need to reference a role model every time you’re having a conversation with someone.

Well right, but havng a reference would be a good way for that guy to get some pointers, especially if no one else knows how to advise him because they aren’t paralyzed. I don’t think a random guy who’s going through some angst is THAT stupid enough to think he has to have everything that a role model has to have their success. It’s just they have, well, a model to help guide them.

If you think I’ve been talking about “curing” loneliness, YOU have misunderstood me. “Helping someone feel like a freak” is all that I’ve been talking about, because I think this alone is a worthwhile goal. As long as a guy is focused on his perceived freakiness, he will be reluctant to socialize and do those things that will help him be less freaky.

It seems counter-intuitive, but once someone feels less weird about themselves, that’s when they can get to the peace of self-acceptance. If all they hear is how unhealthy they are, how insecure they must be, how socially crippled people like them are, then they will continue to think that they are a laughing-stock. Having a role model they can mentally reference who isn’t a laughing stock could help to counter this feeling.

Right, but if we were all Harriet Tubman, we wouldn’t have needed a Harriet Tubman. She didn’t need a role model because she was a badass. Most people are NOT badasses and will never be badasses. We can pat ourselves on the back for being badasses and wish others could just be like us. But things don’t work out this way. Some people do need to be inspired by someone who isn’t them.

And I’m talking about coping too, just in a different way than you. In addition to telling individuals that they need to find the love from within (or whatever Hallmark phrasing you can come up with), I’m all for showing people that this is possible in concrete ways and not simply trusting that their imaginations can help see them through.

I think both strategies work in tandem. Some people are going to respond more positively to one over the other, and all that means is that not everyone is the same.

38

Yeah. Many of the examples I can come up with are people for whom being single is not really the thing they are famous for. I didn’t know Tesla was unmarried / not in sexual relationships until this thread, for instance.

But, I mean, I am not entirely sure why the contention is that awesome unmarried people are thin on the ground? ELIZABETH I. Jane Austen! Louisa May Alcott! T.H. White! Noam Elkies!

39

And I’m saying your premise about virginity is wrong. More than lack of sex or romance, what breaks people like Rodger is lack of intimacy, as in emotional bonding with their peers.

What makes Rodger an uber-loser and dumbass is not taking responsibility and developing a very twisted world view thinking he was owed whatever.

His emotional pain was certainly real.

I disagree they fulfill the role. Besides few people aspire to become monks/saints/martyrs, fewer still in affluent SoCal.

40

I dont think that was a good comparison. I was saying basically work on your looks and your ability to hold a conversation. Then go out and meet people. Then learn how to build a relationship. If you find my fishing reference to be bad and prefer Monty Pythonisms - ok. But sometimes one needs something more than going to the Ministry of Silly Walks and singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”. You need real advice.

Look to me you sounded like someone who wanted to make some changes. Sorry if I read it wrong.