> red pill / incel

incel = Involuntarily Celibate.

What's red pill?

Also, how does the 'Nu male' relates to, or is different from an incel dude?

My sense is that incels are red pilled and nu males aren't. So they might be similar in that they both fail to live up to a certain image of masculinity, but incels view that as a problem (or, at least, a hindrance) whereas nu males don't.

Red Pill comes from a famous late 90’s Sci Fi movie called The Matrix. The main characters world is not exactly what it appears to be at first and he is offered a choice of the red pill which would show him the truth or the blue pill that would keep him living the lie.

It has since been picked up by many communities as a way of saying they are ‘woke’ to the truth. It is currently in widespread use amongst the community of the subreddit The Donald by people claiming to have woken up from the liberal agenda or something along those lines.

In this context it probably refers to an infamous subreddit called the_red_pill that was a cess pool of pick up artists essentially training each other on how to hurt abuse and/or use women. It was banned sometime ago, during the Ellen Pao era I think. I believe they used it in the context of being woken up from the ‘lies’ of treating women as normal human beings if you want to find a lover.

Never hear of Nu Male, sounds like 4chan to me.

FWIW, r/TheRedPill definitely still exists.

The pick up artist community seems fairly toxic..

Because of what it is inherently or bad actors soiling it for everyone else?

Like all fringe, alternative movements, there are elements of truth and arguably good stuff (helping men gain confidence and be more sociable, teaching them how to clean up and become generally more attractive) mixed in with a lot of bad stuff (the mind games that are not only misogynist but downright misanthropic and mechanical, the cultlike dynamics that come with being in an alternative fringe community that claims to know the one true way to do something). In a healthier society there would be better, less controversial approaches to help men and boys gain the sort of benefits they seek from PUA and these subcultures.

It's both. Inherently bad and bad actors promoting it in bad faith.

PUA in a nutshell is lying to women, degrading them etc in a way to manipulate someone into a relationship. It is toxic to the core.

Interesting. This has me wondering about something:

I'm no incel or whatever, I'm also not particularly focused on a relationship (or sex, although there is a non-committed person in my life I see with regularity for both the casual romp and coffee dates to just sit and enjoy company), in married to the degree but I'm curious what you think: is there a difference between enjoying the art of playful flirting/courting and PUA? I'm someone who enjoys flirting and playful banter but have learned to have tempered expectations.

Part of me thinks that at the core, it's ALL an act of mind games to convince another person why you're worth their time (or conversely showing them why you're worth theirs) and there's going to be some level of duplicity involved. Be it "oh yeah I love sushi" (when you're really just passive about it) or "I drive a fancy car I can give you all the things" (when you're really leasing a slightly less than luxury sedan).

Just curious what your thoughts are

> Part of me thinks that at the core, it's ALL an act of mind games to convince another person why you're worth their time (or conversely showing them why you're worth theirs) and there's going to be some level of duplicity involved.

I tried that for the longest time and it was exhausting and unfruitful. When I relented and simply focused on meeting as many women as I could - and having the patience for a natural attraction to occur - it made a big difference. It sounds a bit Zen but when I stopped trying to "score" it seemed much easier to meet plenty of interesting women.

There is a way to do this without being toxic. If you are harming the other person, making them feel less so you feel more powerful, then it is a problem.

I am able to flirt with a woman without making them feel less so I don't know how to answer your question beyond that.

While I can certainly appreciate the response there, it isn't quite what I'm asking:

is there a difference between enjoying the art of playful flirting/courting and PUA?

Not asking if it's merely possible to court/flirt without being toxic (because of course there is, absolutely, I agree). I pose the question the way I have because I have yet to be wholly convinced that PUA is inherently toxic, and we aren't allowing the manifestation of bad actors to paint a view of enjoying the transactional nature of flirting to the point of finding ways to make it more engaging than simply engaging in small-talk/banter/exchanging statements back and forth at each other about life, the universe and etcetera-and subsequently-wanting to find ways of improving how you go about courting relationships.

tl;dr - "hate the player, not the game", etc.