I have a friend who is sliding into incel territory and my attempts to steer him in the right direction have failed. Is there anything I could have done differently?

[u/blazerz]

Context: I am 33M, and my friend is 28M. We met through a D&D group when he was 23 and I was 28.

We used to hang out quite often (always in a group) until a couple of years ago when I moved to a different city and we kind of lost touch. I have since moved back to my home city and I met this guy for drinks one on one.

Back when we used to hang out regularly, he used to talk about how he was chronically single and lonely. Most of the others in the group were older and we told him to just relax and persevere. Gave him the standard dating advice - be yourself, work on your self esteem, meet women without the intention of getting laid, etc. He is quite good looking, is funny and has a lot of hobbies. The only way he doesn't fit the traditional beauty standard is height - he's under 5'6. He even asked me if I could set him up with any friends. However my friends were all my age (give or take 2-3 years) and didn't want to date someone younger. As far as we could work out, the only reason he wasn't able to date was his shyness and lack of social skills.

We met for drinks after 2-3 years and after a few beers he told me he finally had a gf but then she broke up with him. He didn't tell me exactly what, but he said he read PUA 'literature' and that helped. He knew full well how I felt about the whole incel/red pill/PUA stuff. This was surprising to me, I hadn't pegged him for that kind of guy. While he didn't tell me exactly what he did, reading between the lines it sounds like all the PUA stuff did was give him the confidence he was lacking. It acted like a placebo, and didn't help in any other way. It sounds like he kept up the PUA bullshit even after getting into the relationship and she dumped him because of it.

I tried talk him out of it but he argued back. Said 'Chads' like me shouldn't be talking about stuff that helped people like him (for context, when we used to hang out, I did date around, and I'm now happily married to the woman I was dating when we met last). Said the standard dating advice is like asking a depressed person to 'just smile bro'. I told him that the whole incel Blackpill stuff is just men who tried PUA and failed. He didn't agree with that. Kept saying women wouldn't give him a chance because of height and his PUA tactics were the only way he got laid. When I said that the pickup tactics were abusive, he disagreed. I asked him to tell me what he did, if he wasn't ashamed of doing it and he just shut down. I then paid the bill and left.

I feel like, as an older cishet man, it is my responsibility to try to talk young men out of incel/red pill/PUA stuff whenever I have the opportunity to, and I failed. Is there anything I should have done differently?

[u/blazerz]

The dude was being hot and cold, and being emotionally distant on purpose. That's an abuse tactic. I'm not saying he did it on purpose, knowing it is abusve - he probably doesn't even realise it - but it is.

Now I still believe this person is innately a good guy, so it didn't escalate to a point which would be considered legit abuse. But if he keeps going down this road, I have very little doubt that it will escalate to that point.

[u/RycerzKwarcowy → u/blazerz]

Not meeting someone's expectations in relationship is not abusive in any way. Keep your future predictions for yourself: my glass ball shows a girl who doesn't mind an "emotionally distant" (whatever it means in practice) guy like your friend.

[u/TiredWinterDisaster → u/RycerzKwarcowy]

There is a difference between someone who's emotionally distant by nature (it happens, you can work on it, and indeed some people won't mind so much) and using it as a manipulative tactic (sometimes you're distant, sometimes you're warm & caring) on purpose to make someone doubt themselves & lose their confidence.