Danny writes a letter to Elliot Rodger in hopes that someone else might see themselves in that situation and get the help they need.

—

I just got back home from Animazement a short while ago and during that time I pretty much didn’t look at any news. Well, it seems that on Friday, Elliot Rodger fulfilled an apparently year long plan to exact what he conceived to be a plot of revenge against his “enemies”. His “enemies” were women who were not attracted to him and the men they were attracted to instead.

On Friday May 23 Rodger shot and killed 6 people, and then killed himself.

I’ve been reading some of the coverage and it’s quite sad that this attack has become fodder in spitting venom at this group or that. Even uglier is the seeming double standard that its okay to blame a group for the attack but if said group defends against that generalization THAT is considered derailing or being distasteful. But nevermind that.

What I want to get into is the fact that I feel for him. (This is going to sound like I’m talking to Elliot even though I know he is no longer around to hear my words. But maybe there are some other guys out there in Elliot’s position who could use them.) There are plenty of people in his position and this particular instance had a terribly tragic ending. Such an ending should be prevented.

Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free

—————————————

What you did was wrong and not justified, but I do understand the feelings that may have played a part in what you did.

As a guy that spent an extremely long time never dating, never being in relationships, and never having sex I can understand where you were coming from. It is quite frustrating and angering to go through life and never meet someone to connect with. It gets lonely. It gets dark.

Now I’m not sure if you were raised on the idea that you deserve a woman, picked up the idea that you deserved a woman, or if you were just lonely. But when it comes to meeting people (regardless of what comes of it) it takes one major thing.

Patience. Contrary to the experiences of people who seem to meet a different person every week there are a lot of people who go long spans of time without meeting someone. It gets lonely and it can be real easy to take those long spans of time to heart. But you MUST hold out. A long lasting connection, or even a temporary or sexual connection, can be and often is hard to come by.

I don’t want to scare you but there are a lot of people who go an extremely long time before they find such a connection and there are also a lot of people who never find one. A part of finding relationships, love, and sex is holding out until you find what you are looking for.

Elliot you were 22 when you chose to carry out your “revenge”. That’s still a fairly young age and you still had a lot of time ahead of you to keep looking. And about your revenge.

The women you killed weren’t your enemies for not being interested in you. Just as I’m sure you have your own tastes in women those women had their own tastes in men. The fact that you weren’t compatible with those tastes doesn’t mean something was wrong (with their tastes or you) that needed to be fixed or some sort of wrong that called for justice.

The men that you killed weren’t your enemies for being the ones those women were interested in. Different people have different tastes and that is the way dating and relationships go. Think about it like this. Let’s say you meet a woman and you have some sort of connection with her. And out of nowhere another guy felt like you were his enemy simply because that woman was interested in him, not you, and that to correct what you did to him he decides to kill you.

In the end there is no question what you did was wrong and it cannot be defended. To me a more pressing point is to address the feelings that very common in a lot of men but where only a few of them choose to take the kind of action you did.

The loneliness is understandable and the pain is something I can empathize and sympathize with. But you simply can’t hope to correct the situation by killing other people, much less killing yourself.

A lot of people are going to wish you didn’t kill those people.

A lot of people are going to wish you didn’t hang around certain people (based on label alone).

A lot of people are going to wish you had killed yourself.

Those wishes are mostly based around their own satisfaction rather than preventing what happened.

Elliot I wish you could have found some help with how you were feeling.

If you had, then (I would like to believe that) you would have been able to handle your situation a lot better and you would have likely met someone.

I’m sorry you didn’t get that help.

—————————————

I think in the end that’s what it comes down to. Some people are not able to handle being in the situation of not connecting with others and helping them out would do a lot of good.