Along with all of the other nasty reasons for people killing each other, we now have the “Incels” or “Involuntary Celibates”. This is not really a new phenomenon, when I was young we had the “Son of Sam” who made a habit of killing couples who were making out in cars.

There are many young men who gravitate to programming and gaming who have trouble relating to women. I’ve previously written about why this happens. You might see yourself in that essay, or not.

So, as a person of some stature in the computer nerd community, I am embarrassed that I need to explain this to our community, but I do. Here goes.

Let’s start with the basics. Women are attracted to men for conscious and unconscious reasons. Some of the unconscious ones have to do with fitness for reproduction. That’s what looks are about. And smells. And other things you are probably not conscious of, but which they are either conscious of or are feeling on an unconscious level. These are programmed into people at an evolutionary level: good looks and smell indicate good health, and good health before modern medicine indicated good genes. You’ll find one of the most important things to a woman is: does she want her friends to see you are with her. Because she knows her friends evaluate these same things, consciously or unconsciously.

The good news is that you don’t have to be a male model. If you have craniofacial deformities, things are going to be harder for you than other people. Harder, not impossible. But most people merely have normal non-model looks. If that’s the case, you are just right for someone who is just right for you.

Are you interested in working on why you’re not getting anywhere with women? Maybe you’d rather have someone who accepts you just the way you are, warts, bad smell, and all. And maybe you’ll be lucky and find that person, but I can’t help you. You will need to do some work.

So, the very first thing you need to do is: Don’t Look Sick, and Don’t Smell Sick. Because that’s a big part of what her unconscious evaluation of your fitness for reproduction is about. This means that to the degree you can, get rid of problems with your teeth, skin, odor, substance issues (believe me – finding out that someone is a smoker the first time you kiss them is bad to experience). This may also mean that you take care of your diet (which tends to cause those skin and odor problems, and makes you fat) and you get exercise on a regular basis. Got some fungus on your feet or elsewhere (that bad smell after a few hours is often not just your natural body odor). Take care of that. Lots of young and nerdy people and those who don’t look after their health have minor skin problems like warts, moles, boils, impetigo, etc. You might be surprised how quickly a dermatologist can deal with these things. But you have to ask for one. Five minutes into the visit a quick freeze and shave and your mole is gone, thank you, pay at the desk.

Don’t ever leave the house in the morning without soaping up and rinsing twice with a deodorant soap, washing your hair thoroughly with shampoo twice, and brushing your teeth really thoroughly, and putting on clothes that you haven’t worn since they’ve been washed. Yes, that pair of pants you wore yesterday, which looks perfectly clean, needs to go in the wash before you wear it again. Smells work on an unconscious level, you have to do your very best to avoid the bad ones and cultivate smelling good. That brings us to deodorant: Use it.

About odors working unconsciously, women will often like the ones that dad wore. They won’t even know it. But you’ll notice them taking a sniff sometimes. Never knew why anyone today would wear Old Spice? Now you do. This doesn’t mean slather yourself in cologne or after shave. Overdoing it hurts. Just some scented deodorant will do.

Then we get to the stuff in your head. Don’t act sick. Developing the social maturity that comes naturally to other people is necessary. This means you need to spend a lot of time interacting with other people who aren’t like you, and of course a lot of them women. Volunteering for something regularly or joining some sort of group of people who are interested in some non-nerdy thing (like hiking or bicycling) is important. Approach this after internally deciding that other people are worthwhile even if they aren’t like you, and their opinions are important. Keep thinking about how they think. Don’t be too eager to ask women in the group out at this point, unless they show more than a casual interest in you. This time is for learning rather than doing. But develop women friends. They will tell you things that are important, and introduce you to other women. Don’t expect to have relationships with women if you don’t first know how to have platonic friendships with them. Those platonic women friends are important, they will help you to rub a lot of the rough edges off of your personality and become someone that a woman would want to be in a relationship with.

About this time, you’ll commit some social gaffe or be rejected socially by others. It really hurts but it isn’t fatal. You’ll often find that such people have short memories (most people with really strong or out-of-control emotions have bad memories, or they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves). If nothing helps, start over with another group, but don’t be in a hurry to do that.

Keep doing these things. Wash, rinse, repeat as they say.

Eventually, you’ll get to the final stage: develop your life to the point that you get along well with others, you can talk with a stranger and getting along with new people is easy, but you have enough fun and interesting things going on that you will be perfectly happy with the rest of your life whether or not you find a mate. The moment you get to this point and it doesn’t matter any longer whether miss right comes along or not, she will. Being a well-integrated human being makes you attractive.