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The weirdest and most underrated effect of unrealistic cultural beauty standards is that to certain guys, average-looking women just become invisible. So much of the worst male behavior will start to make sense once you realize this. Those women are there, in the same way that background extras exist in a movie. They just don't register as people. Their opinions don't matter, their feelings don't matter, their attraction doesn't matter.

I didn't just shun romantic attention from average-looking women; their advances weren't even on my radar. I was waiting for the head cheerleader to hit on me, even if we had nothing in common, as far as I knew. I had decided that extremely attractive women should put my personality ahead of my physical appearance, even though I was utterly incapable of doing the same.

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In modern incel terminology, the sexual war is fought between incels and "Chads," and it's fought over "Stacys" and "Beckys." In short, Stacy is the amazing-looking girl that incels want, but she's too busy boning Chad. Becky is the less attractive girl that incels would settle for, but she's too busy pining after Chad. There's rarely any mention of the comparatively ordinary-looking women who, you know, make up most of the population.

And why would there be? They're not even important enough to earn a nickname, because they don't exist. Elliot Rodger, in his manifesto, didn't talk much about how average girls treated him, but talked plenty about how "hot blonde women" ignored him.