I felt women had the right to go about everyday life and enjoy a night out without having anyone approach them.

You hear those cliches of teenage fumbling - well, I wasn't a teenager, so I found I knew what to do. I also found it was exciting and pleasurable. Some people say the first time isn't good, but it was good.

I was lucky when she fell for me, she gave me complete and unconditional love and that's rare. And I'm lucky to have had it.

Based on the ending remarks, I am inferring this is intended as sympathetic and supportive for people who self identify as incels. But I will point out that there is very, very likely a cause and effect relationship between some very positive outcomes he describes and his description of fundamental respect for women driving his reluctance to try to pick anyone up, at least in part.

I think he is romanticizing the things he did not have that he imagines others do have. The reality is that most people don't feel like every relationship they had was a positive and life enhancing experience.

Some things he avoided:

Fathering a child in his teens and becoming permanently trapped in poverty because of it.

Acquiring an STD, which can include AIDS.

Having a violent encounter with another man over female infidelity or other traumatizing relationship drama.

During my divorce, my perspective on experience changed. One man I knew during that time was kind of a pick up artist. He had a lot of sexual experience, but he told me he had never been in love before.

I had gotten married at age 19 to another 19 year old. I had no previous experience with younger men. It was very hard for me to accept that anyone younger would be interested. The concept seemed incredibly alien.

I had experience, but this was completely new territory for me. The pick up artist I knew also had experience, but being in love was completely new territory for him.

I talked with men who were older than me. They, too, were still having new experiences. The fact that they were experienced did not mean they weren't also stumbling their way forward with new experiences.

I am sorry this man has these negative feelings, but I cannot simply accept his very negative framing and conclusions unquestioningly. I don't think he has ever really tried to find what was positive about the path he took. The negativity is simply a foregone conclusion in his mind.

I'm not convinced this is really the best message for trying to somehow reach out to people who identify as incels and somehow be encouraging, especially given the subtext here that the assumption is that if you don't resolve this or get help with it or something, you, too, might do something terrible like what happened in Toronto. The author does not indicate he did anything terrible like that due to his own lack of experience and negative feelings about it. Whether he did or not, obviously, it isn't true that simply being celibate and unhappy about it will turn you into a terrorist.

Perhaps we could come up with something to say about this that is more constructive than unquestioningly accepting that unwanted celibacy is the real and true cause of a terrorist act and, thus, others who are similarly celibate are similarly terrorists in the making.