An Incel Tragedy

My old college friend Otis was homeless. He’d lost his apartment, his job, and was in desperation. I talked with my wife and we agreed to let him stay in the abandoned apartment behind the house I’d just inherited. I could turn on the water and run an extension cord to him for power, give him a chance to get his act together.

Otis was VERY smart, with vast amounts of information between those ears, none of it organized to actually improve his life. “He knows everything about everything except anything that could actually help him” seemed the unfortunate truth. Lethal in a game of “Trivial Pursuit” he seemed oblivious to what it took to simply…adult. And usually blasé about it all. He didn’t want a lot of money, you know. He wasn’t sure what he really wanted to do in his life. And simply ambling through existence was enough for him, he lied.

I know it was a lie, because from time to time the pain bubbled up to the surface. I remember sitting with him in the back yard, one of my endless attempts at intervention. And he admitted he was lonely. “I don’t understand why I can’t find a girlfriend,” he said, living in my dead mother’s abandoned apartment.

I was almost lost for words. “Well…” I asked, struggling to find a gentle way to say it. “What is it exactly that you have to offer a woman?”

“Well,” he said, thinking deeply. As deeply as I ever saw him think. “I’m kind. I’m loyal. I listen and care.”

I nodded. “O.K.,” I said. “Now…what is it you have to offer that she can’t get from…