Choosing solitude: the path to inner freedom and dignified old age

 Or about the fate of solo people and incels. Part One, Social

In today's world, where rapid change and social mobility have become an integral part of life, more and more men - up to fifty percent in different countries - choose or are forced to live alone. This phenomenon, which until recently was considered the exception, is now becoming a new social norm and a challenge to traditional ideas about family, support and old age. For everyone who follows this path, the question arises: what next? How to ensure a decent life, maintain inner balance and confidence in the future?

To begin with, we urgently need to understand the basic concepts.

1. Incel (from the English "involuntary celibate")

This term describes a person, usually a man, who does not have intimate or other types of relationships, but not by choice. It is not a religious or ascetic life, but rather a state of frustration, often accompanied by feelings of resentment or hatred towards society. In modern Internet discourse, the word Incel has become a marker of an entire subculture, sometimes radicalized, united around a common complaint that "modern society rejects men of lower rank in appearance or status."

2. Solo (English: "solo", in context - "solo living" or "solo poly")

Unlike incels, solo people– is a conscious choice to live without a romantic or family partner. In the modern world, this applies mainly to men; the reasons for this will be explained in a separate essay. A person in this state may have social connections, friendships, sometimes even intimate contacts, but does not choose to live as a couple. This term is increasingly used by those who seek to maintain autonomy, independence and spiritual focus, avoiding attachment to a romantic model of life as the only acceptable one.

Let's consider the issue further. Among individuals who identify as incels, there is often a radicalization of thinking that grows out of the bitterness of alienation and deaf rejection of themselves in light of the modern culture of physical attractiveness, social success, and so-called dominance.

Instead, the concept of “solo” characterizes a completely different nature of loneliness — voluntary, balanced, internally accepted. The emotional state of people living in a “solo” state is usually balanced, they are dominated by peace, concentration, and a calm attitude towards the world.

Thus, an “incel” is a person who suffers from the impossibility of relationships, often with pain, anger, and internal conflict, while a “solo” is a person who, with noble dignity, chooses the path of independence, inner integrity, and in some cases, spiritual growth. These are not just sociological categories, but also anthropological positions that reveal the depth or illness of the soul. The first state tends towards rebellion, the second towards appeasement.

In the socio-psychological dimension, incel is a phenomenon that arises from personal dissatisfaction caused by the inability to achieve the desired romantic or sexual relationships. A person who identifies as incel experiences a deep discrepancy between internal aspirations and external opportunities, which creates chronic stress. The reason for this may be social isolation, low self-esteem, difficulties in emotional communication, physical or psychosocial complexes, as well as the effect of certain cultural narratives that emphasize external success, physical attractiveness or status.

This state causes deep emotional tension, which often turns into a feeling of injustice, irritation or even aggression towards those around them - in particular, towards members of the opposite sex or socially successful people. The tendency to project personal dissatisfaction onto the entire society becomes especially dangerous, which leads to the formation of a worldview position of a victim or an offended "outcast". In the most acute cases, this gives rise to radicalized online communities that feed on common resentment, anger and cynicism. The basis of this phenomenon is not only a lack of love from the outside, but - what is worse - a deep deficit of self-acceptance and trust in life.

Instead, solo as a socio-psychological position is a state of self-chosen isolation, which is not a consequence of failure or exclusion, but on the contrary - an expression of autonomy, personal maturity and the ability to be in harmony with oneself. A person who chooses to live without a partner often has a developed sense of inner support, a tendency to deep introspection, self-sufficiency, sometimes - a creative or professional focus that does not allow for emotional dependence. Such a choice is increasingly gaining cultural recognition in post-industrial societies, where loneliness is not a sign of defeat, but a personal lifestyle.

Psychologically, solo life is characterized by relative peace, the absence of internal struggle with one's own situation and openness to communication without the need for mandatory romantic fulfillment. Such individuals are less likely to experience hostility, since they do not have a conflict between desire and reality. On the contrary, even if they desire relationships, these people are able to perceive them as an additional opportunity, rather than a necessary condition for self-realization.

In social terms, incel is a symptom of the modern gap between the individual and the community, where the need for relationships is replaced by competition, and love by selection. The solo state is the response of a mature individual to the challenges of excessive socialization, who is able to stay in touch with the world without losing himself.

Both phenomena are born from the same cultural era, but reveal opposite poles: incel is the postmodern pain of loneliness that seeks to blame; solo is the modern silence of the individual that accepts responsibility.

From a psychoanalytic perspective, the phenomenon of incel can be viewed as a form of delay or disturbance in the development of the affective sphere, which originates in childhood experiences. In the classical Freudian paradigm, it is about the unresolved tension between the libido and the superego - that is, between the unconscious drive for love, physical intimacy, possession of the object of desire - and internal prohibitions, fear of rejection or deep-rooted feelings of guilt.

In the structure of the incel personality, internal duality prevails: on the one hand, there is an intense desire for loving contact, fueled by fantasies and idealization of the "other"; on the other, there is a strong defensive reaction: projection, rationalization, the formation of secondary aggression. That is, failure to establish a relationship is not interpreted as a challenge to personal development, but is repressed into hatred of an external object, which becomes a symbol of rejection. Often, this psychodynamics takes the form of reactive resistance: what is desired is at the same time hated.

In some cases, we can speak of a narcissistic disorder: the inability to withstand frustration, the lack of "mirror" confirmation of one's own attractiveness, the hyperbolized expectation of love without the readiness for empathy or sacrifice. Deep down, there is often a primary trauma - a lack of unconditional acceptance in childhood, which in adulthood leads to a need for absolute recognition, not earned, but given.

Instead, the state of "solo" is interpreted psychoanalytically as the integration of the subject with his own shadow, that is, the acceptance of loneliness not as a flaw, but as a source of inner integrity. In such a person, libido is not destroyed in projections or accusations, but is transformed - into creativity, into reflection, into symbolic sublimation. He no longer looks for an external "mirror" to see himself, because he has built his own "inner eye" - the ability to introspect, reflect, and endure.

Such a state is possible when a person has gone through an internal loss, found himself without the need for love as compensation, and perhaps even reached an unconscious agreement with the existential loneliness of a person in the world. In Jungian terms, this is a state where the anima/animus are integrated in the psyche, that is, they are not sought outside themselves, but already live within the personality, freeing it from constant external striving.

In the psychic landscape of the incel, a deep conflict between attraction and prohibition unfolds - erotic desire encounters rejection, generating not so much a physical as an ontological tension. Due to the inability to sublimate, this energy does not find ways of creative transformation, but instead encourages projection - the individual pours out his own pain onto the outside world, often under the mask of hostility. His narcissistic wound is a deep crack in his sense of self, which he covers with anger, which serves as a protective armor against shame and inner vulnerability.

In contrast, the solo path is a path of mature integration. A person who has accepted frustration as an inevitable companion of desire does not lose his integrity, but on the contrary, internalizes the desire, transforming it into a driving force for spiritual and aesthetic growth. Such a person is capable of sublimation, which is not an escape, but rather a refined transmutation of energy in the realm of creativity, contemplation and service. He integrates the shadow - recognizes the dark in himself, not pushing it away, but embracing it in a holistic vision of the soul. And ultimately, it is the ability to introspect and deep transfer - the meaningful transfer of inner experience into form - that becomes a sign of psychic maturity and spiritual nobility.

In classical anthropology, man is presented as a being deeply connected to rituals of passage, with clearly defined stages of social maturation: childhood, initiation, marriage, parenthood, old age. In traditional cultures, entering into marriage was not only a private matter, but also a ritual requirement, a confirmation of inclusion in the community. Because of this, loneliness or celibacy often had the status of anomie, that is, an exception that required explanation, treatment, or ritual correction.

Incel in the anthropological sense is a modern incarnation of the ancient archetype of the “excluded man”, someone who has not been able to enter the state of social adulthood, that is, become a man in the full sense (husband, pater). This is not just a lack of sexual experience, but a lack of cultural initiation, due to which a person remains in the in-between world - neither a child, nor an adult, nor a full member of the community. Such figures in many cultures had a semi-mythical status: from fools and hermits to hermits or “unmarried warriors”, - but always as separate, exceptional and uncomfortable for the usual social order.

In modern mass culture, devoid of rituals of growing up, the role of initiation is played by media codes: sexuality, romantic couple, bodily success. Those who fall out of this structure experience tribal exile in the conditions of postmodernity, where there is no real community, but there are its simulacra. The incel is an anthropological homeless person, someone who has a body but no symbolic status; he exists but is not accepted - and therefore reacts aggressively, like anyone excluded from the ritual circle.

Solo, on the contrary, is a post-traditional adaptation to the loss of rituals. A person who consciously chooses to live without a partner forms for himself a new anthropological norm in which the self becomes a full-fledged social subject without the mediation of a spouse. This is reminiscent of the figures of monks, philosophers, old maids or sages - those who are outside the household norm, but are nevertheless inscribed in the structure of the community as the bearer of another value: silence, contemplation, chastity, knowledge. In the modern version, the solo figure appears as a civic unit that self-sufficiently carries its status without the need for the symmetry of another.

In terms of gender, traditional culture tends to rigidly define roles in which male success is associated with dominance or productivity, and female success with fertility or belonging. Solo and incel are two forms of disruption of these patterns, but with different consequences. Solo is a voluntary exclusion based on a new vision of dignity; incel is a forced exclusion perceived as an unjust punishment.

In a broader perspective, these phenomena reflect humanity's transition to a new model of maturity, where marriage ceases to be the only canon, and the individual must build his own image of the fullness of life, no longer relying on a collective script. In this sense, incel is a drama of too weak an identity for a new freedom, and solo is an example of a new ontological modesty: the ability to be oneself without demonstration.

Incel— is a figure who embodies a profound crisis of male identity in a world devoid of traditional forms of initiation. He is a symbol of someone who has not been accepted into the ritual state of maturity, who has remained on the threshold of adulthood without the recognition and blessing of elders. In him we see a social outcast, excluded from the culturally sanctioned structure of male subjectivity, without a worthy place in the social body. His existence is marginal, painful, marked by a sense of uselessness, which breaks through with anger, longing, or narcissistic defense.

Unlike him, the figure solo embodies a new but respectable archetype of selfhood - a complete, integral being that does not depend on the obligatory role of a partner. This is a post-initiated loner - someone who has gone through the path of inner formation, experienced symbolic death and rebirth, not in a collective ritual, but in a personal experience of crisis, acceptance and transformation. He does not run away from connection, but neither does he submit to the social dictates of obligatory relationships. In his figure speaks a self-sufficient form of being, rooted in the deep autonomy of the spirit.

Andriy Kurbsky, columnist.