Sucker4LoveMixtape: That Time I Almost Became an Incel

Stanley Fritz
7 min readMar 11, 2021

It’s ok to be a sucker for love. It’s not ok to be a monster

Illustration: Siddhakanksha Mishra

This post is one of many from my Sucker4Love Mixtape Series: Things I have learned from the women who dumped me. Sign up here for the newsletter.

When I started this essay series, I hoped to use my failed relationships and poor decisions as a filter to discuss important issues. Things like consent, rape culture, and entitlement. I was hoping to do it in a way that would encourage men to assess the way they view and engage with women, while also doing a deeper reflection on themselves. I’m not sure how many people I have been able to help/enlighten, but in the time writing these essays I have learned a lot about myself. This is why I want to close out this chapter of my essay series with a story that I never intended to share. Don’t worry, it wasn’t because of anything egregious, but as I was putting an outline together and thinking of topics to cover this one didn’t even crack the top ten. After some deep reflection, I think it’s important I share this experience, as well as the lesson.

The Girl:

There are three women who define my adolescent and young adult years. There was my first ever girlfriend, Jeana, my long-term but never revealed crush on my next-door neighbor, Desire, and my Jr. high and high school crush…

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Stanley Fritz

JET mag beauty of the week finalist circa 2067. Table flipper, writer. Non respectable negro. Racist round house kicker