Recently I saw someone complaining that he’ll always be a virgin and will never get laid. In my advice I recommended making changes to improve himself, like being kind and generous, learning to be better socially, and taking up hobbies that involve being around people.

He said I was telling him to “fake himself.”

All of the “just be yourself” and “you’re perfect just the way you are” platitudes are meant to improve confidence, but unfortunately it means some people genuinely don’t think they need to fix things. That they are just, like, owed success from society or something.

Obviously there are aspects that you don’t need to change, like you don’t have to pretend to like things you don’t, and you don’t have to try to change your orientation or identity, but if you’re an asshole you should try to not be an asshole. If you smell bad you should shower. If you suffer from social anxiety there are both medical and practical ways to address that.

No one is perfect. We can all stand to improve things about ourselves and thus progress towards whatever goals we may have. And the more we lie about not needing to change, or indeed not being able to change, the more we let people wallow in self-pity. I don’t have data to back this up, but I suspect this sort of thinking leads in part to the wave of loneliness and incel-ness we see in our society today.