deadstock
Tales from the basement
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2023
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You don’t really understand what it means to be invisible until you experience it in real time — not metaphorically, not online, but physically.
You walk past her. She doesn’t flinch. Her pupils don’t dilate. Her posture doesn’t adjust. There is no subtle recalibration of body language, no subconscious checking of appearance. You’re just not there. Not even a blip on the radar. She will never remember your face — not because she chose to forget, but because it never registered in the first place.
And it’s not hatred. It’s not rejection. Rejection would imply recognition. This is something else. A kind of existential erasure. The type of irrelevance that doesn’t require any active dismissal. You’re simply not worth the cognitive energy it takes to reject. You were filtered before you even had the chance to be judged.
People think social death is dramatic. That it comes with a moment — a humiliation, a collapse, a breakdown. It doesn’t. It’s slow. You feel it when your presence starts shrinking in rooms. When people stop listening mid-sentence. When your coworkers look through you in meetings. When women flinch less, not more, because your proximity has no weight.
I didn’t become ugly over time. I simply stopped mattering. The decay isn’t visual — it’s social. Your face becomes noise. Your words become optional. Your existence becomes an inconvenience only when it’s disruptive. Otherwise, it’s nothing. Background static.
People talk about gymmaxxing, surgery, or “finding your niche” like those are real solutions. But they forget the core problem: this system doesn’t want to make room for average men. There’s no niche for the undesirable. You either impose yourself through overwhelming genetic presence or you’re gently brushed aside into quiet irrelevance. No confrontation. No warning. Just silence.
Some of us aren’t meant to be seen. And the worst part is — you can’t even blame them for it. They’re just following the script nature wrote.
You walk past her. She doesn’t flinch. Her pupils don’t dilate. Her posture doesn’t adjust. There is no subtle recalibration of body language, no subconscious checking of appearance. You’re just not there. Not even a blip on the radar. She will never remember your face — not because she chose to forget, but because it never registered in the first place.
And it’s not hatred. It’s not rejection. Rejection would imply recognition. This is something else. A kind of existential erasure. The type of irrelevance that doesn’t require any active dismissal. You’re simply not worth the cognitive energy it takes to reject. You were filtered before you even had the chance to be judged.
People think social death is dramatic. That it comes with a moment — a humiliation, a collapse, a breakdown. It doesn’t. It’s slow. You feel it when your presence starts shrinking in rooms. When people stop listening mid-sentence. When your coworkers look through you in meetings. When women flinch less, not more, because your proximity has no weight.
I didn’t become ugly over time. I simply stopped mattering. The decay isn’t visual — it’s social. Your face becomes noise. Your words become optional. Your existence becomes an inconvenience only when it’s disruptive. Otherwise, it’s nothing. Background static.
People talk about gymmaxxing, surgery, or “finding your niche” like those are real solutions. But they forget the core problem: this system doesn’t want to make room for average men. There’s no niche for the undesirable. You either impose yourself through overwhelming genetic presence or you’re gently brushed aside into quiet irrelevance. No confrontation. No warning. Just silence.
Some of us aren’t meant to be seen. And the worst part is — you can’t even blame them for it. They’re just following the script nature wrote.
