ContrarianTrail

To have a strong feeling to have (something); wish (to possess or do something); desire greatly: synonym: desire.

Pick any dictionary definition for it.

Well I can't think of a voluntary action that people do for any other reason than either wanting to do it or having to do it. That's the point of the post. Every example I have been given so far is either of those two. It feels like we're free do to what ever, but in reality we're only free to do what we want and nobody picked their wants.

Nobody is forcing me to reply to this message. I do it because I want to. If I didn't want to I wouldn't but I also don't know why I enjoy having these debates. I didn't choose to enjoy it, I just do.

Just give me an example of something you do or could do that you don't have to but also don't want to. I don't think you can. You're not free to do that.

By have to I mean obligations. You've got a meeting at noon, you have to be there. You may not want to, but you have to.

By want I mean every other voluntary action. You're thirsty and you open the fridge. There's milk, water and orange juice. Say you grab the orange juice. You did that because you wanted it. To say that you could have chosen milk or water isn't true. You didn't want those, you wanted orange juice. If you rewind the clock and open the fridge again you'd still want the orange juice. In that moment you can't do other than what you want. You can't choose to not want it. It may be than in a few years you no longer like orange juice so in thay sense your wants may change but then and there in that moment you can't act against it.

Even if you decide against your preferences to prove a point you'd still be acting according to your wants; you want to prove me wrong and thus you grab the water. That's still doing what you wanted to do.

My motivation here is only to probe on what other people really think of when using that word, so that I know what they really mean by it

That makes sense. In my mind the definition never really evolved as I tend to take words literally and think of it more as a category, like "red heads" rather than as an ideological group. I guess that would technically make them a subgroup of incels.

But the term itself implies the former

I'm sure that's true in some cases, but I wouldn't generalize it as the explanation for most incel's situations that they simply had too unrealistic standards

Maybe they should be called far-incels

Your typical incel is that quiet guy in school with bad skin, plain clothes, and oily hair, whose only friends were the other outcasts. Like everyone else, they just wanted a normal relationship with a normal woman. It's the repeated failure to form those relationships that leads to the resentment and anger we now see. They weren’t always like that. The bitterness and hatred is a coping mechanism for their situation, not the cause of it.

I think you're being a bit unfair there. These attitudes often stem from their inability to form relationships. The struggle came first, and the resentment followed. They aren’t without sex and relationships because they're inherently hateful people; rather, the hatred emerges from prolonged frustration and rejection.

In most cases, I believe the inability to get into relationships is less about character and more about factors like social awkwardness, lack of friends, poor hygiene, unfortunate genetics, spending too much time online or gaming, etc.

Were I complaining?

I don't think that's fair. It's not just sex they are after; they want a relationship but are unable to get into one.