A friend of mine (well, a muse really) is a writer and told me she was the primary for a popular MGTOW web page. Not knowing about the MGTOW moniker/label/lifestyle/identity/whatever, I looked it up. This is mid-2016, by the way. Well, of course, I found out it's a real thing. And, turns out she's a damn good writer.

My interest in her writing had me regularly returning to the site as I worked my way through her original content. As a matter of fact, it almost started to feel like I was willingly leaning in to the concept of MGTOW even though I still couldn't really say what exactly it's supposed to represent. That is to say, I could only gather that MGTOW is a reference to people (men, specifically) being their own person. Surely this couldn't be all it meant, right?

So, fellas, give it to me straight, this reddit community is a place where over 130k guys join together to go their own way??? I don't mean to sound insensitive and don't mean anything negative or derogatory but, are there this many people out there who have struggled to carve their own path and embrace individual autonomy and sovereignty of the self?