I had just broken up with my then girlfriend. I could not understand why she did not behave the way I wanted her to, how her mind worked or why she did not care for me the way I wanted her to. I broke up because I fell out of love through being unsatisfied. Having experienced what being together was like, I craved the fulfillment of a relationship. And now single I began feeling lonely. Thus, at 15, I made my entrance into the “Red Pill.”

It started with looking for dating tips and how to “pick up” women. “Don’t ask a fish how to catch. Ask the fisherman.” This common metaphor discouraged me from looking for advice or listening to women and these men figured it all out, or so I thought. Slowly misogynistic messages seeped through their videos, and comforting claims were being made. “Your loneliness, dissatisfaction, or insecurity isn’t your fault. It’s caused by women and feminism. Especially feminism."

All my life I had been an atheist. I never even thought for a second that God could exist. But suddenly I became a devout Christian. I read the Bible, watched hours of theology debates, and I even started debating others myself. Funny how easily I was influenced, while my ego kept getting bigger. This ego inflation made manipulation only easier. For the one who knows it all is impossible to reason with. If only I had respected myself enough to examine the thoughts I let influence my mind.

After two years of poisoning, it finally started destroying me. My relationship with my father weakend. He had been harmed by religious practices early in his life and I fought with him in favor of the beliefs that had pained him so much. A belief that I, deep down, did not even find convincing. I called my mother, a gynaecologist, a murderer for aborting babies. She cried, and I could not look myself in the mirror. I realized then that I did not mean what I said. I let the voice of others speak for me.

As for the Red Pill, I still held onto those beliefs. My best friend had recently gotten a new girlfriend, who was the ex-girlfriend of one of his best friends. I thought she was a disloyal woman, because that is what I learned from the Red Pill. The words I said to my friend and his girlfriend still haunt me today: “She broke up and now she’s fucking again. What do you think will happen in the future.” Basically, I was calling her a slut. This might seem trivial to those who are reading this, but it absolutely killed me to realize what I had done. The relationships with my parents and my best friend were crumbling and I hurt a girl so very much. Almost everyone I knew thought of me as a religious, sexist creep. Because I was. But what was most frightning, some even looked up to me.

I realized quite quickly that things had to change. I started questioning Jehovah’s Witnesses, and now I am firmly established in my actual beliefs and opinions about the existence of God and specifically Christianity. Around this time I became interested in philosophy, and I started reading. This changed everything for me. The fishermen metaphor had completely blinded me from taking women’s perspectives into account. Coupled with my already poor relationship with female family members, my knowledge and empathy was lacking. But now I started finally seeing the world through the eyes of women. Interested in how women would organize their lives or how they would make choices, I started reading literature and philosophy by women, with women as the protagonists. It was that simple for me. Just for once giving the “scary, other, mysterious woman” some respect and acknowledgement made me realize my mistakes in life.

From this, I also met my amazing girlfriend. She was often shocked by my remarks or opinions, and through discussing them with her, I came to realize the unfoundedness of my beliefs. And although I have possibly still some troubling weeds in the field of my mind, I just keep on learning from and listening to women to truly build a solid and healthy mindset.

So how do we get young men to read or show interest in female perspectives? I think that this is the true solution to the Red Pill. I don't know, so hopefully you do. Thank you for reading!