General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Isla Vista shooter COULD have gotten a girlfriend [View all]davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)For example, some of my most vivid memories of my boyhood are memories of rejection. There was a girl I had a very big crush on for several years. A "friend" of mine told her that I liked her (he reported all of this to me a couple days after it happened). She said to him "aww, that's so sweet", then made rather theatrical gagging motions. Given the fact that they were sitting around with a bunch of other "popular" kids who found that hilarious, it had a little bit of an effect on my self esteem at the time.
It was stupid childish crap - but back then, it hurt. A lot of little incidents like that made up pretty much all of my experience with crushes or girls I liked until I got into my late teens. Little by little, they added up. I became convinced that there was something very wrong with me. That I was ugly, stupid - and fat. In truth, I was of pretty much average intelligence, pretty much average appearance, and only slightly overweight. After a great deal of rejection though, one tends to internalize these things. Eventually, the rejected individual is likely to do one of three things. Either internalize everything and accept that they have flaws and that some people, for whatever reason, are simply not going to like them..., develop unhealthy thinking habits (I am fat... I am a loser..., etc) or, take the much easier way out - which is to blame those they feel have rejected them and made them feel small.
The third type is the sort where a lot of our school shooters emerge from, the first is very rare, and the second, I feel, is the most common by far.
On the other hand, men who are brought up on stories of the bible, who believe that they are entitled to mastery over everything on earth... certainly do exist - and are much more common in conservative christian communities. To them, women or girls are something to be mastered, conquered, dominated, controlled. It rarely occurs to them that they are dealing with equals. You know, the old notion that a woman who marries has "accepted a man as the head of household, her master" honor and obey, etc. I have actually have Christian women tell me this very thing, which I found appalling. I have enough difficulty mastering myself, let alone anyone else.
A lot of the problem is that we live in a society that places so much value on superficial appearance. Or on social standing.
This is my own experience - I imagine that the shooter had something of a different one. I have no sympathy for him though - because if I dealt with everything I did and managed to remain a primarily gentle and reasonable (if somewhat disturbed) young man... there is no reason he could not have. There is no excuse for random acts of murder. None at all. If I believed in such a place as hell, I would pray he suffered in it. As I don't, I can only hope that our future society will be wiser, kinder - and more quick to detect the warning signs of a man about to go on a rampage.