The Internet Trail Left By Deceased Men Who Had Issues With Women

Wilkes McDermid, a noted food blogger who reviewed various eateries and nightlife spots around London, was sadly in the news yesterday after falling to his death from the rooftop of a London restaurant.

I’m going to try and be as sensitive as possible when discussing this.


Wilkes's food blog, which had a sizeable following

It’s odd how the various news articles don’t outwardly say he jumped to his death voluntarily…instead saying that he "fell". But the fact that Wilkes last post was entitled "Final Message" and enclosed details of a "Final Meal" leaves little doubt that he intended to take his own life.

The post was shared on social networking site Twitter, which prompted concerned friends to call the police, but unfortunately it was too late.

Two things about this sad story struck me:

1) He was a Blogger so posthumously, he leaves behind an online presence - I can’t be the only one who finds this new phenomenon of an internet footprint of the deceased strange and morbid?

For example, you still have celebrity Twitter pages open, sometimes still active due to scheduled posts, when the person’s death is all over the news.

That has got to be so distressing to family and friends, especially to those who have lost someone unexpectedly.

Obviously, this cannot be helped in certain circumstances. But I feel a sense of voyeuristic shame, the way we search the deceased online like vultures, fascinated by their last social media activity.

(Update: A few days after posting this, Facebook was in the news due to it's newest update: you can now control who manages your account when you die...)

2) In a post where he explains the reasons behind his suicide, he makes it very clear it was down to a lack of success in finding a romantic partner.

All of this, especially the way he detailed his requirement for what he was looking for in a woman, was reminiscent of Elliot Rodger, dubbed the "Virgin Killer" and the disturbing internet footprint he left behind (his YouTube page is still up, with videos that detail his mindset).

With both Wilkes and Elliot, the reasoning behind turning to suicide (homicide too, in the case of Elliot) is because they are sick of being rejected by women.

The thing that stands out however, is that both continuously mention a certain TYPE of woman.

Wilkes doesn’t sound as deranged as Elliot in his last few blog postings, but throughout the post that details the reasons behind his suicide, there is constant mention of the "fact" that "White Caucasian females are not interested in Oriental men".

His words are full of sexist assumptions, and contain a thinly veiled disdain for women: 

"To the ladies out there, I want to be clear, I am not angry at you. You are just doing what you are genetically programmed to do. (If you don’t believe me do your own research, there are many papers out there which agree with my findings)."

If you watch Elliot Rodger’s videos, he is constantly wondering why super-hot blonde sorority chicks choose to go out with, what he classifies as, loser guys when they have the chance to go out with someone as rich and good-looking as him.


Pretty much what Elliot Rodger's entire
Facebook page consists of...

This narcissistic, self-absorbed attitude is hardly going to attract women, especially if you go on to dismiss women in general because rejection has made you somewhat bitter.

These guys had a very limited understanding about women and relationships, and then couldn't handle it when the women they wanted were not attracted to them. Obviously this was a by-product of their inexperience with women.

But you cannot dictate what a woman, or anyone, is attracted to. We all have different likes, dislikes, interests, personality traits. We go through life meeting various people who we will find things in common with, and this is generally how friendships and other relationships are formed.

However, I have also witnessed girls fall head over heels for unsuitable guys who they had nothing in common with…but it had nothing to do with height/race/wealth (which are the deciding factors of success with women, according to Wilkes), and everything to do with the way they were approached and wooed by the guy.

Put simply, some guys have "game", some don’t. Sometimes you see women fall for unemployed, cheating losers who aren't even good-looking...some guys just know how to successfully approach women. A guy’s social skills are the winning factor here.

When it comes down to it though, most women who are looking for a long-lasting relationship want a guy who is kind, decent and honest. So even your everyday Average Joe will be able to find a woman who wants to be with him, if he has these traits.

Neither of these two guys were unattractive, so you have to summarise that there was something else restricting their success with women. I'd hazard a guess that it had something to do with their personality. Their own seemingly uncompromising standards can’t have helped, either.

I get it, rejection can turn us all a bit sour sometimes. But I have learnt, through real life experiences and not through a flimsy belief system of hoping for the best, that for every door that closes, whether it’s a job, a relationship etc, a better opportunity can always present itself in the future.

But you have to be open to it. A frigid lack of compromise in the type of person you’re looking for is always going to end in disappointment. You can try to explain this to people sometimes, but if they're resistant to the idea of keeping an open mind there’s not much you can do.

Before giving up on love and taking their own lives (and others’ lives, in the case of Rodgers), perhaps they should have made some effort to look for women with a little more depth. I'm not saying don't have any standards, but you can’t moan about your lack of romantic success with women who you deem shallow, if you’re being shallow and only seeking out specific women yourself.

I do sympathise when people who yearn for companionship contemplate or commit suicide, and I’m sure there are millions of lonely people out there who have the same struggle. Perhaps if they had given nice girls a chance (even if these women weren’t their preferred type), they would have been less angry at the world. It’s always sad to see such extreme results of a frustrated ego and libido.