Having good female friends can absolutely make a huge difference. I thought women were these nebulous things that I didn't know how to talk to. Turns out they're the exact same. There are some that like sports, there are others that like nerdy things. You can't just put people into boxes and say "you are a woman so you are like X". They're just like men, with different traits, and you can be best friends with women even if there is no intention to ever sleep with them.

Hell some of my best friends were women, and after they uturned me about being an incel they started going to bat to help me out. "Hey we invited ____ along, we talked you up to them!"

The coin flip, chance concept is something I've dealt with too. I was fast going down the incel path in my mid 20s. One of my managers at work was given two tickets to a speed-dating event, his mother told him he "needs to find a girlfriend" so she can "be a grandmother". He didn't want to go. We were having fun talking to him about how awful a speed dating event would turn out to be.

He said he would go if one of his friends came with him to the event (afterall, he had two tickets). He called so many of his friends, most were already in a relationship, or were busy that day, or just rejected the invitation. Then he started asking workmates at work, similar responses. Eventually he approached me, he knew I was single, knew I didn't have social life, knew I never spoke to women, he said it would be a good opportunity for me to put myself out there. My first inclination was to say "no way", "absolutely not". I'm not attractive and a bit autistic, I don't make a good first impression to anyone. The thought of awkwardly making small talk for 5 minutes at a time with 12 different women who were judging me based on first impressions, was the absolute opposite of my idea of a good time.

Then I thought about it as a chance to help my colleague, he wasn't going to go unless I went with him, I wanted him to go, he wanted me to go, plus it was at a new bar that I'd heard good things about. At the very least I'd get to have some drinks with my work friend.

The event was about as awkward and anxiety-inducing as I expected for the most part. Most women were much older than me, and clearly had zero interest in chatting to me. So I took the pressure off myself, I wasn't there to find a girlfriend, I didn't buy the ticket, I was there to support my friend. There were two women around my own age, who were not bad looking and I actually managed to hold a conversation with (the beers helped). At the end of the event you could write down the name of anyone you felt a connection with and the organisers would find mutual matches.

Next day I find out I matched with one of the women I'd indicated. I got her contact details, and started talking to her via emails and SMS for a few months, getting to know each other better. Again I didn't put any pressure on myself, I didn't know this person, I didn't ask her to match with me, it was a "easy come, easy go" situation with zero stakes. After two months we eventually went on a real date, and turns out we were a great match. Two years later we were engaged. Today is our 10th wedding anniversary, and we have two kids.

After we started dating I found out that she only went to the speed dating event as a support person to her friend. She didn't go in looking for a relationship either.

That got me thinking about the odds of this happening. If my colleague didn't get given tickets from his mother, if any of his other friends weren't busy and went with him instead, if I didn't agree to go along with him, if she didn't go along with her friend for support, if I didn't write down her name at the end, if she didn't write down my name. The mind boggles. She told me it was a 50/50 whether she wrote down my name, just like you mentioned.

When people say dating is a "numbers game", that doesn't need to be interpreted in a predatory or creepy way. I think this is what it is about, the chances of finding a connection with someone really is a chance, but the one thing you can do is find a way to make that chance non-zero.

• Women are just people
• It's alright to be just friends with women
• Women are friends with other women

These are the cheat codes for having all the right attitudes and environment to find a person who wants to be more than friends. I think a lot of the other ways to get out of it would emerge from applying these.

Note that the more people realize the first, the less valid the last becomes. The fact that many of our societies are sexist create this artificial division where women hang out mostly with women and men with men, and we see each other as different. As someone who grew up in a post-communist Eastern European country, I gotta say, living in a society where women have men friends and men have women friends from an early age was absolutely spectacular. And it just breeds opportunities for developing social skills and romantic relationships. Often friends stay friends after the romance is over.

Taught me that being friends with someone should probably come before a relationship

This has been my experience too. My wife is my wife but she is also my best friend.

She wouldn't have done it on the outcome of a coinflip if she wasn't at least partly interested.