This Man Believes He Experienced A Toxic Dating Behavior Called “Negging,” And People Are Calling Out How Messed Up It Can Be

Let’s face it. Finding a partner can be difficult, and one particular interaction on the dating platform is going viral on Reddit.

u/barre9388 shared a screenshot of the chat after a woman asked about his beard:

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When he responded, the woman expressed her thoughts about his beard and then, according to u/barre9388, ghostly said:

Now, users are speaking out about how toxic they think the woman’s behavior was. Taking it a step further, some people believe that what this woman did falls into the category of “negation.”

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Negativity is when someone gives you a sarcastic compliment or a subtle insult designed to undermine your confidence. The twisted logic behind this is that if they make you feel a little insecure, you’ll suddenly crave their approval more (and be more likely to engage with them).

While some may argue that her behavior in the chat was not “negation,” others seemed to believe her behavior was a form of “negation.” u/Mysterious-Turnip916 said, “She’s the kind of woman who wants him to say ‘I’ll shave you’ like bragging to all her friends.”

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People also seem to think that this so-called denial behavior is actually quite common. u/Bustin_Justin521 shared, “I used to have long curly hair and I had so many women message me saying they would date me if I cut my hair.”

“Yeah, the attitude is ‘I’m letting you know that if you change x and y to suit my needs, you might be my type, but so far you haven’t quite gotten there,'” added u/TheKavorca.

Men then started sharing that they believed they’d had a lot of similarly negative experiences with women, like u/pizzaduh who shared, “I had a woman ask me if I had custody of my son and when I said 50/50 she said ‘eww’.” Like, what? “

On the other hand, maybe the woman is just being vocal about her dislike of beards. I mean, after all, we’ve seen some pretty toxic dating interactions from men that actually fit the definition of negation… like this:

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And this:

So, we want to know what you think. Do you think this woman’s statement should be regarded as a “negative”? Have you ever experienced what’s called “denial” before? Let us know in the comments!

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