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As a woman, I shouldn’t like negatives. Or rather, I shouldn’t admit it. Doing so gives the pick-up artist who coined the term shorthand for “negative comment” a win.Neil Strauss, author of The Pickup Bible game I have written for new york times In 2005, Neging had two purposes. “To temporarily lower a woman’s self-esteem and to suggest her intriguing indifference.” To deny someone, in this context, is to deliberately put a woman down a notch, making her feel bad about herself and in need of the approval you seem to refuse to give her. is to keep Even so.
Samantha Leach can pinpoint exactly when it hits. She was watching an episode of The 1975 frontman Matty Healy. chicken shop date. “I really find you very attractive,” he says to host Amelia Dimoldenberg. “Are you low in iron? It’s over,” he said shortly after. Amelia cooks as much as she eats. She teases his lyrics and his willingness to call himself a genius, and jokes that she loves him in the same way. Throughout the eight-and-a-half-minute episode, we know almost nothing about Healy. Instead, we only witness the pair repeatedly denying each other. “I never paid much attention to Healy, but when he started disowning her, I realized two things about myself,” Leach says. author of Elissa and others. “One, Matty has done everything for me, and two, denial is my detrimental trait.”
I’m sure there are countless women who will be negatively affected without realizing it. It happened exactly the same way, even before we got the word for it — I think people were joking and making fun of it until the late 90s. But now it’s not some sneaky unknown method. On TikTok, the famous pick-up artist explained what it was and how it worked when it appeared on VH1, telling other girls who were too young to remember what it was like when they went through it. It is full of women who explain in detail.and Many people have found that negging not only works, but actually enjoys it.
The first time I felt denied, not just being teased, but strategically valued for how I bounced off my heights, I screamed it right away . “You’re ignoring me now, but that won’t work,” I told him in college. Of course he denied it, and he repeatedly swore that what he was doing wasn’t like that. I was offended by the following premise. Do you think you can persuade me by just being mean? After that we got along well.
For many people, negativity isn’t a conscious act, it’s just a casual joke. “People appreciate the idea of keeping it light-hearted or making it funny, feeling that they have someone who shares a similar sense of humor,” he says. Jordana Abrahamco-founder of Betches, host of the dating podcast is it up?, She has discussed negging in the past. This is a way to build intimacy without being too serious, too cheesy, or God forbid love bombing. “Sometimes a little teasing about something can bring a relationship closer together, as if you’re having an inside joke,” she says.
But perhaps what negging really is is that it is inescapably personal. It takes effort and attention to detail. With Hinge, you can send the same compliment message to a dozen women, but it takes a little more time and energy to focus on the details of someone’s profile for a light joke. You can’t run a roast without knowing the subject. Being denied means, in other words, saw.
And when it happens, it’s as obvious as the classic cliche pick up line. Negatives can be taken as genuine flattery wrapped in insults rather than backbiting compliments. You can make fun of my height, my subtle Massachusetts accent, or even identify my missing shoulders. You think I’m handsome and I know you’re just saying that all the time.
Denial has its appeal, even if a man admits it’s exactly what he’s doing. “I went to a party with a recently divorced man who was into PUAs and he was very candid with us about it,” says the Los Angeles PR resident. says Summer, a 41-year-old woman who is “Then he started ‘cold-reading’ me in the most rude way, and I knew exactly what he was doing, and I still I ended up wanting to have sex with him. “
She admits that she was hurt by her father, that she compensated for her low self-esteem with class clown behavior, and that she preferred depressed men to be the main source of joy in her father’s life. He confirmed, she says. “It sounds really bad,” she says. “But it worked. To me, this is flirting. The women get a little mad because you’re kind of mean, but everyone enjoys it.”
Of course, all of this can morph into something more sinister.But what separates healthy negging from unhealthy negging, says family therapists Dr. Patrice Le Goy, is the intent: it could be a kind of cheating, or a calculated attempt to bring someone down. “I think most people can tell the difference between when someone is just having fun and when someone is really trying to hurt someone’s self-esteem,” she says. “I always like to ask my clients: How do you feel after dating this person?” she says. “Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy it? Was it cute to you? Are you really feeling okay?”
The Neg that Summer enjoys may be a little too mean, but she’s fully aware of herself and her preferences, so that’s fine. “The dark side is probably that I’m a little bit self-loathing. Sometimes when men are being rude about me, I feel like they’re paying attention,” she said. say. There is also the feeling that if these men are aware of these shortcomings but still maintain their charm, they cannot take their harshness so seriously. “Obviously, classically, getting affection from the same person feels like defeating suspicion.”
At a cultural level, the more difficult thing to face is the idea that PUAs could have been on board. something. This argument is raised by British scholar Catherine Angell in her book. sex tomorrow will be better again, explores the complex relationship women have with desire, as opposed to the demand that we know exactly what we want. Studies in sexology show that women’s desires are more “sensitive” than men’s and are more likely to be driven by methods of seduction than men who are constantly aroused. It does not come naturally, but develops through flirting, foreplay, and sensual accumulation. In other words, desire is something that can be negotiated. There’s no sure-fire strategy to “persuade” someone to be attracted to you, but you could be one of the bargaining girlfriends in this arbitration.
We clearly have our limits. Most recently, Ms. Leach was hit on by a man who asked her, “What do you do for a living?” She said she was a writer. “He said, ‘You’re cute,'” she says. “And I say, ‘No, I’m not.'” And walk away.’ Still, Leach thinks she can embrace the playfulness that negging brings. For many women, this technique has come to define the style of flirting with a lighthearted mate. In my own experience, even the debate about whether negating is occurring is part of this shy debate. It only works if what you’re saying implies that I’m attractive and you care too. Really, I just want to know what you say next, whether you’re paying attention, implying that I’m actually out of our league. Back and forth. As Strauss puts it, it becomes a game. we know exactly what they are doing. Now, who will pick up who?