You've heard of a backhanded compliment: Wow that dress actually looks good on you! Hey you look so nice when you wear makeup! They're things that seem like compliments but are actually fucking insulting if you think about them for more than ten seconds. Well, negging is a joyous phenomenon wherein the person you're dating intentionally gives you these backhanded compliments to undermine your self-esteem, so that you feel like you could never land anyone else. If you've ever felt like the confidence you had starting off in a relationship was completely run dry by the time you got off, you might have been being negged the whole time.
Negging in relationships happens in different ways of course. Sometimes a S.O. may feel super insecure about their security in your relationship and so they neg you from the beginning to feel more confident that you'll stay with them. Other times, the person is really nice to you in the beginning, but because of jealousy or a blackness in their hearts, they slowly start to neg you and you don't even realize it until you wake up one day and realize every single thing they say to you makes you feel awful and that you don't deserve that.
You may also get negged at a bar. What typically happens here is, a guy feels the need to undermine your confidence because you're out of his league. And to be honest, I think girls fall for it because they're so taken aback, the guy is almost interesting. Like you're used to drunk douches drooling and buying you drinks as they attempt to grope your ass, but you're not used to dancing with friends when someone suddenly insults you, yet shows interest in taking things further...so he's piqued your interest and you go along. But the thing is, whether he pays for your drinks or not, you don't have to be insulted at bars, and you should get to leave with your confidence (and the knowledge that you're out of his league) intact.
You should also realize that negging might also be more discreet than classic bitchy backhanded compliments. Does your partner ever bring up exes or compare you unfavourably to others? Purposely not give you attention when you're in public or with groups so you have to fight for it? Embarrass you in front of friends - or worse - their family? And of course, it isn't always some evil plot they hatched when they first laid eyes on you. They may be totally unaware of the concept of negging while they are in fact negging you, but at the same time, if they are saying things to bruise or undermine your confidence, especially with a goal of keeping you loyal, then they're just as fucking nasty as someone who read about negging on the internet and decided to put it into practice.
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Proponents of negging think it's necessary because women might think they're out of a guy's league or too good for him if he doesn't knock her down a few pegs first, or a girlfriend might get cocky and cheat or leave because she decides she can do better, unless you seed it in her brain that she can't. Well, here's the thing. Most women aren't just walking the streets thinking they're Kate Upton and can fuck anyone when they give the word. Women at bars who are actually single and looking are willing to talk to others, and women in relationships aren't jumping at the chance to be single again because they're just so hot and they'll be so good at it. There's this assumption that women it's okay to undermine our confidence, completely ignoring the fact that the media and girls comparing themselves and knocking each other already hurts our confidence. So excuse us if we're looking for somebody to boost that not worsen it.
So here's the closing point: no matter what form or how lightly someone is negging you, you can choose to be with someone who needs to shake your confidence to feel any at all, or you can choose to be with somebody who loves your confidence, encourages it and actually helps you be more confident around them and in your life, and who has their own confidence and knows that they don't need to tease you to get you to like them. Neat, right? So they that negger that they're an ass.
Video: How To Neg Your Parents
Credit: CollegeHumor
