11 Women Reveal Their Worst Negging Stories

Negging has to be one of the lowest forms of communication — and one of the most manipulative ways of trying to attract someone. If you're not familiar with negging as a dating technique, it's essentially giving someone a negative jab to make them feel insecure and, therefore, more grateful for your attention. It might have a backhanded complimented tied in, like: "Wow, you're really brave to wear a shirt like that." Negging came from a controversial dating handbook for men called The Game — and has been messing with people ever since.

"[Negging] is a harmful way to treat another person because it demonstrates a contempt for the other person and their feelings," Christine Baumgartner, dating/relationship coach at The Perfect Catch, tells Bustle. "It is dismissive and degrading to the other person and can eventually undermine their self-confidence. Usually the person doing the negging is insecure in their ability to attract [someone] without putting them down. They also don’t feel ‘good enough’ on their own: they need to put other people down in order to feel better about themselves."

It's ridiculous, but it happens all the time. In fact, a recent AskReddit thread had users sharing their negging stories. Here are some of the worst negs, because some people just want to watch the world burn.