3 Lies Toxic Men Tell You To Get You To Settle For Them In Dating (And It’s Actually All Projection)

The three lies toxic men tell you to get you to settle down with them as a woman - and why these are projections.

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If you’ve ever read any kind of piece supporting or empowering women to have healthy boundaries in dating and relationships, you’ll normally see an infestation of misogynists or low-quality men in the comments section saying the exact same lies, over and over again, to fear-monger women who have opted out of dating (or low-quality partners) to settle for them. Some of these views may have even been expressed to you in real-life dating contexts. A high-quality man would never  subscribe to these falsehoods as they respect women. Here are the three main lies toxic men tell, and the true projections behind them, according to research.

You will die alone! Enjoy your cats.

Unless you’re a murderer who’s planning to take another person into the afterlife with them, you will too, honey. Misogynistic men project the fear of dying alone onto women because they benefit the most from marriage, and women not marrying them is one of their greatest fears. Many studies show that women become more psychologically distressed in marriage – so marriage and childrearing are actually a liability when a woman engages in them with the wrong partner – and childfree, single women continue to be one of the happiest subgroups in the population. They know this, and they want you to settle for them early on so they fear-monger. Women also tend to have stronger social networks and connections than men do. It’s actually men who need women to thrive as they benefit enormously by having a wife who is socialized to take on more of the domestic and emotional labor, thus contributing to their career success and mental well-being. Having a husband is not a guarantee of someone being by your side long-term either – other research indicates that women are more likely than men to be abandoned when facing chronic or serious illness. Men are the ones said to be facing a loneliness epidemic at the moment, while women are actively pursuing and happily opting out of dating toxic men.

Wait until you get older, you won’t be living the “thot” life then and you will regret going after Chads!

As someone in her twenties, I regularly see this comment under articles empowering women in dating and laugh my ass off. Newsflash, buddy: some studies show men actually age faster than women. There is no “wall” for women, and if there ever was a wall, toxic, misogynistic men are the ones hitting it with full force, while women remain attractive at every stage of their lives. Women also tend to take care of themselves quite well no matter what their age, and will likely never regret dating handsome men and living the wild life at every stage of their lives – why would they? If perpetual bachelorhood is fun for men, you can bet it’s also fun for women. Some women also just choose to have fun single, dating and bedding whoever they want whenever they want for their entire lives – and you can’t stand it, because you think she should be settling down and be miserable with you.  We regularly see women of many diverse age groups being hot AF and pursued by hot younger men no less – if they want to be a “thot” pursuing Chads as you call it, they can do so at any age with no issue whatsoever – women will always have options, but misogynistic men sense they’ll have even fewer options as time goes by unless they have financial resources, which is why they fear-monger women into trying to settle for them early to get them trapped.

Also consider: is the age thing something that is supposed to lure women into marrying you – or scare them off marriage forever? After all, if you keep pointing out the idea that you won’t find your future wife desirable after a certain age, she’ll actually be less likely to ever marry you because she won’t be interested in committing herself to a lifetime of misery! Keep telling this lie to women, though, because, again, according to research, women on average are happier when they are single and childfree. Maybe your lie will actually save her a lifetime’s worth of trauma and make her look young forever due to the lack of stress (additionally, what these misogynistic men forget is that women with some melanin or good genes don’t even appear to age at all– they either age backwards, looking young for what seems like forever or gracefully mature). This is projection at its finest: women are actually the “distinguished” ones with everlasting beauty while misogynists tend to age terribly and often declaring these lies while sporting questionable hairlines.

Your standards are too high! You’re too picky.

It’s more likely that women’s standards have actually been below the bare minimum for a long time due to the normalization of hookup culture and the fact that before, they had to marry men to survive. Now that women actually have a choice, they are actually standing up for themselves, realizing they need to have standards, they’re doing what you’ve always told them to do – choose better, and be better. These women are beautiful, successful, often have done inner work, gone to therapy, become financially stable, own their own cars and homes– yet you continue to ask these same women what they bring to the table rather than asking yourself what value you bring to a woman’s life. Meanwhile, you haven’t gotten your life together yet and you’re the real gold-digger. You can’t stand their basic standards and boundaries because that also means that they’re choosing themselves, rather than settle for less just to say they have a man. Now you actually have to bring value to the table, because you’re competing with a woman’s peace, and you’d rather project and punish women for it or leech off their resources. Let’s turn that projection back to you, fellas: it’s time to do better. Either grow up or get out. The times have changed, and you’ll need more than to just be a man to get chosen. Women have already left the table because you brought nothing to it.


About the author

Belle Karma

Belle is a writer who loves movies, long walks on the beach, and drinking the tears of salty men.