Most of us have had the misfortune of meeting this type of man, be it in our family, at work, in a social group or even in previous romantic relationships.

This man will invalidate every thought, belief or opinion you have. Everything you say he will disagree with in one way or another, gradually wearing you down and making you afraid of having any opinions to begin with.

This is a psychological form of manipulation that is exerted through subtle negs, which lead to you questioning your own knowledge and intelligence. This man wants you to seek his validation and gets hard at the idea of making you feel like what you have to say is incorrect.

Now even in the most compatible relationships, the two parties involved will not fully agree on absolutely everything. (I am not talking about serious topics such as racism, misogyny, homophobia, human rights etc.)

But if a man seems to constantly be going out of his way to disagree with absolutely everything you say, to play devil’s advocate and to side with the people who hurt you and “see their point of view”, this man is abusive.

You say you prefer almond milk over oat milk? That’s incorrect, oat milk is better because X, Y, Z. You say you prefer a certain movie genre? That genre is not good because of X, Y, Z. You say someone annoyed you at work and you would like to vent? Well that person wasn’t wrong, you were the issue.

If everything you say is met with a “no, actually”, this man will slowly destroy your self confidence and silence you into submission. This man is not just “unaware” of social cues or bad at conversations. He is doing this deliberately to hurt you and make you seek his validation. To him this is a power play.

Normal human conversations and interactions should not feel like a battle where the two parties involved are trying to win against each other. If the relationship with this man is the only one where you feel like he’s always trying to “win” an argument, that is your sign that he’s doing it deliberately.

It can also be a clear indicator that he is misogynistic and thinks women can never be right and everything they have to say is stupid and incorrect.