Something minor and inconvenient, not traumatic, and listen to his reaction.

eg. On the train home from work, a man stood on your foot.

A HVM will consider you his partner, or possible future partner and will care about your well-being and have sympathy for your experiences. He will be able to empathise with you and guess what you felt.

A HVM will agree that the incident sucked, the man was rude, and know that it left you shaken/angry/disrespected. He'll listen and comfort you and make space for you to be annoyed for as long as you want, knowing that it's not about him.

An LVM will empathise with the aggressor. Put himself in the shoes of the antagonist. Dismiss your experience and get you to give the man the benefit of the doubt, because he himself is an asshole and wants to groom you into giving him the benefit of the doubt later on. He'll freak out and get you to cut your emotions short because he can't handle being around a justifiably annoyed woman.

Excuse away the behavior - “well maybe he was in a rush”

Mansplain - “well men's shoes are thicker so he didn't even know he stepped on your foot”

Minimize - “that's not a big deal. Did you DIE? No.”

Gloss over, dismiss - “Cool, so, we hooking up tonight?”

Annoyance - “Why are you telling me this?”

Accusations - “God, you're so dramatic. Always so hysterical and looking for fights in public”

Takes it personally - “Woah, why are you mad at me?”

Doubt - “Are you sure it happened that way?”

Disbelief - “I find that highly unlikely”

Solipsism - “I've never seen that happen... (so you're lying)”

Forcing you to prove it - “Show me your foot, I want to see the bruise”

Gaslight - “You didn't even catch a train on Wednesday, you drove to work, remember?”

Focuses on intent, not impact - “I'm sure he didn't mean to”

Trying to score points - “Well I'd never do something like that”

Hypothetical white-knight - “If I ever saw that I'd apologize to the woman on behalf of all us good men”

One-upmanship - “haha yes I've had the same done to me. My foot was swollen for seven weeks!”

Bigger victim - “Men go to war and die you know”

Derailing - “That reminds me, I need new shoes”

Shoulda - “You should have made a scene and really told him off” (projecting his male strength into you, clueless about the consequences for women)

Woulda - “Well I would have punched him in the face!”

Coulda - “Well couldn't you have guessed he was going to step on your foot and move out the way?”

Toldya - “Well, I did offer you my car so you wouldn't have to commute, then this wouldn't have happened”

Blame - “well, you do wear those silly little sandals, what did you expect?”

Negging/insulting - “well your feet are enormous”

Backpeddling - “I'm kidding! Your feet aren't that big”

Mocking, infantilizing, condescending, patronizing, belittling - “Aw did your widdle footsie get huuuurt?”

Anger/possessiveness/jealousy - “Wait, what were you doing on a train? You said you'd be at Jennifer's house”

Not the point - “Which train was this? What time? The green sandals or the blue?”

Eye-rolling, interrupting, rushing, shushing, ignoring, huffing, sighing – contempt. Run.

Laughing, displaying glee at your pain – sadism. Run.

Nuclear option - “Calm down”

The message from the LVM is “don't tell me about this shit, I don't want to hear it, you won't get sympathy from me, and I don't do emotional support” so you don't even attempt to 'bother' him with these things. You make yourself smaller and smaller. It's impossible to grow your connection to each other.

If you can't tell your partner about minor things and receive understanding and sympathy, why be with him at all? He won't be there for you for the big stuff. He's not on your side.