Lately I’ve been so peeved by how many scrotes and pick me’s will go out of their way to make you feel bad about having boundaries because you’re not “letting your man breathe.”

I had a female family member ask me what I look for in a guy. And I listed off a bunch of qualities, one of them being that I would not want a guy who checks out other girls or women. And instead of agreeing, she told me that I’ll “never find a man” with an attitude like that. She said it’s normal for a guy’s eyes to wander occasionally. She described it as “window shopping”— he’ll “browse around” but he has no intent of “buying” anything. She even mentioned that her husband does it, and she’s fine with it. To be honest, I think she’s tricked herself into believing it’s okay because she settled for a LVM and she wants me to settle too because misery loves company.

My therapist even said something similar. I told her that my ex would check out other girls, even while we were together on dates. And I said that it made me feel terrible. Her response? According to her, it’s a sign of insecurity to have been bothered by his checking out girls. She framed it like it was my supposed lack of self-worth that was the problem and not my ex’s disrespect of my boundaries.

It hurt to have these women in my life make me feel like I was the issue for not wanting guys to ogle at women while in a relationship with me. Especially since these are women I once trusted. And their way of thinking was exactly how my ex thought too. He made me feel like my quarrel with his behavior was born out of insecurities and that all of my pain was misplaced.

For a long time, I felt crazy. I felt like they were right and I was wrong. To have so many people tell me that I was overreacting began to make me think that I truly was. Especially considering how a licensed mental health professional even told me so. But even now, I don’t think I’m crazy for wanting respect.

In a way, I feel like it’s a form of manipulation—telling women that having high standards makes her “toxic” or “paranoid” guilt trips her into lowering her standards, which allows more LVM into her life/dating pool. It seems almost intentional to push this idea into women’s minds because then we’ll be more inclined to basically submit to the men we’re with. Sometimes, I wish there was a “Rate My Professor” website, but for guys instead of professors.