I think have a facade is a legitimate strategy for certain men fake their way into ticking the boxes of the highly lauded romantic tropes, charisma and ideals of masculinity that women often hold during the initial difficult phase of dating, however unrealistic and unsustainable those standards may be. It is essentially men's masculine version of makeup.

Women are often disappointed that their (ex)partners weren't behaving wholly authentically during the earlier phase in the relationship and the courting process, and this leads to resentment and feelings of loss, which could end the relationship if the extent of the facade is too great. These complaints can be seen in many female spaces and the tiktok femosphere.

Some men also feel like they're trapped in a narrow box of desirable behaviours that is unsustainable to fulfill passed a certain stage in a relationship and their authentic self doesnt pass the threshold of attractiveness to many women in the initial dating phase.

In turn, many men develop their own flavour of a protective attractive masculine facade with the hope that the women they're dating find their personalities and individual quirks endearing before the facade slips and get their foot in the door.

Many men who do practice cultivating a facade at the initial phase do end up maintaining their relationship after the facade crumbles because their partners find their other traits endearing and women's standards does typically get lower with familiarity, even if these women are disappointed that the flair, lack of pink and orange flags and the passion of the first stage of the relationship, and the perfect image of their partner is gone.

I know many men who fake parts of their personality during this tough initial stages of relationship with the belief that the average man has to fake it to succeed due to so many men having so many potential icks to the average emotionally unavailable single woman who have low tolerance of mens flaws, especially past a certain age whose past relationship experiences and emotional baggage will only increase their interpersonal standards and numbers of potential icks for men, however unreasonable and unrealistic they are.

Some say women hold unrealistic expectations of male behaviour during the courting process which puts men in a small box, others will say men should develop themselves to fulfill these tropes, high social skills and ideals of masculinity so it can be as natural to them to the benefit of women and their relationship lives even if it puts men in a smaller box, which is basically frame. But this takes time, and having a facade might be what men need to get their foot in the door and exploit the natural lowering of standards that familiarity brings when you're having a relationship with women.