Negging vs. Teasing (and Why One is Almost Always Better)

If you’re coming from one of our competitors, or maybe just reading online a bit, you may have come across the concept of “negging.” In fact, you might have even seen videos or memes where a guy is trying to tease a girl on Tinder, and she calls it out as negging.

But do you know what negging actually is? And what the difference is between teasing and negging? This article is going to walk you through real examples of both, so you can be crystal clear in your Tinder messaging.

What is Negging?

Negging is a way of temporarily bringing down a girl’s self esteem intentionally to get her on your level. It was popularized by Mystery and in the book The Game. For example, “I love your dress, but hate your shoes”.

The reason it turns women off is that they’re aware of the tactic, and how backhanded and manipulative it’s meant to be. When you neg, you will often set yourself back and piss off the girl.

Moreover, I’d argue that negging actually gives PUAs the worst outlook of interacting with a girl because your assumption is she is already “above” you and you have to bring her down to your level.

Why not assume the delusional opposite of it, where you’re actually higher value than her and you’re trying to elevate her on your level? The second option is definitely the lesser of the two evils.

And that’s where the art of Teasing comes in. You want the girl to have fun and not feel bad about herself in anyway. You want her to smile, not frown.

Now what is Teasing?

Teasing is a more playful way of calling out something about someone. You tease your friends. You tease your lovely niece. For example, “I love your shoes. I’ve always wanted to buy some at Walmart”. But the tone here is more playful and has an exaggerating undertone, best said with a smirk on your face. It’s obvious that you’re saying this as a joke and don’t actually intend to bring her down.

This will make the girl roll her eyes and playfully nudge you for teasing her. This is the kind of emotion you want to bring out of her. It definitely adds a lot to your seduction arsenal. It will make the girl excited and invest a lot more over text because she feels like she can just have fun with you and tease you back. Quite the opposite effect that Negging has.

Still don’t get the difference? Not to worry, I’ll go through some text interactions and show Examples of both so you get a clear understanding of what NOT to do and what to aim for.

1. Incoherent Lawyer

Key takeaways:

1. The guy is on the left. He starts off with an insult that she is boring. But also makes a cringey mistake of not even grammatically checking what he typed
2. The girl calls it out instantly and even says “#PUAfail” as I’ve mentioned that women are now fully aware of these tactics. Best not to use them
3. Obviously gets worse with the last text he sends. She just responds condescendingly and we can expect this will never lead to anywhere. And we’ll never find out if the interaction would have been better if he didn’t lead with this

B) A dull person

Key takeaways:

1. Same principle here. He is straight up insulting her to try and make her justify herself. It’s a really harsh form of negging and this will never lead to anywhere
2. This example shows that women get the impression that you may be insecure if you try to insult right off the bat. Stay away from negging!

C) Mighty mouse

Key takeaways:

1. The important thing to notice here is the first text in this screenshot. It was actually pretty funny and it’s a prime example of a Tease as you see she responds positively and if anything WANTS to justify herself
2. He buries the lead instantly by insulting her with the “lame” comment. I would have said something like “All I see is a fun size lady with a cute hair duo. The short energy will stay our “little” secret”
3. She instantly calls him out for calling her lame. And then he doubles down with an even cringier Neg that he doesn’t think she’s cool either. Obviously she will say No to the drink invite. This kind of technique may work on really drunk, low self esteem women. Definitely not with someone who at least a decent level of self respect

Now that you’ve seen examples of Negs and how they almost never work with women, I’ll go through the examples of Teasing

1. The Solar panel

Key takeaways:

1. She just sends me a picture of her without makeup trying to dye her hair and she asks “Pretty, no?”. A neg here would have been “No. It’s so ugly :P”. This would have lost me the girl like a motherfucker
2. I respond with “Very. The solar panels look is in”. That’s the first thing that popped into my head. Paints an emotional picture that she has solar panels on her hair rather than the tin foil she is using to wrap the hair dye in.
3. She responds positively and we proceed to banter a bit more after (Full detailed LR in the mastermind)

B) Sassy

Takeaways:

1. This is a more neutral example of Teasing as she doesn’t fully disqualify him but when the topic was changed, she continued the interaction.
2. She playfully Teases him that the assumptions he’s been making about her were wrong. He does the same with “So sassy 😏”
3. And they continue the conversation with a bit more logical info exchange

C) Little one

Key Takeaways:

1. He playfully puts the blame on her that she’s trying to be European on purpose. And that he’s onto her
2. She responds to it positively with “I actually have a whole bag of tricks..”
3. This can easily turn sexual with “Oh yea? For instance?”
4. OR even, “Perfect. Bring that big bag of yours to our date”. There’s not turning back from here

Conclusion

Negging can easily trigger a negative emotion that you can not come back from even if you think you’ve messed up. The risk to reward ratio of Negging is just not worth it. It’s better off to Tease the girl. The best way to look at it is that you assume you already have the girl and you’re Teasing her here and there just to have fun until the bedroom fun commences

Hope that helps,

Indian “If you don’t read this guide, you suck” PE