There have been a number of dating trends this year but the latest 'penny dating' trend is probably one of the most toxic of them all. This trend is all about weaning someone off the effort that was once used to win them over at the start of a relationship, internationally and methodically, until they're happy with the bare minimum. The idea is basically to remove effort in such a way that your partner doesn't notice you pulling away from making an effort and feels happy with the bare minimum they get.
The penny dating trend began going viral on social media after TikToker Erika Tham shared a video explaining the method after hearing it from one of her guy friends. Her video accumulated more than 7.6 million views on the video-sharing app, as per the New York Post. It even gained plenty of outrage on Instagram, where it garnered more than 2.7 million views.
What is the 'penny dating' method?
In the video, Ms Tham said that she was talking to one of her male friends about "love bombing" when he told her about another tactic dubbed "the penny method". Her friend explained that in this, men imagine a woman is like a "piggy bank" and they adjust their investment accordingly.
"In order to get her interested obviously at first you have to be feeding her hundred dollar bills," Ms Tham explained. "But putting in hundred dollar bills is a lot of work and you don't always want to be doing that, so eventually you reduce it to 90," she said.
"Now here's where it gets sick," Ms Tham added. Her friend explained the adjustments of attention over time. A man would deliberately decrease the amount of attention given to the girl, before inflating it again ever so slightly to appease her. However, over time, the investments become smaller as the woman's sense of self-worth is eroded. In simpler words, after putting in a 100% investment at the beginning of a relationship and grabbing her attention, the man reduces his investment to 90.
"The next thing you do is bring it back up to 95. Instead of feeling like they've lost 5, suddenly she feels like she's gained 5." Ms Tham explained, adding, "Basically you just keep repeating this cycle and weaning her off your effort until you get to the point where you're giving her pennies and suddenly, she's excited to receive a nickel".
Ms Tham was left horrified by the man's confession and implored her female followers to pay close attention to their partner's behaviour. "Never be accepting anything less than $100 bills," she said at the end of the video.
"Straight-up harassment"
Internet users were quick to react to the viral video. While some of them were extremely disturbed by it, others couldn't believe that this dating method is a thing that actually happens.
"Girl math is silly and cute, boy math is straight-up harrasment and abuse," wrote one user. "That's scary. Sounds like narcissistic sociopathic manipulation," commented another.
"This just proves men would do anything but actually put in some effort into a relationship," said a third user. "Heart breaking, this a "method" this is manipulation," added another.
