Back in the day, getting mental health treatment was totally taboo, for both men and women. Then, women began to see therapists, and now in 2022, people of all genders are proud to be tackling past trauma and learning more about the inner workings of their minds. This should all be great, but of course people have found a way to exploit this, because of course.

Via VICE:

We’re calling it ‘therapy-baiting’; aka the cultural phenomenon of people (mainly men, sorry) using their experience of therapy as a pulling method to appear sensitive, therefore sending us into a swooning, fanny flutter-induced haze. In some cases, the perpetrators exaggerate the amount of therapy they have done, and in others they use their knowledge of therapy language in nefarious ways. In extreme cases, they fake having gone all together.

Obviously #notallmen, but the seminal Instagram page @beam_me_up_softboi is now riddled with examples of men using therapy to pick up women. While for many men, therapy means working towards genuine change, for others it means using it in a performative way to appeal to women. Or as one Twitter user puts it: “Straight women have single-handedly been giving away the secrets to what we deem green flags and the men have been smart enough to curate personalities around these.”

What have we learned class? Going to therapy: good. Using therapy as a way to appeal to women? Not good. Got it? Good.