The point you made in your post was very hard to understand because:

1) women do this in a completely subconscious way. They will claim that they do not, but their actions beg to differ big time

2) Any man who has self-respect , had the privilege to engage with different women, and is emotionally present, will testify 100% that what you said is true. Most of us had that past experience where you "bent" too much to women requests and they lose all respect for you. It's about the balance between compromising with the other and totally annul yourself for the other.

This "fine line" also reminds me of when women say they want an emotionally open man, but if the man opens too much and show too much weakness then the women also lose respect for him! For us men is a difficult situation that we have to constantly balance just right

nostr:nprofile1qyt8wumn8ghj7etyv4hzumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgtcpz9mhxue69uhkummnw3ezumrpdejz7qpqhspwpfkq7qddnj6h52c03muzgx79l7teeez99n57ys77g4m4vujsxx80sy , I don't think it is about playing games, it's more about testing/natural selection: you want to see what kind of person your partner is made of, and there is nothing wrong in wanting to test if your man has self-respect and has limits.

I think we men also test women (we all test each other in the end, as it should be), can't speak for other men (please chip in) but what I test a woman for is "when there is a difficolty/obstacle how do you react? Do you crawl into a corner and cry, or do you face it and react with actions and optimism?). I also test women to see how anxious they are (women do tend to be more anxious than men on average) because it is really hard to be with someone who is really anxious (at least for me, since I am on the opposite side of the spectrum)

Peace and love everybody, and please let's not make it a men vs women, we love each other and always had, let's get back to it !!