Hey there. I just don't know if I'm being too...overreacting about this kind of thing. We've been together a year and a half and already had some issues at the start where he was always saying stuff like "guys need to be assholes to get girls", "girls never go for nice guys"; he has the belief that the only reason girls would ever wear makeup is to attract men. He also left his phone unlocked on the bed once and I glanced over, and saw him reading a RedPill thread. I'm not a snooper and didn't pick it up to see what exactly he was reading, but it was on that subreddit. I spoke with my best friend about this (the three of us are very close and she knows him as well as I do), she always tells me it bothers her as well but he has to be just kidding, or just acting "manly", but deep down he knows he's being silly. He's also very into self-help/dating advice books - The Game, and others; by themselves they're just books but mixing them in with his behaviors makes me suspicious. So a few months into our relationship I had a chat with him where I told him I was uncomfortable with the fact that he was clearly into this kind of thing, and that my brain was connecting the dots and I wanted to know if he subscribed to the RedPill ideology or was active in these communities. He didn't answer any of those questions directly, just came back with "Do you think I treat you well? Have my actions towards you reflected that stuff? If you really think so then I mean you can leave, but I think I've treated you well and I think you should base your decisions on that."

I didn't really know how to respond (I mean, yeah, fair enough, I guess), because for the most part he does treat me really well. So the relationship continued.

This past summer he and I were on a camping trip, and we skyped the same best friend and she was getting ready to go out or something, and he made a similar remark on makeup = attracting men. I immediately changed the subject, and when we hung up, I shut him down and told him that I was done with him making comments like that, and if he really thought those things, he would at least have the brain to keep them to himself. He almost cried and I felt awful, and didn't want to ruin our trip (we are long distance as well right now so we only see each other every few months), so I apologized, said it was fine, and that I just expect him to be a little more empathetic towards who he's talking to, and that these comments actually bother people. He agreed and things were fine.

A couple months later, the next time he visited me, the three of us were in my apartment getting ready for something and he made some similar comment AGAIN, and my best friend shut him down this time. He joked about it, using the phrasing "no need to be so sensitive, come on." I was pretty livid.

Neither of us said anything (I regret this) but I'm just getting tired. This same trip, he and I were in bed and I was showing him something on his laptop, and went to type in "reddit.com", and MGTOW was the first suggestion that popped up. In the moment I just gave him a look, but later on I asked him what that was all about, as it is 4000% worse than RedPill. He said oh, he had just read some post on there, not a big deal. I didn't mention anything but I know that if he had actually read a one-off post, then that posts's URL would have been the suggestion. Not the subreddit home page itself. I'm not an idiot.

He's also just very generally into masculinity and stuff. It's weird.

I just get the gut feeling that he's got some deeper interest in these subjects than he lets on. I'm almost...afraid to ask? A lot of these subreddits mention that you should never discuss these things with women, and I feel like he 100% wouldn't be honest with me if I asked directly. Maybe I'm just afraid of being wrong and breaking up with a good guy. Idk, should I trust my gut instinct on this? Men, do you read these subreddits often? Is it weird that he won't even give some sort of definitive "these subreddits say awful things about women, of COURSE I don't subscribe to these ideologies, I'm just curious, is all"? Obviously I've been reading them out of curiosity too, which is all fine and good, but he like, dances around the subject and throws my argument back at me, as if I'm the one that needs to take a hard look at what's going on. I just feel crazy.

tl;dr: In the title. Boyfriend has never said anything outright that makes me go "omg this guy guy is a SEXIST", but I'm seeing a lot of orange flags regarding RedPill behavior and ideas. Maybe I just can't see the red flags through the rose-tinted glasses?