It depends on who you’re dealing with. But in cases when someone does this it’s usually a sign of immaturity. You feel that you’re making yourself vulnerable when you approach someone you are opening yourself up to a painful experience, ie being rejected. And since a lot of people haven’t learned how to handle things like that they resort to the childish “you hurt me so I’ll hurt you.” Mentality.
I think it’s funny it’s men this men that why can’t we just all agree that we are both sides of the same coin where we all suck at something. Men may struggle with emotional outbursts because no one has ever taught us about emotion. All we were taught is that it’s bad and it builds up to a breaking point. But on the other hand, women have never really been taught how to treat a man and severely lack some degree of accountability. We both suck that’s how it is
But I disagree with the framing that “men” do this. I’ve seen a lot of such behavior in my life and it was just as likely to come from a woman as a man. Especially after breakups immature women can get extremely venomous and start doing things to damage the reputation or future relationships of the person who they were in a relationship with.