3d ago

What are red flags you look out for in a relationship?

Rather than put my answers, I will leave space for you to jump in directly with yours:-).

28 comments

Cruelty or aggression towards other people. You might be treated differently early in the relationship but eventually that’s gonna be you on the receiving end.

There’s many but some new ones for me:
They shit talk others behind their back as a hobby. They’ll do it to you too
They’re not curious about things. I’ll get bored due to lack of interesting conversation
They never take ownership of fault or apologize. Everything will be blamed on you
Apparently if you do a - followed by a space it formats as a bulleted list!
- Holy fuck yes. Also, if you truly wanted a line starting with a dash, like for a quote attribution, preface it with a backslash character \ . I'll show it here:
  me, just now:-P
  
  You can do quote blocks with a > in front of the line
  You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take
  Wayne Gretzky

Love bombing

doesn’t return shopping cart to corral at the store
rude to service industry people or anyone else they see as being lower status
mean to animals
if she has kids, treats them as a burden/neglects them
expects me to pick up the tab for everything at all times, excepting rare situations like “we’ve been together a while & live together, she just lost her job but is actively looking”
has a breathalyzer interlock on her car’s ignition
in general, acts cruel or mean to people without obvious provocation
any form of physical, emotional, or verbal abuse
excessive consumption of alcohol or marijuana
any consumption of harder drugs
any other sign of gross immaturity or irresponsibility not listed above - i’m looking for a partner, not a dependant
- Oof that hurts a bit - fortunately (?!) at the receiving rather than offering end. Great list.:-)

How they respond to them asking me to do something and I say, "No." If they accept it without any problem and move on, that's good. If they inquire about it to make sure they are respecting boundaries, I'm okay, or there's something they can do to ameliorate a situation, that's good. If they argue it or insist in anyway, then that's a red flag. The reason is that they are implying that they don't accept my desires and situation as important in and of itself. I am more of a tool to achieve what they want because they are not demonstrating care for my experience. They are demonstrating that they will fight for what they want, so consent is a task to be acquired/achieved, not an natural approval based on mutual benefit.

Booze and weed. I just don't want it in my life anymore.
- Username does not check out
- I would argue that it's the "addiction" to those, or other substances (even work, or possibly even social media), but yeah I get you:-).
  
  Oh it's 'my' addiction

Mostly based on the shitty exes of the straight women I know:
Votes R. This means they do not respect women full stop.
Does not reciprocate emotional labor.
Swears liking femboys is straight.
Gets upset when told no.
Lack of confidence. This usually comes with all sorts of manipulative behavior to get what they want because they won't say it outright. Had a friend seek out a dominant person who turned out to really be a submissive but couldn't get women that way, so he would try and get them emotionally attached and manipulate them into dominating him without negotiating for those things.
The need to be right.
Being offended by the man vs bear thing.
Jokes about sexual assault.
Any hints of abuse. Controlling behavior. Love bombing. Etc. It's only going to get worse.
Cop.
- Swears liking femboys is straight.
  This one seems oddly specific and unlike the others. Is it because of being closeted LGBTQ (because it's not exactly "straight"), combined with homophobia?
  Because we could debate all day on how gay it is, and none of that is really a relationship red flag without homophobia.
  
  It's the homophobia.
- Swears liking femboys is straight.
  ...this is a thing? Man, learn something new and facepalm-worthy every day, seriously.
  
  https://youtu.be/TPtdJTrLNHw
  
  It's a symptom of internally defining 'gay' to mean 'immasculine' rather than 'homosexual'. Essentially, "it's only gay to bottom".
  A useful diagnostic follow-up would be to determine how straight they think Top Gun is.
- Great list!

Someone who says I can't have my 5.1 surround sound on the main TV. Basically she is saying "you might enjoy movies and TV this way but you aren't allowed to enjoy them anymore "
I'll walk away. I'll find someone who either prefers movies in surround or is at least neutral in it and won't mind if I have the theater turned on.
- That’s oddly specific, have you had this issue in the past?
  
  Sort of…
  Girl I was interested in made it clear she didn’t like “all that clutter” when talking about a surround system. She didn’t realize I was interested in her.
  I should note That I don’t date anymore, but back when I did date it was something I looked at

People who seem too desperate for approval too soon after meeting, ie the person who asked if I thought they were "problematic" and "a bad person" for their taste in media after our first date.
Maybe it's because of my own mental health history, I have OCD and I've engaged in that behavior before too. If I'm with someone else who does it I'm liable to relapse and it turns into a two-person misery spiral. Maybe someone a little healthier could just reassure them and move on, but I'm not there yet.
Also, I don't date anyone who just got out of a relationship. Their ex will change their mind and take her back and I'll look stupid 😭
- That reminds me of scammers that make the initial contact egregiously obvious so they only get the most gullible. Like the person is fishing for the people that will put up with their worst behaviors. Or anchoring problematic to innocuous behaviors to diminish "problematic" in the future. Could be intentional or subconscious. Good red flag to have.
- Codependency is rough, absolutely. Sometimes we need to focus on ourselves before we move onwards,.:-)

Continually having to explain why something is or is not funny.
- Online I could see that more - especially as certain apps seem to hide the community sidebar almost like it's on purpose to do so, despite how posts are shown individually in e.g. All - but irl that seems toxic AF, for the same person, yeah! 👍
  At that point it's not ignorance but obstinacy.

28 comments