When dating, it’s crucial to recognise red flags early to avoid toxic relationships. Often it’s not easy to identify them as people do not showcase their true selves early on. Yet, if there is a way to identify it, it saves you a lot of time.
Here’s a detailed list of red flags in a boy to watch out for
1. Early Grandeur Romantic Gestures
Over-the-top gestures, excessive compliments, and saying ‘I love you’ within weeks of knowing you. This either comes out of immaturity or in an adult relationship it is often a red flag. No regular person in their sane mind decides what they are feeling for you is ‘love’. So, if they are rushing the relationship and also expecting you to respond at once, this is a manipulation tactic disguised as affection.
2. Jealousy & Possessiveness Early on
You are still dating and probably haven’t even moved into a committed relationship. However, if he starts showing signs of jealousy and possessiveness in the name of ‘love’ that is something definitely off. Taking your phone password and checking who messages you. In fact this trait is not right even after going into a commitment. Feeling threatened by your friends is unhealthy especially if they are of the opposite gender.
3. Pseudo Respect
Usually they would compliment you and make you feel respected. However, if you choose to have long deep conversations they seldom pay attention and they don’t really respect your feelings or show empathy towards it. They might even talk down on your choices and don’t understand where you are coming from. When they make fun of your emotions, they don’t listen or pay attention to what you share and don’t care when you are upset, it is definitely a red flag.
4. Inconsistency in Behaviour
If he’s sweet one moment and explosive the next, it may indicate emotional instability. Inconsistency can also be shown in the traits they claimed they had but there was no action to make the claim true. For instance, they ask you to meet at a certain time, but without any reason they change their plans at the last moment. If this happens more than once, they are definitely not reliable.
5. Gaslighting
This point matches with inconsistency mentioned above. They make you doubt your own reality by saying things like, “You’re overreacting” or “That never happened.” Somewhere your heart tells you that you were right but they make you feel you were not.
6. Victim Card
If he blames everyone else for the things that went wrong in his life, this is something to think about. Mostly this refers to exes. Relationships always take two people to make it work, however, if it has failed there should be at least a little responsibility the other person shares for the failure. However, if he completely blames others, it is possible that they are always using the victim card and it could backfire on your relationship as well.
7. Showing No Interest in your Friends & Family
These fellas are usually not in for a commitment, hence they have zero interest in getting to know your friends and family. I am not saying they must meet them, however, in your conversations you may speak about your friends and family if he changes the topic or shows no interest in listening, this is definitely a red flag to watch out for.
8. Focussing on Appearance
If a guy is always complimenting on your looks and has nothing to say about your talents or goals, this guy is a red flag. His reasons to be with you are completely physical and he is probably not going to like it in case your look changes at any situation in the future.
9. Stalking and Using Gathered Information Against You
If he’s been stalking you on social media probably to get to know you that’s okay. However, if he references everything from your social media past and makes you feel that you have done something wrong, this guy has some serious stalker-syndrome that you need to worry about.
10. Unnecessary Relationship Pressure
Using the relationship as an excuse to put pressure on you to get something. This could be related to intimacy or exposing your financial details. It could also be cutting you off from certain people in your life. If it is not your choice to do, however, he insists you do it for example you are not ready for sex, however, he convinces you that you must do it or it makes you seem like a prude, it’s definitely a red flag.
11. Constant Lying or Half-Truths
Honesty is so basic in a relationship, however, if you noticed early on that he has a habit of lying or concealing things from you, that’s definitely a red flag. Some lies are still okay, however, if he thinks it’s too early in the relationship for you to know something he can always say that out loud instead of lying every now and then. Once someone thinks it’s normal to lie to a loved one, they would never feel guilty in the future in doing so either.
12. Your Relationship Is Meant to Be a Secret
He doesn’t need to post about you or introduce you to important people in his life. However, if he doesn’t even talk about making your relationship public in the near future, introduce you to his family or even tell you about his closed ones and his address, there is something that’s off. I had a friend who was extremely loveable; he even accepted her children as his. Even after 1.5 years of his relationship he didn’t introduce her to his parents. However, he did make a colleague/friend hangout with him. Hence, it didn’t feel like a total red flag at the start. However, in the end he was found to be already married and just disappeared from my friend’s life.
13. Ghosting
Unless he has a strong reason to go AWOL both online and offline, disappearing in the void is always suspicious. This majorly happens if he’s leading a double life and you need to ask him about this. If you are prohibited from getting answers, it is a red flag for a long term relationship.
14. No Ambition or Goals
If he has no plans for his life, he may not be mature enough for a serious relationship. Also, there are chances that he would be a gold digger and gold diggers will move on to whoever provides them better, if you fail to do so. If he’s temporarily out of a job that’s fine, as long as he’s actively pursuing something new he should be fine. However, if you see him depending on you for his expenses and all he does is enjoy his life and not seriously pursue anything, there are high chances that he’s not even taking you seriously.
There are many other red flags to watch out for, however, chances are they won’t be revealed after a certain time in the relationship. These were some of the early signs that you can spot in the guy you are dating. This will save you the time of being a part of a long term toxic relationship.
Ideally, you must enjoy your initial phase of dating and most girls turn a blind eye towards some sure-tell signs of a toxic relationship. It is advisable that while you do enjoy the good parts of dating, it does help to stay away from a boy who will never evolve or bring positive growth to your personality.
At the other end of the spectrum are black flags in a relationship to watch out for which we will discuss later.