Some of the most telling red flags in a woman are the ones that seem harmless at first, but then you realize you’ve been adjusting yourself around them for months.
The group chat gets a vote
It apparently doesn’t matter that she had a great time with him on Friday because, by Saturday afternoon, her opinion has changed. It’s all because her friends picked the date apart over brunch. Pay careful attention to a woman like that.
It’s natural for friends to influence dating decisions, of course, but the issue is when she’s unable to make a decision for herself. She shouldn’t need her friends to help her decide whether she likes a man. At that point, it stops being a date, and becomes more of an audition for a committee. That’s definitely not fun.
Someone else sets the benchmark
There are some women who just can’t stop comparing their relationship to their friend’s. One of her girlfriends gets flowers every Friday, so she expects the same. Another gets engaged after ten months, and now she’s wondering when you’ll pop the question.
A little comparison is normal because we all do it. Still, she shouldn’t be using another woman’s life as something that determines the expectations for her own life, because that’ll never end well.
The guessing game begins
She might say that nothing’s wrong, but she’s quieter than usual and keeps telling you she’s ‘fine.’ She’s waiting to see whether you figure out what’s wrong. It’s not right for anyone to make you into a mind reader, and nobody should expect you to know what they need.Â
Doing so makes disappointments into tests nobody agreed to take. There’s nothing all that romantic about direct requests, sure, but they certainly beat expecting someone to decode their mood. You’ll only get exhausted from being around a woman like that.
The rules keep changing
Listen to how she talks about independence and making her own decisions. She’s probably a big supporter of them. But then, when dinner arrives, it’s 1954 again, and she’s expecting a man to pay for her. It’s not fair. There’s nothing inherently wrong with preferring old-fashioned dating roles, of course.Â
The problem, however, is when a woman expects a man to provide, protect, initiate, and spend money on her, but doesn’t offer anything in return. She shouldn’t pick and choose the rules when they’re convenient. Equality should be across the board, so you might want to be wary of someone like this.
Watch how she talks about rivals
She’s perfectly pleasant with the women she likes. But when someone she dislikes enters the conversation, there are comments about her face and clothes, along with her dating history and weight. Anything available is up for critique, apparently.
You might brush it off as a little cattiness at first, but the truth is, these comments are a form of indirect aggression. She’s cruel to women she feels threatened by. Don’t be surprised if she brings some of that same nastiness much closer to home, and you’ll have to deal with it.
Every date becomes an audition
Let’s get one thing straight, effort does matter on a date. Of course it does. The problem is, a woman shouldn’t act as though affection only counts when it’s increasing. She shouldn’t expect every date to be better or more elaborate than the last.
Someone who behaves like that is going to make you feel like you’ve got to do more and more. Even when you go way over the top, you’re still being lazy, according to her. Yesterday’s big gesture became today’s minimum, and that’s an issue.
Openness has hidden limits
She tells you that she wants a man who can be vulnerable. But then you actually are vulnerable, and she acts differently. Yes, you get scared about losing your job, or you cry after something awful happens, and she says she doesn’t want to hear that. Everyone deserves to be respected in a relationship.Â
Everyone deserves to be open with their emotions in relationships. You don’t want to be with a woman whose actions don’t match what she said she wanted. She doesn’t care about openness. No, she wants the idea of it, and she cares too much about masculinity to let a guy be his true self. That’s really not someone you want to be around.
Being agreeable goes too far
It starts off with her saying that a guy is ‘so considerate,’ but then something odd happens. He keeps bending to her will, and she takes him less seriously. She dismisses every single one of his preferences because he rarely defends them, anyway.
The truth is, she lost respect for him once he became too accommodating. The red flag isn’t necessarily that she wanted a considerate man, but rather, she respected him less once consideration became constant accommodation.
Men start becoming labels
You might notice that she talks about men in a specific way. There’s ‘the finance guy,’ ‘the gym guy,’ ‘the commitment-phobe,’ ‘the provider,’ and so many more. Labels are useful sometimes for shorthand. But the danger is that they become a lazy way to stop looking at the actual person.Â
She shouldn’t be categorizing men into certain boxes. It’s a form of romantic objectification. Yes, women like that reduce men to traits or functions, and they’re more likely to suffer poorer relationship experiences.
Her friends always get a pass
You shouldn’t judge a woman by her friends, but you should judge her by the way she treats them. Maybe her friend cheats on a boyfriend. She justifies it by saying their relationship was basically over. It’s okay that her other friend screamed at someone in public because, apparently, she’s under a lot of stress.
Loyalty is totally normal. Creating endless excuses to support her friends’ bad behavior is something else, and it’s a sign that she might start justifying her own bad behavior the same way. Look at it this way, there’s no line that her friends can cross. There’s not one for her, either.
The verdict depends on gender
The way she treats each gender might be different. Take ghosting, for example. Her female friend ghosts a guy, and it’s okay because it was ‘probably for a reason.’ But a guy does the same, and she says he’s emotionally immature. There’s no logic to it.
There’s no reason for anyone to have double standards in a relationship, and you might want to avoid a woman who does have them. Not because inconsistent opinions are bad. Everyone has those, after all. The problem is that the rulebook changes depending on who’s holding it.
Attention becomes proof
A lot of male attention may begin to feel like a very persuasive argument. Some women act as though having plenty of men wanting them is evidence that their standards are reasonable. They take it to mean their choices are good. That’s not right.
Attention is naturally important, and yes, it does feel good. The red flag here is when a woman uses desirability as though it’s a scoreboard for things that it really doesn’t prove.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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