2 HOURS Of RED FLAGS In Women (Compilation)

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Speaker 1: What's not okay to do with a guy friend when

you have a boyfriend? The opposite of this. My 17,

soon-to-be 18-year-old nephew, had a prom recently. His parents are

good friends with a couple in Florida. And for whatever reason,

he was invited to Florida to be the couple's daughter's

date for prom. Mind you that this wasn't some family-held secret.

His parents knew it, duh. My parents knew it. His

sisters knew it. Aunts and uncles knew it. Grandparents knew it.

We were at a restaurant and began talking about it

when my nephew went to the bathroom. as he's embarrassed

about the topic. My sister came to the conclusion that

he should not tell his girlfriend and everyone else not

in agreement. I was the only one who was gawking

at her in disapproval. It's one thing to go to

prom with another girl. It's another to do so and

not tell your girlfriend about it, as well as lie

about what you were doing at the time. I said

the standard, if you were on the receiving end, how

would you feel? But no one batted an eye. Bruh.

The heck? This whole situation is giving me secondhand embarrassment.

I wasn't even involved and I'm still cringing. Story two.

Depends on what friendly means to you. I once had

a female friend who was super friendly and very physically affectionate.

She'd greet me with a kiss. She'd cuddle up with

me on the couch. She liked to hold hands. I

was fine with this and knew she was being friendly

and there weren't romantic ties to her actions. However, once

you got a significant other and my friend's actions continued,

they were understandably upset. Tell the other comment of, don't

do what you wouldn't do if your boyfriend was standing

next to you is generally good advice. It doesn't cover

it if you think your actions are fine. Like the

girl in my story thought. It's best to have a

conversation if you sense him getting upset and see if

your boundaries align with his. That doesn't mean bend to

his will and make him happy, but at least you'll

know if his boundaries are acceptable to you and you'll

avoid arguments from playing it by ear and waiting for

a fight. Story three. Use them as a boyfriend replacement

when your boyfriend is not available. I'm not really talking

about physical stuff. I mean, using another guy to fill

in whatever void you would normally do with your boyfriend

if he happens to not be available. I get platonic

friends and workplace partners are a thing, but Trying to

fill an emotional void with someone else because your boyfriend

isn't available is what sends mixed signals more than anything,

even if that's not the conscious intent. I want to

emphasize it's okay to do things if your partner isn't

available with other people or even just another person. It's

more a self-examination of when you're interacting with another person

singularly and why. Story four. I remember a conversation with

my ex. She was quite close to their own ex

who she had been friends with for years before they

even got together. So I understood her keeping in touch

with him, and they shared a friend group, etc. So

I wouldn't want to get in the way of that. However,

after a party, she mentioned she had stayed over at,

we'll call him Pete, Pete's, and that she'd done it before,

so it's quite handy. It was a long time ago,

so I can't remember the finer details, but I ended

up asking where she slept when staying at Pete's, and

it turns out she would sleep in his bed, with him.

That was one of our final conversations. So, I suppose

sharing the bed with a guy friend qualifies for the list,

especially if it's your ex. Story five. There's a lot

of structured answers here, but the real answer is that

it depends. You need to have a real conversation with

your partner and be open about your feelings and boundaries.

Then you can figure out what's okay to do with friends.

I've been married for over 25 years and my wife

and I know each other's boundaries. Friends are fine. We

do not hide stuff from each other. Neither of us

is into watching the other person flirt. I'm a bit

more possessive than she is, but we've talked about it.

Instead of trying to control her, I try to start

with how I feel and what those feelings are rooted in.

I wasn't always like this. Younger me was idiotic. One

of my best friends is super relaxed with his wife

and doesn't care if she flirts or dances with other guys.

She's more possessive than he is, but they make it

work because they've had honest conversations. Story six. Cuddling, long hugs,

and obviously intimacy. Don't talk to them about your intimate

life or go crying to them for comfort if you

get into a conflict with a significant other. If your

partner needs you, like if their car breaks down or

they get mugged, don't use this person as an excuse

for why you can't be there for them. A lot

of people wouldn't want their significant other to be alone

with an opposite gender friend in a private space either.

It's up to you whether this is a deal breaker

for you. And it's totally okay if it is, but

most people I know in relationships generally hang out with

their opposite gender friends in a group of three or more.

Story seven. I think you want to know about a

specific thing, but unless you tell us what specific thing

you want to do... We can only give you general answers.

I think there are two ways to approach this issue.

Imagine your boyfriend was doing this thing with a different

girl that you didn't know. If you don't like it,

then don't do it. And if you like it, but

it turns you on, probably still don't do it. Imagine

your boyfriend is in the room somewhere and you're talking

with a guy that he doesn't know. Do you look

around to see if your boyfriend is watching before you

do this thing? If so, then don't do it. If

you think you might have to explain to your boyfriend

why you're doing it, then don't do it. Story 8.

I'm not friends with any girls I wouldn't mind sleeping with.

That's usually almost always a sticky situation. That's why couples

are uncomfortable about it. Because, well, yeah, tread carefully. It

usually doesn't work out the way you think it will. Yes,

you can absolutely have friends of the opposite gender, but

they usually come over with their kids and husband during

a 4th of July barbecue and leave shortly after. It

really depends on the context. But having a single friend

of the opposite gender that you're constantly in contact with...

usually never ends well for anyone. There might not be

an underlying motive, but nine times out of ten, there

usually is. Story nine. Rule number one, don't do anything

you wouldn't tell your partner over breakfast. Rule number two,

if that starts to feel like you can't do anything

whatsoever at all, double check whether your partner is actually

relationship material. Take it from someone who's been mono and

a triad and who's been in two poly and open

relationships for eight and respectively three and a half years.

What does and doesn't work in a relationship depends on

the people in it and how well they communicate. There's

folks out there who can draw the line at cuddling

friends and others who can give less of a crap.

There's already folks who lose their crap at one-to-one time.

Those are not dating material, just to be utterly clear.

And others who are a lot more relaxed. The person

to ask is always our partner first, and then ourselves.

If we are okay with the rules our partner wants

to put down, all dandy. And if not... There is

either compromise or a necessary breakup that, while sad, benefits

everyone involved in the long run. People who walk through

this world thinking their personal way of doing things is

the one and only rarely overlap with people who make

for great partners. Story 10. Me and my fiancé recently

broke up because of the things she was doing with

her male friend who was a spy. Only had a

history of dating girls. Tried to set boundaries as it

was making me uncomfortable. Mostly it was the texting. It

was her only Snapchat friend she talked to consistently. Never

really snapped me. Had more one-on-one time with her than

I did because of school. Constantly sending selfies. Texted each

other till midnight. Buying her a lot of gifts. Never

compromised whenever I tried to set boundaries. Called me controlling.

She'd get all dolled up whenever he came over. Wore

his old clothes he gave her. Talked about toys. Wasn't

coming home on time when he watched her son and

had dinner ready. Confided in him about her relationship problems.

Became more distant and started hiding her phone more. I

don't think anything physical occurred, but emotionally, I felt like

she was cheating and I was being pushed further back

on her priorities. We couldn't trust each other anymore. And

breaking it off, though painful, was the right call, due

to all the stress she was having on her health.

At least mine. I was packing my things to move out.

He was there, already replacing me, it seemed. I believe

boys and girls can still be friends, but it's up

to your particular dynamic to see what is okay and

what is not. Admittedly, I am an insecure person, but

In our case, she wasn't doing much to make me

feel secure in the first place. Okay, I get borrowing

a t-shirt, but like, his old clothes? Was this some

kind of weird symbolic gesture? Like she was absorbing his

essence or something? Story 11. Oh man, I was in

this situation for years. My best friend had a boyfriend

who didn't like me. They didn't like him either because

of how he treated her. We worked together and hung

out after work and stuff for years and I was

genuinely in love with this girl but she was already

taken by the schmuck. They didn't feel right about the

whole situation so I quit my job and told her

how I felt and I understood the situation and we

needed to not see each other anymore. A year went

by and they ended up breaking up. We had now

been together for almost three years and I think I'm

going to marry this girl. I spent years being silent

about my feelings because I knew I wasn't respectful to

her or him as much as I didn't like him.

I don't know if I really answered the question, but

I'd say if you're disrespecting the relationship at all, it's

not okay. Story 12. Don't ask your male friends to

do all the favors, chores, and tasks that you don't

want to ask your boyfriend to do. I don't mean

specialized tasks. If your buddy Joe is a plumber and

he can help you replace a hot water heater on

the cheap, call Joe and ask him for help. However,

I've had female friends ask me to do all sorts

of errands for them, and when I asked why their

boyfriends couldn't, They said some derivation of, I don't want

to annoy my boyfriend. Why the heck are you annoying me?

Getting married was the best decision ever made in my life.

Some women really do not understand boundaries. Story 13. If

you call this person your boyfriend, you must be committed

to them. I believe a couple needs to be a

unit while maintaining their individuality. What I mean is embrace

your beliefs and thoughts, but also be able to put

yourself in your partner's shoes and see your actions and

beliefs from their perspective. No two minds are the same,

so understanding each other is key. If you truly are

committed to this person, then anything that you wouldn't do

in front of your boyfriend with this guy, i.e. affection, flirting,

inappropriate jokes, or anything around that matter, just don't do it.

If you want to be with your boyfriend, don't create

trust issues. Guy friends always reach the point where they

feel they can go to the next level, regardless of

if you have a partner or not. So if it's

worth it to keep your boyfriend, keep your friend a friend.

Maybe even tell him you don't feel comfortable hanging out

with him without your man. Maybe even try to get

them to become friends. Keep his trust and he will

keep you happy. Much love. Stay true. Story 14. Spending

much more time with him rather than with your partner.

My best friend and I have known each other since

we were pre-teens. I was literally the first friend they

ever had because they were raised in a remote farm

with next to no contact outside of their family. We

do almost everything together. Now, for as long as we've

known each other, we spend more time together than we

spend with anyone else in our lives outside of work.

We're both in relationships. I've known my boyfriend for about

eight months, give or take. Been together for less. They've

been together for about a year. Both of our partners

know this and understand that, yes, I am going to

do more things with this person I have shared over

half my life with, went through some serious traumas with,

hit almost all of my current major life milestones with,

than the person who I've known for a few months.

If I use she to describe this relationship, it's fine.

It's childhood friends maintaining a friendship together even as their

lives change. There are dozens if not hundreds of cheesy

movies about that exact thing that people point to as

an ideal friendship. If I use he, it's emotional cheating.

It's disrespecting my boyfriend. It's unacceptable and I should be

ashamed of myself. I'm bisexual. Am I just not supposed

to have any close relationships outside of my partner? The

societal expectations of adults basing who they should form a

platonic relationship with and how many of them are men

is freaking weird. And I can't for the life of

me understand why it's the standard. Story 15. Honestly, I

don't believe in guy friends. I guarantee if a girl

who has many guy friends for experimental purposes calls these

guy friends and tells them to come over and fool around,

the majority of them will be on their way. Not

so guy friend, is it? Also, I guarantee if you

break up with your boyfriend, you will probably run to

your guy friend. I think male and women can be

friends only in rare situations. I have a lady friend

who I go fishing with. She's a lot older than me.

There's no attraction. There's never been anything between us. My

ex used to go crazy when we went fishing together.

I invited my ex to come with me as many

times and she never came. Then she tells me she

has this childhood guy friend who they had a fling with.

And one time took all of us to hang out

and I said no. When we broke up she ran

to her guy friend. Lol. Now she's trying to get

me back but we have deeper issues than guy friend

or lady friend so... That's another story. Story 16. Constant texting,

including late night texts from bed. In my scenario, this

wasn't ever hidden from me, which perhaps proved my girlfriend

didn't realize I had that look, but after I said something,

it should have meant something. It continued nevertheless. And it's

not just about the awkward times or the closeness. It's

about when having some fun or interesting story to share,

she shares it first with a guy friend instead of me.

That's a red flag in my humble opinion. It also

matters whether this is a guy she's been friends with

since long before she met her boyfriend. In which case,

you can't really require someone to end the relationship and

meeting someone new while in a relationship and getting to

that point of closeness. When I'm in a relationship, I

avoid getting too friendly with girls I've just met. My

logic is, if I'm happy, I don't really need this.

Story 17. Talk to your boyfriend about this. Not everyone

has the same boundaries. My general rule of thumb is

that if you would do it with a girlfriend, it's

probably fine. I think most people would find that a

bit too lenient, but when you enter the realm of

dating or being a bisexual person, you realize that it

doesn't really make sense to set your boundaries based on

the gender of the person in question. Intent matters a lot, too.

For example, if you're the kind of person who likes

to kiss your friends in the cheek as a show

of affection, that's not a problem as long as everyone involved, you,

your partner, the friend in question, consents. When it becomes

a problem is when the intent shifts from being friendly

to being in pursuit of some sort of romantic or gratification.

Story 18. My best friend is a guy and it's

never been an issue for my husband. We've talked about

it a time or two and my husband has told

me that the reason it's never bothered him that his

wife is a guy best friend is because I've always

been completely transparent about their relationship. I consistently include my

husband in plans with my friends, including the BFF. We've

always gone out on double dates with the BFF and

his wife, and it also helps, in my husband's opinion,

that my BFF is not my type at all. I'll

also say that I do have boundaries in what I

will talk about with my BFF, with them being the

opposite gender. For example, I would never complain about my

husband to my BFF or share details on a fight

we'd had. And I feel that way because I wouldn't

want my husband sharing that kind of stuff with his

female friends. And when I'm out to dinner or something

with just the BFF... My husband knows exactly where I

am and when I'll be home, so no secrets or unknowns.

Story 19. When I was younger, I used to hang

out with a girl I was romantically interested in, even

though I was in the friend zone and I knew it.

I was hoping something romantic would organically come from our

close friendship, but never wanted to force anything or make

it weird, and nothing like that ever happened. She would

hit me up to hang out all the time and

almost every time would end up sleeping in my bed

with me, even though we never did anything intimate. She

would say that, even when she got married, her husband

would have to respect her relationship with her best friend, me.

And he could kick rocks if her sleepovers made him

feel uncomfortable. She really genuinely thought that would be okay

to do. I think that's really, really stupid. Because as

a boyfriend, I would not feel comfortable with my girlfriend

sleeping in her male best friend's bed with him all

the time. And I don't think many girlfriends would appreciate

their boyfriend sleeping in an attractive girl's bed on a

weekly basis. Especially if the boyfriend always calls her his

best friend. She absolutely did not see how glaring of

a red flag there would be for 99.9% of monogamous people.

It really made me question which red flag society mostly

agreed upon, and whether I'm the odd one. Story 20.

The answers are already decisive, but sometimes the boundaries aren't

as clear. For example, I played a touring band some

years ago, and we did a one-week stint where a

female backup singer was with us. My significant other had

an irrational fear that this girl had a crush on me,

though never having met her. She tried to stop me

from going and was incredibly anxious the whole time I

was away. I also had to give up my female

friendships from high school for her. Meanwhile, it's okay for

her to have male friends. Just last week, she was

on her way out of the house and said she

was getting lunch with Brant. It was a guy who

was clearly interested in her around the time we started dating.

I took the high ground and said it's cool, trusting

her even when she didn't trust me. This same guy

was hanging out when she lived with her parents and

she let him stay over when I got laid. Separate rooms, apparently.

Her parents said, don't you think Pheebs plays keys won't

like that? She just said, he trusts me. I'm okay

with it as I trust her, but sometimes it feels

weird when the same isn't reciprocated. Story 21. There are

a lot of normal answers, but ultimately the only real

answer is, you should respect the boundaries you and your

boyfriend agreed to. Almost every other top answer is irrelevant

if you have a discussion about boundaries. and agree to

what they should be, up front. A lot of, I

don't want my boyfriend to know, and that's pretty legit,

but it's very possible that you have an open relationship

with a don't ask, don't tell policy. So that goes

out the window. Same for, I wouldn't want my boyfriend

to do it if the roles were reversed. Maybe your

boyfriend has fixations and wants you to have intimacy with

other guys, but you don't feel that way and want

him to only be intimate with you. That's a totally

legit scenario. Talk to each other and establish boundaries and

then respect them. Story 22. On the subject of friendships,

that's something that varies from relationship to relationship. Some people

won't care. Some will. Some will have a reason. Some won't.

Maybe your relationship matures after a year or two and

becomes solid enough to accommodate platonic friendships. When I first

met my wife, her best friend from high school got

back in touch with her after we'd been dating for

a month. She brought it up, told me that they'd

had intimacy once out of boredom, that she wouldn't talk

to him because of it. I didn't care either way,

so I just sort of went with it. When he

tried reaching out to her again and she just decided

I should be fine with her reconnecting, it caused a

bit of friction at first. I was upset because she

made the decision without talking to me about it. So

we all hung out together a couple times. Now I

see a lot of people talking about how, if you

trust your significant other, then why are you so crazy?

But unless you're Polly or someone with a c *

* k involving multiple partners and in a relationship that

accommodates your desires, why is it so hard to understand

that you don't want someone hanging around your partner that

you can tell wants to fool around with them? It's

not even so much an issue of trust. It's not

a red flag to not want your significant other to

spend time privately with someone who wants to replace you,

especially if there's a history involved. It only becomes a

red flag if you extend that to include everyone of

your significant other's preferred gender as someone who wants to

sleep with your partner. It's true. Platonic relationships exist. It's

also sadly true that a lot of really good friendships

are ruined because of jealousy in your relationship. However, it's

also true that a lot of times, that person who

your partner sees as a sibling refuses to acknowledge the

fact that said sibling gives off all kinds of signals

and will frequently put before you because they've always been

my best friend, etc., etc., is probably who they're going

to cheat on you with. if they end up cheating

on you. So back to the story. I hang out

with my wife and this dude. It gets weird around me,

squaring up and showing off in front of me and her.

I tell my wife, she agrees it's weird, but is

sure that there's nothing like that going on. Long story short,

when he realized she was in a happy, committed relationship,

he ghosted her. So yes, there can absolutely be platonic relationships,

but you shouldn't be upset about your partner wanting to

make sure that's what it is, unless they're being completely

crazy about it. If you absolutely must maintain this friendship,

even at the cost of your partner's hurt on the matter,

then the relationship isn't compatible as is. You need to

work it out between or break up. If you're enjoying

the video, don't forget to hit that subscribe and like

button for more videos like this. Story 23. In my view,

anything where it's just the two of you. Especially if

a guy friend is single. There's an overwhelming probability, in

my opinion, the guy friend wants to fool around but

settles for not. To some extent, I suppose it also

depends on how much time the dude wants to spend

with a woman who's already in a relationship. Why isn't

he out there finding someone for himself for that time?

Hanging out with friend groups and such is fine, but

if my girl were to routinely go hang out alone

with some other dude... I'd consider that an issue. I

wouldn't try to forbid her or anything like that. Controlling

what other people do is not great. I just really

question what she needed from another dude so badly that

she'd go hang out with him alone. Just the two

of them. Real platonic friendship between two attractive people of

the opposite gender is borderline myth, in my opinion. Many

people pretend it's common. Sure. Story 24 Well, it's like this.

If the boyfriend liked her enough to keep her, then

he probably should have put a ring on it. This

ain't kindergarten, folks. You don't get to play house with

no ties. Taking all her time while you decide if

you really want to keep them or not? Make her

move or lose her. Same goes for women. Either take

care of your guy or someone else will. Stop taking

things for granted. You snooze, you lose. They haven't done

anything wrong in my book. They're married. They're dating. They

didn't pledge an oath or swear under God to be

with that person until passing do they part. They ain't

doing anything but playing with the thought of being married.

Until they're married, all bets are off. Fair game. Play ball.

Story 25 Truthfully, almost anything that you feel you need

to keep a secret. But even then, there are some

things that I wouldn't be comfortable with my girlfriend doing

with another guy, the same way she would feel if

I did similar things with a girl. The main things

are kisses of any kind that aren't quick pecks in

the cheek, full frontal hugs that last several seconds, basically

if your cheek is against their chest or vice versa.

Too intimate for me. Hand-holding. Sharing a bed. These are

the main ones. I would be cautious about venting to

guy friends about the relationship, unless something is actually wrong.

I've seen a few relationships turn into emotional cheating because

she complained that he didn't do the dishes or he

complained she didn't notice his new clothes or something. And

then the friend validates and then strokes their ego. Weaker

people fall prey to that feeling and cheat rather than

end the relationship. If you're seeking or fulfilling emotional needs

that should be fulfilled in a relationship, take a second look.

Think long and hard if you want to even be

in that relationship because cheating of any kind is awful.

Story 26 I personally don't talk to others of the

opposite gender outside of public and professional situations, besides siblings

and parents. That is not something my wife asked of me.

She does the same for me. People put themselves in

these situations and it just seems crazy to me. I'm

also a fan of windows and office doors and things

of that nature. I've seen lots of people talk about trust.

It's not about trust. I trust my wife completely. I

appreciate that she doesn't put herself in situations where there

is even the remote possibility of something happening. She appreciates

the same as me. We're both human and temptation is

a thing. Respect your partner enough to not put yourself

in that situation. Story 27. Tickling. Me and my ex

broke up because she had a friend that started tickling

her too often for me. Sometimes even in the swimming

pool when she was wearing a bikini. I was on

the right, right? My ex and her friends kept saying

it was just fooling around but I couldn't stand it

so we broke up. Before you ask, no, she's not

with him now and nothing happened between the two apart

from tickling and hug tickling, just ask your partner and

don't think, what if it was me? Quite often both

partners have different sensibilities or perspectives of what's actually going on.

Once you know how your partner feels, you can negotiate

how much you're willing to forfeit. I'm sure you wouldn't

want your actions to make your partner suffer or you

wouldn't want a partner that makes you suffer or doesn't

care about it. Though if you feel you're forfeiting too much,

then maybe your personalities aren't a match. Hey, sweetie, how

do you feel about my friend tickling me when we're

fooling around? I wouldn't mind if you tickled some of

your girlfriends, but you might. What's your thoughts? As a counterexample,

I'm currently married with a different woman. And when I

was dating this woman, I went to a music festival,

but she couldn't come. So I went with two other girlfriends,

and the three of us shared a tent. This could

be too much with a different person or a different relationship,

but my absent girlfriend, now my wife, trusted me. I've

never done anything that challenged her trust, and I never

betrayed nor cheated on her. But I would accept it

if you wanted me to buy a new tent lot

and sleep by myself in a different tent. Just speak

and ask your partner. Manage expectations. Hug tickling? Is that

like regular tickling but with more embrace? Sounds intense. I'm

picturing a full-on wrestling match but with giggles. Story 28.

So incredibly simple. If you cannot come along at any time,

it's not something you should do. This also means if

he decides to show up wherever you are with his

guy friend and you would be nervous, upset, angry, or

any other emotion other than, Hey hon, glad you're here too.

Then it's not okay. And I think the easiest way

for a woman to understand this question is to reverse

the scenario. Would you be comfortable with him doing exactly

what you're doing? There's a caveat to this though. This

only applies to someone who is absolutely committed to their partner.

Not someone who's just got a boyfriend, isn't serious, or

isn't a casual-style boyfriend-girlfriend. I said for a woman because

women genuinely do not understand that there are no guy friends.

Guy friends either want to have intimacy with you or

are gay. There's no in-between. Friendzone is a real thing

that many, if not most, women do not understand. Story 29.

Pretty much anything. There's not a lot of platonic friendships

between people of the opposite gender. Either one of you

secretly wants to sleep with the other, or you both do.

Most men and most women, there's just not enough common

interests there to base a friendship on where you both

hang out with each other with no physical interest. As

a guy, the female friends I had when I was younger,

it was all girls, I had no attraction to at all,

but 90% were into me. I'd never hang out one-on-one.

I'd ask their opinion on relationships, etc., and occasionally I'd

hang out as part of a larger group. If I

was interested, there's no way for me to be friends.

I'd either be actively pursuing something or I'd avoid extended

contact and not tempt myself as I was in a

relationship already. Anyone I ever dated, I'd be transparent that

I'd talk to a female friend, etc. And they'd mostly

pretend to be cool with that when I knew they

really weren't. I just phased them out. As a married man,

no freaking way. I can be friends with my wife's

friends when we're in a group setting and that's it.

If one of my kids meets a friend at school

they want to hang out, unless it's the father setting

it up, I'm 100% giving them my wife's phone number.

I can't even imagine having a female friend as a

married person in their 40s. That's just a social taboo

that people don't cross. As a guy, there's just not

a lot of things I'd have in common with most

females to base a friendship on. They might be a

nice person. They might be fun in a group setting.

But one-on-one, they just aren't friend material. I've had a

few female friends in the past when I was younger.

I had no interest in them at all, but I'm

pretty sure they did in me and just were too

shy to ask. Not long-term or close friends, but occasionally

I'd get invited out as part of larger groups to

do things with them. There was a girl I dated

briefly that I kept in contact with for a few years.

We'd complain about our dating lives and hung out a

few times when we were both lonely, but nothing more

than that. If it was a girl I was attracted to,

there was no way I could be friends. I'd either

be actively trying to change their relationship or I'd be

actively disengaged because I was in a relationship. and I

was avoiding those sorts of scenarios. Story 30. 100% agree

with the if you wouldn't do or say something with

your boyfriend standing there or wouldn't tell him about it,

it's not okay. But I wanted to add that this

also goes for the guy friend. If he is behaving

in ways that he wouldn't if the boyfriend were around,

speaking differently when the boyfriend is or isn't around, sending

texts that he doesn't want you to show the BF, etc.,

that should tell you a lot about his intentions and

whether he's actually a friend or just a nice guy

waiting for his chance to get in your pants. Basically,

if the guy friend isn't respecting, supporting, and deferring to

your relationship, you were wrong for allowing him to remain

a guy friend at all. And I'd dump you for

allowing his behavior even if you weren't doing any of

the behaviors yourself. Story 31. Depends how stupid this question

is really meant to be. There's the big list of

obvious stuff, but obvious is in air quotes because people

can be very selfish when they think they can get

away with something. So start with pretending your boyfriend was

standing next to you. Would you do the thing you're doing?

Any hint of no, and it's a hard no. From there, though,

you have to explore the concept that your boyfriend's feelings

should matter to you. And he may feel uncomfortable with

you doing all sorts of things that are otherwise not

generally a problem, but could be in your relationship. If

your boyfriend is upset about something you're doing with your

guy friend, take that seriously, regardless of what Reddit says.

Ask him to explain what bothers him about it. Decide

if that thing is very important to you and your

relationship with your guy friend, and weigh that against making

your boyfriend uncomfortable. Easy examples. You're dating a dude and

it's very serious. You see a life with him. He

doesn't like that you kiss your guy friend when you

say hello. He doesn't make a big fuss, but he

does mention it. Stop kissing your guy friend. You're dating

a dude who's more of an intimate buddy than a

life partner. He sees a pic of you and your

friend on Instagram and demands that you stop seeing him

and block him. Tell your buddy no and part ways

if needed. Story 32. My girlfriend moved in with me

after about two months of going out. It was sudden, yes,

a little foolish. I was cooking for her every night

and it was a bit of a whirlwind romance. I

can't remember why, but something really nagged at me. A suspicion.

I decided long ago that I'd either completely trust someone

or not at all. I don't do jealousy. I'd rather

trust than worry. If I can't trust someone, we shouldn't

be together. End of story. For whatever reason, she left

her iPad out and logged into Facebook. I checked her

messages and found that every special and difficult meal I

cooked for her she had taken a photo of, sent

it to a guy she was in contact with and

told him she made it and couldn't wait to see

him again and cook it for him. Turned out later

as well that this guy had met her on Tinder

and paid her to have intimacy with him. Multiple times.

She was basically turned on to the idea of selling

herself and after I ended it and she moved out,

she went into that business. Story 33. Having a guy friend.

You either learn this the easy way or you learn

it the hard way. Most of us end up learning

the hard way. Be smarter than most. Play stupid games,

win stupid prizes. It always goes wrong. You can be

friendly with people at work or school. I'm not saying

be a schmuck to every guy you ever meet, but

anything beyond appropriate workplace niceties will lead to problems. Don't flirt.

Don't spend time alone. Don't share meals or drinks. Don't

exchange gifts or get each other things, including coffee. Don't touch.

Don't forget to mention your boyfriend. Don't complain about your

boyfriend to him. Don't let that one slide or not

enforce boundaries because it would be rude. The only time

it is okay to meet outside of work or school

is if you both have significant others. You both bring

them and you do double dates as couple friends, if

everyone is in agreement. But that does not change any

of the other rules. Been on every single side of

these dice and it has never once not turned out horribly.

Someone always gets hurt. Story 34. My best friend since

high school got a super cool girlfriend right after we graduated.

We used to work long hours and since I was

back home only for the summer, I used to spend

lots of time with her or them. Like shopping with her,

going out for a coffee or a movie, picking her

up from work and then we would both go together

to pick him up and hang out. The three of

us would go camping together, going to concerts, and had

a total blast for a few summers. They eventually broke

up years later, but me and her never had anything

between us except pure friendship and fun. Even if she

had developed feelings, her friends as girls were a huge

no-no to me. One of my girlfriends at the time

found all this super weird. She thought we were having

a sick triad relationship and she never fully trusted me.

We had arguments all the time and she even took

that girl out to talk to her. Get to know

her and smooth things out. This just never worked out.

Eventually we broke up and she wrote me a letter

saying she wants to come to our wedding. Funny enough,

my best mate's ex-girlfriend organized her wedding with my current

lovely wife. And my wife and she have been very

good friends for almost 10 years now. Almost everyone that

knew us at the time thought we were together secretly

behind my best mate's back, so needless to say, we

lost some friends along the way because of that. Sounds

like a super schmuck thing to do, but as said above,

nothing ever happened and all of us are still on

best of terms. So, needless to say, not everything is

as it looks from the outside. Story 35 As a

man who shares 100% of the values of other men

that I've met through my life, a platonic guy friend

for a female doesn't exist. The same goes for a

male friend for a guy who's in a relationship. Is

it possible to be platonic with the other gender while

in a relationship? Yes, but what is the point? Are

you trying to build a long-term relationship, have a family

in the future, or you just have a boyfriend or

girlfriend for fun? A female should have female friends and

a guy should have male friends. If those friends are toxic,

pushing to cheat, binge drink, and try to influence you

while they're single and you're in a relationship, you distance

yourself from them. Which is why most older people who

have a working long-term relationship barely have close friends anymore.

Story 36. Look, the simple fact is that a lot

of girls keep guys around to be their recovery boyfriend

if their current boyfriend breaks up with them. To do this,

they flirt so slightly with them or say things like, Oh,

I wish my current boyfriend would do what you just did.

Just enough for the guy to think, Man, if she

was single, she'd probably want to date me. This is

emotional mistreatment. Don't do this. If you're not comfortable in

your relationship and you're afraid that your current boyfriend is

going to break up with you for any reason, maybe

you two aren't meant to be together and you should

accept that fact. The fact that 95% of guys who

are friends with other guys' girlfriends would absolutely 100% fool

around that girl if she wanted to and he was

given the opportunity. There are YouTube videos on this where

they go around and ask the third wheel if he'd

have intimacy with her and the answer is almost always yes.

Story 37. So this is something I personally chose to do,

not from pressure of any man. I won't spend time

with my friend alone. There can be a group or

another gal. I found my partners don't feel their insecurities

as strongly this way. I feel like people are quick

to shout that partners shouldn't be insecure, but the truth is,

everyone has insecurities. And that's okay. And human. I also

think it's respectful when a guy buddy gets a girlfriend

too and can help her feel less insecure. I always

hope to foster a friendship with my girlfriends. I'm a

girl's girl, so it's also an opportunity to expand my

circle of friends. Win-win for everyone in my book. Story 38.

I'm just a stranger on the internet, but I think

a good way to avoid this might be to try

and be friendly with a guy and make it clear

that you respect the boundaries of their relationship. You probably

won't see her as much, but that doesn't mean you

need to lose her as a friend. When I met

my wife, she had a male best friend and we

hit it off really quickly and I became really good

friends with him and his partner along with my wife.

Funnily enough, they did end up having a falling out

several years ago, but he and I are still friends,

even if we're more distant than we used to be.

I play Magic at his place most Fridays and we

also catch up the draft and Super Bowl together and

do fantasy football. I'm just saying it doesn't have to

be the worst case scenario. And also that you can

grow apart from someone while still maintaining a fondness and

respect and you each grow and change. Think of the

old friends you had from school or growing up that

you don't see for many years, but pick right up

again when you're left off and you finally see each other.

Story 39. When one partner hides something from the other

when it is not a secret from anyone else. Makes

me wonder if the partner they're hiding the information from

is one of those overbearing, hypercritical partners that doesn't allow

their partner to do anything with other people, platonic or not. want,

and their partner is being psycho if they have any

problem with it. Example, A doesn't allow B to hang

out with their friends because they have friends of the

opposite gender, and if there's any sign of B communicating

with any of those friends, A accuses them of cheating. Meanwhile,

A will continue spending time with all of their friends,

including several exes who they are still close to, and

routinely still have movie night with, wherein they snuggle up

on the couch and share a bowl of popcorn. occasionally

falling asleep and spending the night cuddled in each other's arms.

But if B, this is anything, they're being a psycho-controlling partner.

Story 40. Guys and girls can be friends like that.

One always secretly has feelings for the other that would

jump at the given chance. Men are salesmen. Women are marketers.

When you choose to get in a relationship, you stop

putting yourself out there to get noticed. Clubs, bars... attention-seeking behaviors,

soliciting compliments from other men, usually social media as you

expect your man to stop approaching females, going to the

bars to pick up women, flirting, chatting up. It's respect.

You wouldn't appreciate if your man hung out with his

female friends without you. Give him the same respect. Guys,

what do women do that give you the ick? She's

a nurse. Friday night, she's working until 9pm. Hadn't gamed

in a while or spoken to my brother and friends,

so we set up a gaming night that night and

she was aware of it. She gets home around 9.30pm.

Says she's too tired to cook. She cooks a lot though,

so I'm not saying she's lazy. Didn't want to go

grab some food and asked me if I could bring

her home. I politely declined, stating I had a few

drinks and that I already had plans with my friends.

She was upset at it. We broke up a few

days later and this was one of the two reasons

she gave me. I failed her test to show I cared,

I guess. This girl thinks him driving intoxicated is both

an A-plus move and more important than her ordering in.

Bullet dodged. Story two. What's wrong? Nothing. I got fed

up with that with one of my exes and said, okay.

And went about my day. She tried to give me

crap for that and told her, I tried to get

you to talk about it and you didn't want to.

That's on you. This is the reaction you're going to

get from now on when you pull that. She stopped

pulling that. I don't do this double-handed dishonest crap. I

will take you at your word. If there's nothing wrong,

there's nothing wrong. If you want to go shower and

you're telling me about it, cool. I'll make sure I

don't run any water. You don't want anything to eat,

then you don't get any of mine. If you tell

me you're broken, I will believe you and make plans accordingly,

hoping you sort your crap out, etc. Add literally nauseam.

After all, you don't want me to assume and treat

you like you're a liar, so deal with it. Story

3 A lot of the things in here are toxic

traits that anyone could have. But there's one thing I

will say that is 100% related to gender. My wife

thought for a while that I was a misogynist because,

of my very few social conflicts over the years, they

have overwhelmingly been with women. But during my self-reflection, because

only a great fool ignores his spouse's opinion, something occurred

to me. I've never been spoken to by a man

the way several women have spoken to me when we

disagreed on something. A man knows that if he puts

on a condescending voice and belittles another man, he's likely

to be punched in the face. Because a lot of

us have been punched in the face for it. But

that consequence never comes to women, because we're taught to

never hit them. So my ick is women who, without

even realizing it, misuse their position as protected people to

attack and denigrate others, especially since they are the same

people to cry that they're victims of misogyny. Story 4.

Probably the way they say, or in the past have said,

that they'll support me and help and be there, yada yada.

In the first sign of weakness and vulnerability you show,

accidental or not, then they start distancing themselves. Maybe in

a way when they don't truly know what they actually want.

The quantity, not the quality. Don't want a man that's

going to be equal and 50-50 and split the bill.

Acts vulnerable and can't control his emotions, and a majority

don't like a man that gets defeated by something. Whether

it's another dude physically or otherwise. a mental health crisis,

a financial crisis. Show any of these things to your

run-of-the-mill woman you'd think you'd like to make your wife,

and she will look for an exit strategy once the

dust's settled. A vast majority of women have said, you

can talk to me about how you really feel. And

if you're lucky, you get to end the conversation and

the collapse of your relationship will happen slowly, but in time.

Or you can have this conversation, end it with an

argument because it's not about her or she thinks it is.

A majority of women in this day and age don't

give a crap about men. and they either don't hear

them or don't listen, period. That's an ick. Then again, men, dudes, bros,

stop putting these women on a freaking pedestal and working

yourselves in the meantime. Don't chase, delete Tinder, work out,

and find peace in yourself. You're looking for something no

one in this world can give you except for yourself.

You'll know when to ask someone on a date or

if they'd like to get coffee or whatever it is

you're thinking about doing. Story five. And they get mad

at me for trying to help. I work in a

big box store and it is customary to help people out,

especially when lifting something heavy. But this one girl got

so mad at me for trying to help because she

thought I was belittling her. I literally offer the same

amount of help to every guy. I'm cool if you're

a feminist, but don't be toxic about it. You were

a human before you were a female. We're all humans.

We all need help at times. To clarify, this was

help loading a tub and wall surrounds. I work in

the department and she does not. The guy in my

department all team lifts these things because they're large and heavy.

She accepted help but was just a pill about it.

Story six. Assumption that we know what we did that

was wrong and projection. Maybe it is just me, but

when I do something wrong, I never attempt to be

hurtful or be mean in any capacity, but sometimes it happens.

I would like to be told in a reasonable manner

that I have upset them. Maybe. Just maybe. Instead of

bottling it up for days on end hoping that I

will work it out, just tell me. Like an adult.

What is wrong and how I upset you. I don't

really have the intuition to always know what I've done

that has upset you. I don't get annoyed by people

that easily, but when I do, you bet your back

I'll say something. And sometimes people have gone unreasonably angry

at me for quite minor things. Going into another room

while they're cooking dinner so I can quickly finish off

fixing something, only to get a stern talking to about

not listening, even when I've just said I'm going to

the next room to finish fixing X. I feel they're

clearly feeling some emotion that has been brought up from

this action, but they aren't sharing this issue and instead

lash out at me. Just talk to us. Please be

less cryptic. Some mysteries are fun, but not when there

are anger and guilt involved. Story 7 I was intimately

inexperienced and she wanted full, unprotected intimacy. I was very

pushy about it. She knew I was a mistreatment victim.

She ended up trying to cheat on me with a friend.

He shut her down. She succeeded with another within a

day and he knocked her up. Then proceeded to badmouth

me to everyone we knew for a while that I

never put out. She dumped me over text on my

birthday in the midst of all this, before my friend

could even tell me about her cheating attempt. This was

over the course of just two days. She has a

kid with that ex-friend who got arrested some few years ago.

Max and I have had a few adult conversations since

then and ended up somewhat amicable. She was able to

learn from her mistakes and I learned from it all too.

The reason I include this is because my experiences weren't unique.

The amount of men I've talked to who were pushed

or shamed into activities at the risk of being publicly

outed for being inexperienced or uncomfortable depresses me deeply. Too

many people I've spoken to have been able to relate

to or empathize with my experience and all of them

share the same trait. Myself included. We've been made fun

of for it. Like it's a joke. Story 8. So

I had a terrible weekend, and by the end I

was disgusted and found her repulsive. Butch came over to

stay the weekend. Cool. Early on, I noticed she would

walk over to where my alcohol was. Grab the bottle

and just take a quick swig. I told her to

get a glass. She continued not to. Any drinks reopened?

Took like two drinks, then didn't drink anymore. By the end,

left almost full soda cans. Bottles of water. Went to

eat out and got a beer. Everything. On the last

day she was here, she popped one of my champagne

bottles open at like 9am. I yelled at her from

my room. What the heck are you doing? Stop drinking.

She felt sick the last day from all the crap

she drank the night before and that morning. She was

extremely sloppy. So I handed her a can drink, said

to be careful not to spill it. First sip, saw

her take a drink and see it run down the

side of her mouth and at the bottom of the can.

Placing it on the table, getting her hands and table

all sticky. Left crumbs everywhere she ate. When we got

in my car, it was very touchy. Putting her filthy

hands in the ceiling, side window, and front window. I

just couldn't believe how much of a slob she was.

They didn't even mention her getting belligerent in the lift

and getting us kicked out, yelling for no reason. It

was a major drinking problem and didn't realize it until

it was too late. Story 9. Psychopathy in general. My

ex would get extremely hammered. I'd go to bed trying

to avoid her. She would stay up all night, turning

lights on and off. She would dump cold water on

me while sleeping, slamming doors, etc. We were married for

21 years. Not exactly sure what changed. I know she

struggled with substances. She would drink liquor straight from the

bottle on a regular basis. Amazingly, she has custody of

her children. I showed the court system videos of her behavior.

They didn't care. It must have been my fault. She

got to keep the house and almost every asset while

I was put on the street with nowhere to go.

She refused to work while we were married. I honestly

have spousal PTSD. We've been separated for almost two years

and she still tries to torture me. So my short

answer is, if you're a schmuck, you give me the ick.

Story 10. constantly wanting equality but not the responsibility that

comes with the privilege you want. This is especially true

for women in the military. If a woman gets deployed

and doesn't want to be there, she can legit get

herself knocked up by one of the male soldiers and

get sent home, but the guy's gotta stick it out.

If a woman becomes pregnant, it's not an issue. for

a sunburn. A few years back, 2008, I think a

female soldier successfully petitioned to be taken off a deployment

because she was a single mom. Single military dads get

no such treatment. Women have far more luxuries than men.

They have better odds in custody court and get special

grants or loans for simply being a woman. There isn't

a loan for being a man. There's hundreds of women's shelters.

Zero men's shelters, but ain't no woman trying to protest

to have men a safe place to go after they

got their crap rocked by a cruel significant other. Women

can hurt men and get lesser punishment than if a

man were to strike a woman. Women can allege mistreatment

whether true or false and have a man locked up.

Men can't do that. Sorry, I went on a tangent.

If I get a sunburned and I identify as a

woman and get a lighter sentence, asking for a friend

who's very pale. Story 11. Trans dude here. And honestly,

this is likely less a woman issue than a neurotypical issue.

It just so happened to be most pronounced in the

women in my family. Having been raised as a girl

most of my life, something I never understood was the

expectation to be able to read minds. Almost literally. My

mother and many of her friends and other family members

had this thing where you were just supposed to know

when they were upset. What they were upset about and

how to fix it. Even if you weren't the one

who did it. They'd just sigh really loudly and I'd

stop whatever I was doing and my heart would start racing. Crap,

what did I do this time? I just woke up.

Did I leave something out? What happened? And if we

didn't guess right, including if we had to ask, what's wrong?

It's been the next 30 minutes to an hour getting

our asses chewed out. We were just supposed to know

how they wanted chores done, even if they hadn't been explained.

It was always common sense. Didn't make growing up with

undiagnosed autism any easier. Now, older, transitioning with my diagnosis

and several friends like me, we're all in agreement that

this expectation is stupid. Story 12. Embracing the person who

asked the other out for a date should be the

one who pays idea. You aren't fooling us. We all

know men ask women out 99% of the time. It's

a cop out that sounds warm and fuzzy and fair

on the outside, but results in the same thing of

men always paying. It just makes you look cheap. Some

men will put you into the wants a free meal category.

The crazy thing is that most men are fine paying

as long as you legitimately offer to pay. That's all

we're looking for. Just someone to be considerate to us.

You don't have to invent some convoluted logic to justify

you not paying the bill. Just offer to us. That's

all you have to do and we'll be like, she's cool.

I'll pay. Story 13. I recently came out of a

nine-year relationship where this kind of thing was standard practice.

She got so comfortable giving me the silent treatment, it

slowly became permanent. She had some really serious mental health

issues from a very troubled upbringing that she just refused

to deal with. I tried to support her. I had

all the empathy for her, and all it did was

drag me down to the place she wanted to stay. Misery.

Toxic negativity. That's all she knew. It wasn't too long

before I was completely broken and had no fight left

in me. Every now and again, I'd break and either

give her the silent treatment back, or worse, just verbally

attack her and get it all off my chest. which

he would then use as ammunition for another month-long bout

of silence and disinterest. I just learned to accept it

and find something to entertain myself by the end. We

probably should have broken up a long time before we did,

but that was just too weak to pull the trigger. Eventually,

we got to a point where we were constantly finding

excuses to have a go at each other, and as

she experienced a bit of what it's like to feel

hated within a relationship, she became really, really difficult. Staying

out super late or not coming home, I think, not sure,

she was getting into substances and partying heavily, flirting with

anyone within our friendship group, constantly complaining about me to

her friends and family and doing everything she could to

make me out to be a villain. It had become

a contest to see who could be the biggest schmuck,

but only one of us was trying to win. When

we finally broke up, she called my mother and told

her she felt she was in danger and that I

had gone off the rails on substances. Never laid a

finger on her in nine years, never threatened any kind

of violence, hadn't taken any substances for at least a decade.

Then as I left, she went on this massive rant

about how I'd spent years gaslighting her into thinking she's depressed.

She was depressed. Had been since early childhood, but her

parents had never noticed and she just learned to deal

with it. It was very clear to me very early

in the relationship that she's suffering from depression and after

learning about her past, we had had countless tearful conversations

where she would open up properly and see the situation

she was in and admit she needs help. But she

would never get to the point of being able to

actually call someone or speak to a professional. The day

we broke up was one of the hardest days of

my life. But within a week, I felt so much better.

The anxiety and pressure of dealing with her mood swings

still affects me today, but I'm quite good at recognizing it.

I've learned to use that as a tool. Financially, not

spending all my money on crap for her to try

to make her happy was a massive bonus to my

mental health, too. And for the first time in almost

a decade, I bought myself new clothes. It's been almost

two years since we broke up. I still think about

her a lot, and I've not found myself comfortable enough

to start looking for a new partner yet, but I'll

get there one day, I hope. Well, sorry for the

long rant, y'all. Story 14. So I was talking to

this girl a while ago. She left a great first

impression and the second day was a movie night at

her place. I don't mind a bit of messiness. Heck,

we all get a bit lazy from time to time.

But this girl's flat was a freaking bomb site. It

reeked of cat mess. There was food spilled on the

floor and presumably left there. Dirty clothes everywhere and in

a state of absolute disarray. Never thought it would give

me the eck as much as it did, but it

was enough for me to see that this was the norm,

and I wanted nothing to do with it. I've never

dated anyone, ever, just never had the time for it.

I realized that my first dip into the water wasn't ideal,

and it hasn't put me off trying, but jeez us.

Is lack of effort and presentation a big no? That

and I guess if anyone says they're going through a phase.

Not a chance. Get that away from me. I don't

want my thing covered with the 20 guys before me.

Story 15. Not taking ownership of literally anything they've done wrong.

Getting angry and deflecting must take so much more energy

than just saying, I'm sorry I did that. Condemning my

interests and hobbies. You don't need to do them too,

but there's no reason to crap on them. Being annoyed

when I'm not with them 24-7 as if being in

a relationship meant becoming connected like the friggin' human centipede. Starfish.

For Christ's sakes, just do something. Not recognizing other women

for their wins or positive qualities. You don't need to

be better than everyone and everything. Using we split everything

financially as a means to buy more crap at 50% off.

Going anywhere near my phone. If another woman ever looks

through my phone and I find out, I will literally

toss them out the same day. I have zero use

for any human who says they trust you but then

needs to verify that by invading my privacy. Not respecting

my alone time. Everyone needs time to themselves. Making me

visit their relatives are a ludicrous amount more than them

visiting mine. It doesn't have to be 50-50, but holy heck.

25 of a year versus 3 and a half a

decade is not acceptable. And the absolute most cringe, awful

BS of all. Removing all elements of surprise from a

potential engagement by repeatedly asking and demanding to be married.

Story 16. I had a casual lunch conversation with a

female co-worker today. She mentioned that she has this bad

habit of deliberately going for guys who she thinks has

red flags. She personally referenced bad communication to be a

turn-on for her and that the guys who she had

been with before who had all green flags were just boring.

I guess that and one more thing. If I have

a zit or a blackhead and I'm telling you not

to pop it, you don't pop it. I see the

freaking puppy eyes and the desperation to squeeze it and

it creeps me out. You know when toddlers get overexcited

because their parents mention the word candy and the child

starts smiling and giggling while seemingly uncontrollably flailing their arms

and quivering in their legs? Women that do this at

the sight of a zit or a blackhead weird me

the heck out. Story 17 not bringing anything to the table,

apart from their body and company, like they're some type

of famous superstar that you have luck to be in

company of, or they think they're a princess. I swear,

one time I met a beautiful lady. Two months after

phone call and chat, we met and all she was

doing was giving me an interview like, So, if it's

Valentine's Day, for example, where would you bring me? Something fancy?

What would we do together? Like, what the heck? Get

the heck out. And she had a kid. Told her

I understand why she's a young single mother and why

she's single for two years. And she didn't even tell

me before she was a mom. All that is pathetic.

I had another one that was thinking I was a

walking wallet and a servant, like, I have a package

to get from the post office. Can you pick it up?

I had groceries to buy. Can you go for me?

I know a cool restaurant there. Let's go tonight. And

of course, she expected me to pay for everything, every time.

That is pathetic, really. So I blocked her after three dates.

I shouldn't have done it after first. First date night

weighed intimacy, so maybe it was because of that. Lol.

So yeah, basically those types of spoiled, disrespectful behavior and

way of thinking towards us. If you are enjoying the video,

don't forget to hit that subscribe and like button for

more videos like this. Story 18. They never take accountability

for anything. And I mean truly take it to the chest.

They could be wrong and still be condescending about something.

I honestly think some women live in a different reality

than the rest of us. Like there's this stuck up

girl in my job who slept around to get hired

and promoted and she's rude as heck and unprofessional. I'll

hear her gossiping to her girlfriends about how nobody's nice

to her, blah blah blah. You're a disgusting lady when

it comes to your demeanor. You're rude as heck and considerate.

You barely do your job. How could you possibly be

asking that? I think the answer is they simply don't

say anything wrong with avoiding feeling bad at any and

every cost. Story 19. Creepy on vibes. I've never had

a girlfriend or date put off these vibes, but I've

encountered women who say or react specifically to young boys

in a way that triggers a massive ick within me.

To be clear, a woman saying a boy is cute

or making a comment like, oh he's going to be

so popular with the girls when he grows up, does not,

in and of itself, make me feel like they're putting

out creepy aunt vibes. Those are statements I entirely recognize

can be made innocently or playfully. What triggers me is

less to do with what a woman says, but rather

how some women react to seeing or being in the

presence of young boys. A way that is hard to

explain but is also glaringly obvious is just freaking creepy.

I've seen women react in a way that I would

describe as excited, but also weirdly upsetting. Excited in a

way that somehow feels manic or predatory. I don't know

how to describe it properly, but I know it when

I see it. And it gives me such a powerful

visceral ick that I usually don't ever want to interact

with that woman ever again. Story 20. The whole obsession

with men needing therapy. They're all obsessed with it. I've

gotten regularly since childhood as my parents really valued it.

I'll ask women if they've gone and usually they're blindsided

and have to admit they haven't. I've run into this

several times and the hypocrisy is wild. My other big

ick is pretending to enjoy intimacy for a few months

or a year before suddenly getting comfortable with never having

it again. Blaming it on this or that and so

you man up, take accountability, address dutifully before slowly realizing

that those are just moving targets and this can never

be fixed. But anytime you ask in any way, you'll

be gaslit or told you only want them for intimacy.

Then you're stuck with a gut-wrenching decision to break up

with your best friend. Also used to be your lover, too.

Over a lifetime, we were stuck with half of our relationship.

The friendship, half. Story 21. I was really into this

girl I'd worked with for a while. Went back to

her place, and on the way, she intoxicatedly bragged about

sleeping with all her friends and having competitions with them

to see who could sleep with their boyfriends in the

same room. My strong feelings for her vanished instantly. I

think she genuinely liked me, but her confession made me

feel so ordinary. It's funny. Sometimes when I get a

bad feeling about someone, it's less about what they did

and more about how incredibly foolish they could be to

say something like that when we were just starting to connect.

Another girl at work seemed to be flirting with me,

but then she mentioned that she and another guy at

work had talked about fooling around. So they didn't go

through with it because she's still a student. She flirts

with everyone, so I'm not buying it. She makes me

feel like I'm just the next person she's briefly interested in.

She's trouble and I'm not interested. Story 22. More just

an everyday thing, but thinking cheating is okay because it

was just physical. My ex cheated a lot. I found

out pretty much immediately after we mutually broke up for

unrelated reasons. And when I confronted her, she said, Well,

I loved you because you loved me so much. I

don't have the connection with anyone else, but I'm young

and felt like I should have been experiencing more. I

was like, bro, what the heck? Just don't be in

a relationship then? Like, it's so exceptionally selfish to basically

trick someone into dating you so you can have emotional

support while also leading a very active, intimate life without

that person knowing. So anyways, that's basically the reason I

now have extreme issues with trusting and letting people in

my life. Story 23. Characterizing. I understand that everyone is

guilty of this, but it especially gets me when my

significant other conflates an issue that is going on right

now into a problem with my character. It may very

well be true at times, but once the conversation goes there...

everything feels really hopeless. I see a pretty clear escalation

from asking me to do the dishes, to asking why

I haven't done them, to asking why I never do

the dishes, to asking why I never help her around

the house, and finally calling me lazy. When all the

beginning steps get skipped irrationally or just reached naturally, it

feels like she has resentment already built up over this issue,

and even if I go do the dishes, that is

going to do very little to solve the problem. The

problem now isn't that the dishes need to be done,

it's that I need to change something about my character

because I'm lazy. In the instance with the dishes, I'd

have to remind myself that she means to just ask

me to wash them. She might be overwhelmed with work

and hates having to work around clutter to make her coffee.

That problem is reasonable and solvable. I can stay in

that headspace and problem solve, hopefully letting it bounce off

me when she slips up a little. I say hurtful

things sometimes too and, you know, the world ended a

couple years back so I count my blessings. Story 24.

I have two things. Granted, not all women do these,

and some men do these things too, but regardless, I'm

not a fan of the ones who do these things.

I hate when some of them act overly energetic for

no reason when everyone else is calm and laugh at

the slightest mistake they make like they're some master comedian,

especially when they practically fold themselves in half laughing because

they said something like, I toast my burnt instead of

I burnt my toast. I don't find it funny. I

find it annoying and I'm tired of forcing myself to

laugh to be polite and not make the situation more awkward.

I'm already a socially awkward guy and I don't need

my reputation to tank even more because some girl complained

to her friends that I'm mean and rude. On that note,

the other thing I hate is when some of them

gossip about the smallest things and blow them out of

proportion for no reason. I have Tourette syndrome and some

of my tics can give people the wrong impression. I

don't need a group of girls spreading the rumor that

I'm playing myself in public because they don't understand what

is actually happening. Story 25. Yeah. Some parts of toxic

behavior are genuinely bad learned habits. I would like to

think that most people are decent and will quit it

when they realize another person actually feels bad about it,

aren't mature enough to accept that they're capable of doing

wrong anyway. And if you're dating someone who hasn't learned

that yet, good luck. As for the real reason women

do it, terrible socialization that hasn't matured past teen years.

It's not even out of malice, it's just the norm.

This is what people do. Can't you take a joke?

It's a joke. This is how mean my friends laugh

with each other. It's not consciously about seeking acceptance, but

in reality, if the entire social circle thought it was bad,

it'd stop quickly. It's years of circular reinforcement boiling down

to these habits that are perceived as generally okay within

the group, even if they aren't. It's not about social

acceptance because if it was, more people would stop. It's

a genuine belief that this is just what people do,

which is sad and I hope they find better circles.

What's toxic in something that can be forcefully shifted is

a lack of willingness to learn and grow and accept wrongdoing.

It's not worth the effort to try to make someone

go through that, wow, I can be mean maturity arc.

It won't happen without some introspection in their part. Just

move yourself away. Story 26 They don't hone their minds.

It's usually off-putting for me. I'll get bored of that type,

so I disengage. Another hard no is when a woman

you don't really know wants you to pay entirely for

a fancy meal. One of the little things that says, yeah,

I don't care about you at all. The ones you

don't want to work skis me out the most, though,

and are often one and the same. Not being able

to own a screw-up is huge, too, because I don't

want some pile of yikes trying to gaslight me like

they're Donald Trump if they do something off enough that

it merits comment. Obvious fakes and adults who behave like children.

I love to fall in love, honestly. That's not something

most weirdos can fake, so it's pretty easy to curate

the good from the bad. Story 27. Whenever you can

clearly see that they're upset, had a bad day, or

otherwise not in their normal state, and you ask, what's wrong?

Are you okay? Are you alright? And you get a nothing.

It's fine. Yeah. Answer. I understand that sometimes you don't

necessarily want to talk about your feelings and that's totally okay.

Had a rough day but I don't want to talk

about it or need some space. Or something similar is

a good answer. The fake fine or you should know

and similar is stupid and childish. I'm not going to

play a guessing game with you. Not advocating for themselves

or making their opinions known. If I ask, where do

you want to eat? Or what do you want to watch?

Or what should we listen to? It's a genuine question.

I am legitimately asking for your input, so whenever you

say whatever or I'm easy or I don't care, then

you better freaking mean it. Story 28. I was hanging

out with this woman I've known since elementary school. She

was all over me. Constantly complimentary, cuddly, trying to get

me to sleep over regularly. All of a sudden I

got sick and she can't understand why I want to

be homesick for a couple days. Then when I finally

start testing negative and reach out to see how she's doing,

she immediately tells me she's back with her ex. For

the 20th time. and really throws it in my face.

Quoting him, being extremely flowery with how great the visit

from X was, then I start getting cluster headaches, and

obviously I'm not saying much to anyone because my life

is a nightmare with clusters. This witch actually blocked me

to retaliate against my extremely unlucky run of crappy health,

I guess. LMFAO. Story 29. Baby talking to the point

of incoherence to pets and anything else they might find cute.

That and not having at least some opinion on any

given topic. I don't care about X, or I don't

know because I've never thought about. I'm not talking like

obscure or esoteric type things. I'm talking about like when

someone says I don't care about politics or I don't

care about religion or, you know, big bun things like this.

Because it just shows to me that they live such

a privileged life that they never actually had to care

about any of this. Or they don't spend much of

their time doing much thinking. Story 30. Not sure if

this has been mentioned yet, but when you go out

of your way to make worthwhile plans, which they agree

to and they suddenly ignore you. Won't answer texts or

calls on the day or time of. Simple heads up

would have been fine. I waited about an hour at

my community college parking lot. She lived about a 5-10

minute drive from there, before calling it quits. Original plan

was to have a small picnic at a park or lake.

I prepped some food and brought a few snacks and

one of the drinks she liked, Arizona tea plus lemonade.

I don't want the food to go to waste. Made

some pretty excellent sandwiches that day. So I ended up

trying to reach out to some friends or co-workers. Slightly embarrassed.

Met up with a co-worker and vented for a minute.

Then we went mini-golfing for a bit to clear off

my mind. Another wreck I have is when they aren't

clear about their feelings and how they want to be treated.

Got myself into a friends with b * * *

* * * situation with a person I mentioned above

and she wanted to keep things low. I stupidly agreed

to this arrangement knowing I would probably just end up

hurting myself at the end. Things never really worked out

for us. I wanted a relationship but she didn't. She

was too hung up on her ex, preferred being spiked

rather than being sober. Not sure if that's the proper term,

and sometimes was disrespectful to me. Ended things on good terms,

I would say, and while I wanted things to continue,

even at that state, I knew for certain it was

just best to break things off. Story 31. Overreaction. Not

saying this in general. A specific occasion I've experienced only once.

I'm an average looking dude on the overweight side with

a smile and confidence that wins almost anyone over. Anyway,

I was in a local bar and saw who I

thought was an old high school acquaintance. I had a

group of her friends. I looked over and said, how

are you? And put my hand on her shoulder. She

jumped out of her skin and looked at me like

I had mistreated her. I immediately apologized and said I

thought you were someone I knew. She looked disgusted and said, uh, no.

Maybe she thought he was going to ask her to

join his multi-level marketing scheme. That level of fear is understandable.

Story 32. All of the women I've ever dated enough

to live with have a bathrobe. In all cases, this

robe would be washed maybe once every month or so.

Two or three weeks, if I'm being generous. The robe

gets put on immediately after waking up until other clothes

are put on. So in other words, wake up, put

on robe, take a dump, sit around the house, take

a shower, and then put the dirty, unwashed, mud-stink robe

right back on after getting out of the shower. Like

if I'm going to bother taking a shower, I'm only

going to put on clean clothes afterwards. If I didn't

like smelly women, I'd make a big fuss out of it.

But all these women seemed to think this was perfectly normal.

Story 33. For me, the ick is when women buy

into all of these things society influences them to be

or say or do without putting any critical thinking behind

any of it. Examples. Societal conditioning and the mass consumption

of true crime documentaries have convinced women that they should

constantly be worried about attackers, whether we're talking about getting

taken in a parking lot or spiked at a bar.

I understand needing to be aware of your surroundings, but

some women seem downright paranoid about something that is statistically improbable.

Girl boss attitude. There are women out there buying into

this mindset while simultaneously not earning a wage that would

even allow them to support themselves without a spouse or roommate.

I don't know what kind of boss doesn't have the

financial means to stand on their own two feet. Women

who use progressive feminism when it benefits them and traditional

gender roles when it benefits them. Women who spend recklessly

just because part of being a woman is being a shopaholic, apparently.

It is taught as a social norm. I feel bad

because I don't think that most of these things are

really their fault, but these are constructs that have been

set up and many women just haphazardly fall into these traps.

I believe that women will have to break some of

these things down to really advance and achieve the equality

that they desire or deserve. Story 34 The Hypocrisy Lies

and refusal to use sound logic and rationale in communication.

along with the double standard of polarized behaviors, are frustrating.

For example, some women can be arrogant about being desirable partners,

but the moment something doesn't go their way, they feign

vulnerability and play the victim. This is just one example

of many. These women, and it's important to know, not

all women, will manipulate the narrative of their current situation

to always appear to be in the most advantageous position.

Integrity is irrelevant to them, just like anything else that

obstructs their pursuit of what they want. Story 35 I

had an ex badmouthing one of the women on our

street behind the woman's back. The thing is, my ex

thought that she could say what she wanted and nothing

would happen. Later that night, that neighbor showed up at

my ex's house and started yelling at my ex for

what she had been saying. My ex was then trying

to hide behind me and I just said, don't hide

behind me. You caused this mess and you have to

face the consequences. My ex-girlfriend had a look on her

face like a child who had just been scolded after

the neighbor finished yelling and left. Story 36. When minor

things happen that make them cry. I wasn't necessarily raised

not to cry, but it's kind of something I only

feel the urge to do when something serious happens. Like

if someone passed away. When someone cries over something like

a bad day at work or dropping a pan full

of food they worked hard making, I really never know

how to react because my default reaction is, ah, damn it.

Not this intense expression of anguish. Most of the women

I've known closely will just well up with tears and

start sobbing or shouting about how stupid and incapable they

are for having either been incapable of handling the hard

day at work or for having lacked the coordination to

not drop the food. Like it becomes self-cruelty. And they

end up needing a lot of reassurance. These outbursts are

hard for me to respond to. Story 37. Lie. Particularly

lying about not liking or not being able to do

something when they mean they don't want to do it

for or with you. Before you throw your mind in

the gutter in this particular case, I once talked with

a girl who had some issues, including agoraphobia, apparently. But

she didn't go out much. The reason why she flaked

on me twice out of four times when I asked

her out. The other two was because she forgot the

day or where she was supposed to go when she

got on the bus. But she had no problem getting

on a full bus for a 30-minute ride to a

different town to spend the night with her best friend.

I definitely dodged a bullet there. There were a lot

of red flags that I ignored, but still feel sorry

for the three to four months wasted. Other icks. No accountability.

Don't hold it against me logic. Asking for attention but

never giving it first. Being rude to staff. Long fake nails.

Story 38. That has been a long time because I've

been married for 23 years but when I was in

my younger days and had my own very humble apartment

I found it very rude and off-putting when women I

brought there went through my stuff and talked about it.

Like a dinner day where we ended up at my

place to chill or fool around. I had several occurrences

where they either came out and talked about the stuff

in my medicine cabinet or changed my toilet paper roll

to their liking. Sometimes after they left, I would realize

they had moved stuff around. One woman in particular. I

dated her. her off and on and knew she was

bad news. She just was really great and bad. Wasn't

notorious for going through my dresser or nightstand. She never

asked me anything or said anything, but I would find

things rifled through or out of place. When I confronted

her about it, she lost her crap and accused me

of cheating on her because I was hiding things. I wasn't.

Found out later she was dating someone else while we

were seeing each other. Shocker. Story 39. Wearing fake eyelashes.

Spending money on lifts instead of going to the gym.

Like we can tell her their back is fake. Getting

fake melons, then flaunting them around, showing them off like

we can't tell it's implants. I seriously don't understand the

whole showing off a doctor work thing. We know that's

not your body. Don't get me started on everyone getting

their lips done, walking around looking like a doll. What else? Um...

Wearing so much makeup, their face no longer matches the

color of their neck. Biggest thing I'd say though is

the double standard. I'm sure we've all seen or been

in a situation where we said to ourselves, heck, imagine

if the roles were reversed. Women act like they're a

blessing from God and the older I get, the more

I'm convinced it's the opposite. I'm a grown woman doing

dumb TikToks. That crap is super cringe. Story 40. I mean,

this is my wife's behavior, and I don't think every

woman does this, but whenever she messes up, like being inconsiderate, hurtful, jealous,

or even aggressive, and I react to it, especially if

I get really mad, she turns it upside down and

becomes the victim as fast as possible, starts crying and

justifying her actions. I mean, we all mess up sometimes,

and I still love her with all my heart. Also,

this is probably a coping mechanism to avoid conflict when

she realizes she did something wrong. And if you consider

her upbringing, it's probably the easiest way out of her

mother's cruelty. But it is not nice becoming the villain

every time. Boyfriends. What happened to the guy she told

you not to worry about? He got her pregnant within

a month of us breaking up and gave her herpes.

Now they're divorcees and fight and bicker constantly. I remember

that phone call when she called to let me know

she had herpes and that I should get checked. I

smugly said, I don't need to. I've only ever slept

with one other person. Then I went on a year-long

deployment to Iraq and then returned and dated you for

a year. Unless you were sleeping around on me, which

I know you weren't, and I don't need to. Her

silence was hilarious. Got her to admit she slept around

on me. Story two. Different girls, mostly. There's always that guy.

Number one, one came out as gay years later. Nothing

happened before that, though. Number two, she went away for

a weekend with a girlfriend of hers. The guy she

said not to worry about just happened to be there

at the same house with all her college friends. She

at least had the decency to break up with me

when she got back before her friends told me what

actually happened. Number three, she made out with a guy

at a party, but he totally initiated it and what

was she supposed to do? Say no? Stop it? That

would be absurd, right? Number four, this one was one

of those we were on a break situations, but she

left the club we both happened to be at to

go see his car and ended up giving her a

lift home. I didn't enjoy that. Number five, during a

relationship that was supposed to be a temporary long-distance relationship,

the guy showed up at the airport to surprise my

girlfriend with the roses. When I went to fetch her,

they got married. Number six, she made out with a

dude in her bedroom while I was in the lounge

and had him finish making out by the time I

walked in on them. She married him. I've been single

for a while now. Story three, it was a longtime friend.

He was always interested and had a couple of times

proposed that they get back together. But nothing was ever

established to begin with, with putting her in misleading and

awkward situations in order to guilt-trip her. Examples include invitations

to public dance classes that turned out to be private

tango lessons, a simple bite-out to eat was actually reservations

for a high-end restaurant, and threats of throwing away expensive

jewelry that he offered her if she didn't accept them.

When she and I got together initially, the first thing

he did was break off his own engagement, thinking there

was a chance for us to break up. She and

I dated for a few years and they stayed friends.

I finally popped the question and he ran to her

parents crying about it. He eventually found another woman and

married her. We even got invited to the wedding and

has since dropped all contact. Story four. She had intimacy

with him in the back of one of the zoo

transport vans with a shared work toy, which I guess,

given the industry we all worked in, was the most

appropriate of toys. Eventually, I found out. She immediately dumped me.

She told him they were now exclusive and he immediately

dumped her as he had no interest in her relationship

and just enjoyed the thrill of having intimacy with someone

else's girlfriend. He went back to his homeland and continued

in the industry. She sent messages asking for us to

meet and talk, which I ignored. She fell into a

huge depression and attempted to end it all. Oh dear,

how sad. Story 5 She kept hiding the fact she

was seeing him in private without my knowledge after we

had a discussion about it like adults, stating that it

didn't feel comfortable. I saw a text message while she

was driving and it showed up on her notifications on

the screen. It was in the passenger seat. We got

into a heated argument and we were in an on-again,

off-again relationship. I was an emotional dunce when it came

to romantic feelings and was in a toxic situation, realizing

I was just an option for her and would always

be second best. The feeling sucked and it took two

years to recover from my emotional trauma and mental state.

That was five years ago. Now I'm happily married. My advice,

regardless of your gender, is to take your time dealing

with your emotions and trauma. The relationship won't make you

happy and should not be an excuse for why. It's nice.

It feels nice. Everyone wants it in some shape or form,

but your happiness is how you create it. Be yourself

and be happy. Thank you for reading my rant. Story six.

She said he reminds her of her father. He's like

37 and that he's acting pathetic and desperate for her.

She said that he gives her gifts for no reason

and that it's awkward. She claimed he creeps her out

and sometimes scares her, that he has his friends and

a brother stalking her. He acted out plenty of times.

One of the instances was when he and his 35-plus-year-old

criminally convicted friends barged into her flat. She has a

three-year-old daughter and started making a big fuss about why

she's not into him. Police were called. He claimed that

if he cannot have her, then no man ever will.

Despite tons of his childish, weird, and straight-up reportable acts,

she continued being friends with him. She claimed I was

the only normal person in her life at some point,

All that happened in the span of like two months

or less earlier this year. Now I suspect that he

moved in with her. Either she loves toxic relationships or

I don't understand women like at all. Story seven. She

left me for him. He waited to graduate from school first,

broke it off with me, and was already celebrating an

anniversary with him before we were even done. I think.

I'm not sure. Overall, I think it worked out really

well for them. They got married, have a kid. Seems

like she made the right choice, but it really destroyed

me for a long time and probably still has an

effect on me to this day. I used to be

really angry about it, but given the results, I can't

stay mad about it. Plus, people change and that's not

a problem, but still, be honest with people and don't cheat.

It's pretty crappy. Story eight. She promised he was just

a friend. She said that since he lives in the

UK and we're in the USA, there's nothing to be

worried about. Imagine my surprise when she broke up with

me and then moved to a different country to be

with him. Last I heard, they only dated for a

year or two, then she got fired from her remote job,

broke up with him, and is now living with her

parents back in the USA. All of this happened after

she wouldn't move two states away to live with me.

I dodged a nuke there. Story 9. An old friend

of hers came back into her life, and after some talks,

and multiple were just friends assurances, we ended up breaking up.

We tried the whole friends with benefits thing for a bit,

but after making the huge mistake of asking if the

other guy was bigger than me, to which she answered

honestly and in probably always too much detail, got out

of high school and like most people that age, my

self-esteem was not the greatest. Especially when it came to

what's going on downstairs. I decided that it just wasn't

going to work out. They got into a relationship and

it blocked her on Facebook. Years later, I see the

guy working at Dave and Buster's. Being friendly, I ask,

how's it going? To which he responded with, well, not good.

I apologized, saying that sucks, and then walked away. Every

now and again, I'll think about her, but upon deeper reflection...

I realized we were obviously going on two separate paths

at that point in life, and although it hurt at

the time, it was definitely for the best. Story 10.

My wife met a new friend at church who we'll

call Charles. We started spending time together at church and

then started meeting outside of church. I raised my concerns

and was told that I had nothing to worry about.

She told me jealousy is unattractive. She had an affair

with Charles. This was while I was working nights and

going to school during the day. I found out and

she was extremely apologetic and said she made a mistake.

I was torn on whether to stay with her or

not because we have kids. I ultimately decided to stay

and try to work things out. Charles was married also,

and he and his wife decided to work things out

as well. This was 18 years ago, and my wife

and I are still married. I'd even say happily married.

I still think about it from time to time, even

though I decided to forgive her. I guess forgiving and

forgetting are different things. Charles passed away of brain cancer

around 8 or 9 years ago. Story 11. With this girlfriend,

pretty fair. I first was a music producer, but my

girlfriend legitimately isn't his type. They are actually way too

similar with the Gemini energy and fight like actual siblings

over stuff like reverb math and audio plugins. The second

was a dealer, but despite his butch neutral looks, the

man is proudly gay as heck. I met a few

of the twinks he'd been with during our time in

that area. Since we've both been cheated on a couple

of times in relationships before, we genuinely aren't interested in

messing around in our 30s. Story 12. They just had

their second child. She started cheating when I, who never

wanted children... I was fostering her 7-year-old cousin before the

rest of her family was too messed up to inconvenience themselves.

The new guy won't have anything to do with the cousin.

It was such a ridiculous situation. It basically just felt

like I had dodged a bullet. I feel bad for

the cousin, who now has no one caring about him.

And I feel bad for her because literally all of

her friends took my side. I asked them not to,

so she wound up isolated. People make their decisions, though.

Story 13. She cheated on me after I basically was

her therapist for over a year, got her a new job...

paid for most of our expenses, and took her to Japan.

She cheated because she felt not loved after we had

a fight. I found out she started chatting with a

dude that tried to kiss her once while I was

standing next to her almost a year ago. Her best friend,

who told me I should not worry about him and

that she would never want to lose me as a

friend because I'm so nice, basically hosted her while she

had her escapades with him. I broke my trust and

loyalty forever. Still recovering. We basically always had a great time.

Same interests. Great intimate And she told me two days

before cheating that she wants to marry me. I later

realized I was in a relationship with a narcissist that

love-bombed me so she could feel love. Story 14. I

used to date this girl. She had a best friend.

A huge nerd. Not her type. And I wasn't worried

at all. They knew each other since middle school. I

get to know him, we became friends. Fast forward almost

five years later, she broke up with me. She had

an affair and left me for him, but that's a

different story. Most of the friends I got to know

through her never even tried to reach out to me,

but he did. We met and talked, and after a

few beers, he told me how a year before, while

I was on a family holiday in Egypt, she intoxicatedly

tried to have intimacy with him, but he turned her down.

I fully believe him, mostly because he cannot lie for anything,

so yeah, he turned out to be a better human

being than she. Story 15. I was dating this girl

that I was madly in love with. The sun rose

and sat with her. If she wanted the moon, I

would find a way to get it for her. We

were together for two years. Then one day she started

acting weird. Wouldn't want to talk, one word answers, you know.

Then one Saturday night we attended her best friend's birthday party.

I met her there. The moment I walked in the door,

she was doing her best not to be by me.

If I tried to talk to her, she wouldn't end

the conversation as soon as possible. I finally got fed

up and asked what was going on. She took me

away from the crowd and told me she was uncomfortable

with me being there. Needless to say, I was shocked.

When I inquired as to why she would be uncomfortable

with me, her boyfriend being at the party with her,

she pointed out a certain fellow and explained that he

was interested in her, and my being there made the

situation uncomfortable. I'm gonna lie, folks, that statement cut me

to the bone, but I maintained, looked her in the eyes,

and said, okay, well, let me save you from your discomfort.

And I left. I cried in the car on the

way home. About three months later, when I started coming

out of my funk, she called, wanting to know how

I was doing. I lied and told her I was

doing great and asked how I could be of assistance.

That's when she told me she missed me. I asked why.

She said she missed the way I treated her, how

attentive I was, and how I was always considerate of

her feelings and her well-being. I asked what happened with

her new boy. Folks, it was a story as old

as time. He had a girlfriend and just wanted to

get with her. She said when she found out she

was mad, she asked him why he didn't let her

know he had a girlfriend. His answer was, you didn't ask.

She then told him, I broke up with my boyfriend

for you. He replied, I didn't ask you to do that.

You did that on your own. Now she was seeking

forgiveness and wanted to give it another try. I was

tempted because I was still madly in love with her,

but she showed her true colors and I just couldn't

take the chance on her leaving when the next new

shiny thing came up. I told her no, because now

I couldn't trust her and a relationship without trust is

no relationship at all. Story 16. Oh, you mean his

buddy's girlfriend that he said was just a friend? Yeah,

they're married now. Last I heard, he was largely left

out of a triad with his wife and another woman

at a rent fair, so that's funny as heck. Or

my ex-husband who told me not to worry. He just

fell asleep on my co-worker's couch after walking her home

on New Year's. He impregnated her and they are married now.

The kid was premature with a bunch of health issues

and has visibly aged them both. Or an ex-friend who

was a bit too friendly with my boyfriend and I

was made out to be crazy for being jealous. They

are married now. I honestly wish them happiness as I

think they are well suited to each other. I don't

mean that in a negative way either. Needless to say,

I have very few people I trust, and the second

I'm told not to worry about someone, I most definitely

become hypervigilant to that person and the person telling me

not to worry. Story 17. Not me, but I had

a friend, X, who got a crush on another longer-standing

friend's girlfriend. The longer-standing friend was a deeper friendship, from

basically their teens. At one point, we met at an event,

and I told my longer-standing friend to watch out for

X because he had a crush on his girlfriend, and

I knew they were hanging out a lot. The friend's

girlfriend somehow heard from afar and lashed out at me,

asking if I thought they didn't talk and didn't trust

each other and that I was overstepping and should just

back off. Fast forward one and a half years. I

still talk with X, but we're less friends and he

and that friend's girlfriend are together. One of the longest

called it moments I ever had. Story 18. About a

month before our relationship, I had a one night stand.

Literally a month before my girlfriend and I started talking.

Never spoke to the other person again. Well, the other

guy found out about it through mutual friends and actually

knew the one night stand girl also. So he proceeded

to tell my girlfriend around two or three months into

our relationship that I had actually cheated on her with

this chick and I'd slept with her after we started dating.

He told her she could introduce him to prove it.

I believed it was an attempt to be a hero

so she would be so grateful that she'd finally want

to be with him or something. They'd just been friends

for probably ten years. I could tell for weeks that

something wasn't right but she'd just say everything was fine.

I remember when she finally told me. I actually called

him and he was intoxicated and cried on the phone

that he was sorry and admitted everything. Lol. They never

spoke again, but it did do damage because it seemed

like she could never fully trust me after that. We

broke up around a year later and trust issues were

one of the main problems, even though I was always

100% faithful. Story 19. One of my roommates in college

would hang out with my girlfriend one-on-one when we first

started dating. We were all friends before, so it wasn't

an issue at all because they did that before we

started dating. The thing that was weird was he would

intentionally not say that she was with him. Multiple times

I would later talk to my girlfriend and she would

very casually mention something like, I went to the library

with him. After a couple of instances of this happening,

it weirded out my girlfriend because why was he not

telling me? So she decided to tell me before she

went to go get coffee with him one afternoon and

wanted me to ask some probing questions to him afterward

to see if he ever mentioned she was there. He

did not. We determined that he liked her too and

was trying to undermine us, but it just didn't work

because we actually talked to each other and didn't hide things.

After that incident, she decided to stop hanging out with

him alone. To her, they were just hanging out casually.

To him, they were sneaking around behind my back and

it just kind of bothered her. It also bothered me,

but only made me upset with him, not her. Both

of our friendships with him became strained and have never

really recovered, even now, years later. Not quite the don't

worry about him scenario, but it's the closest I have

and so unlike anything I've ever experienced. Story 20 Not

a boyfriend, but a girlfriend hoping to offer solace to

the boyfriends. I've never been the kind of girl who

had a lot of guy friends outside of family. I've

just had gone along with women and worked in or

went to school in female-dominated fields. After I made a

major career shift, I found myself at a job with

a lot more men, and honestly, it enriched my life

to be able to experience so many new people, especially

a coworker I clicked with instantly, Luke. We got along

instantly like true siblings and we would hang out here

and there, but mostly just made a really good team

at work and had some good deep talks. After one

hangout where we got a few drinks, I came home

to my boyfriend being really upset that he had been

worried for months that I was having a crazy office affair.

I truly have had more excitement at the thought of

a pap smear than the thought of Luke. After we

talked about it and made sure he wasn't asking me

to change my contact or do anything regarding Luke, I

just wanted to meet him if he could and didn't

press because he believed if it turned into anything else

that I'd handle it. They met and he met his girlfriend.

He even got along and he truly never seemed to

worry about it again. Sometimes it really is nothing. You

just have to be willing to communicate and to ask

with intent to understand, not accuse. We've had ups and downs,

but mostly going strong in five years. So take it

how you will for your own circumstances. This isn't to

downplay some of the atrocities here. I'm so sorry people

have been so cruel to you guys. Story 21. She

moved back home across the US to be with him.

She ran into him on a vacation back to her hometown.

A couple months later, I saw him posted on a

social media video that I wasn't supposed to see. I

put two and two together and broke up with her.

I told some mutual friends, only to find out she

had told some that we were already broken up and

neglected to tell me this fact. Less than a month later,

she was pregnant. The timing was very close that friends

had questions and so did I. Not mine, thankfully. On

to better things. Story 22. Not a boyfriend, but a husband.

It was my ex-wife and my best friend or cousin.

Had a history of getting together with women that I

had dated or had expressed interest in dating and even

admitted on a number of occasions to wanting to sleep

with them to prove that they were cheaters. It had

been in Max's ear, causing damage here and there, until

she decided to leave me. He left his wife that

same day, and the two of them wound up at

the same mutual friend's house to comfort each other. I

had confronted her a few months before the end about

what was going on with the two of them, as

there was a lot of secretive texting, and I had

caught some damning evidence that it existed. Of course, I

got that nothing is going on. There's nothing to worry about.

If you are enjoying the video, don't forget to hit

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Story 23, The Girlfriend's Perspective The first time my ex

got cruel towards me was the night I met the

guy you shouldn't worry about. We were at my ex's

favorite bar. A guy walked in and my friends and

I decided to wing the single girl as he was gorgeous.

At some point I was talking to him as he

had entered the girl's group to connect more with my friend.

My ex walks in and sees us. I smile because

I'm excited to introduce him. I was blindly in love

with my ex, and I see the current drop and

his eyes get that look that I'm very familiar with.

Essentially a signal that I will get shouted at, punches

will be thrown at the wall and I will be

told to move out of our apartment, followed by reconciliation

the next morning. I run over to him to try

to fix it before it becomes too bad and explain

that there is nothing to worry about. We are ringing

my friend. He doesn't believe it at all and starts

telling me what a disgrace I am to him. He

then says that we are going home. One of my

friends sees what is going on and knows about how

our fights have been before. She comes over and says

that there is no way that I am leaving with him.

I'm coming to her place and can stay in her

guest room. The ex and his friend got extremely upset

that she's stepping in and my ex just leaves the

place without another word. I stay with my friends at

the bar. At this point, I'm very accustomed to the

ex's reaction patterns and explain that there's really nothing to do,

nor have I found what sets it off. It can

be anything. In this case, I am assuming that he

was feeling very jealous and insecure, but I will be

safe to go home, even though he will be very angry.

I was wrong. When I came home, he was there.

I went into bed and he started to shove me

out of bed. I told him to stop, then he

got up, came over to me, and pushed me out

of the room and into the wall in the living room.

Later the next weekend, it was the same, but for

a different reason. I don't even remember what the reason

was that he got angry again. I stayed at a

friend's couch for two nights and luckily found an apartment

that could move into the same weekend. That is unheard

of in the city where I live. One to one

and a half months later, I run into this guy

from the bar at a day concert. We quickly catch

up and decide to keep in touch throughout the day

as we were both out enjoying the sun and we'll

grab a few drinks with friends after dinner. He ends

up meeting me and my friends for a few drinks

after dinner. It's a very nice evening. Lots of laughter

and easygoing. Now we've been seeing each other for four-ish months.

We're seeing each other exclusively. He's nothing but patient with

me as I'm quite reserved and scared of trusting my

judgment of people at this point. I am moving very

slowly in our connection. He's giving me space to get

back on my feet and prioritize my career in sports

while we meet a few times a week. He's telling

me that he's serious about me and that I don't

have to rush anything. At the same time, he's not

saying that I'm the most perfect woman he has ever

met or that we were meant to be. As my

ex did immediately when we met. We like each other

and are figuring things out step by step. So I

guess the ex was in the right to be worried.

Story 24. Coming at this from the female's point of view.

I had a friend who I really thought was just

a platonic friend and a nice person. It didn't seem

to me that he was crossing boundaries or acting unusual,

so I genuinely thought there was nothing to worry about

and said so to my husband. I thought he seemed

too friendly and too clingy with me. I almost laughed

it off, but my husband and I took a short

break and this friend found out. Within two days, he

asked me out and said he had loved me since

we first met and he wanted to be together. He

also said he thought I'd say yes as he believed

deep down I loved him too. I simply replied that

while I think he's a lovely guy, I'm sorry, but

I'm trying to fix my marriage and I'm not interested

and don't love anyone but my husband. He took that

to mean I was trying to fix the marriage out

of duty and that I said, I'm sorry, but, because

I did actually love him, but I felt I owed

it to my marriage to fix it. I shut him

down and said I do not love him. I considered

him as a friend and the fact that he was

so quick to try and replace my husband shows me

my husband was correct with his gut feeling. While if

he respects boundaries, we can talk as friends, I wasn't

comfortable with him coming to stay at my home anymore.

Story 25. We were only about six months into our

relationship and she said not to worry. Then I saw

him smack her behind. I confronted her about it later,

saying what I had seen and was honest about how

it made me feel and asked for honesty in return.

She confirmed that she allowed the flirtation and there was,

without a doubt, intimate tension, but that hadn't gone to

that point yet. I said, look, I'm not going to

make you stay with me if you don't want to

be with me, but I just didn't want to be

cheated on and didn't want you to have to live

with the guilt of being the cheater. Over ten years later,

we're married with kids and he has faded into obscurity.

Reading this post was the first time I had thought

of him in years. Honestly, I hope he's doing okay.

He was pretty depressed when she told him she wanted

to commit to me and see where our relationship led.

Last we heard, he had moved interstate. That would have

been six years or so ago. Glad I didn't take

the easy route and end things. She's been the best

thing that ever happened to me and given me my

two most precious gifts. Story 26. When they can admit, yeah,

I guess in the right circumstances, maybe I would date him.

It's far healthier for the relationship and everyone can move on. Also,

in my experience, they don't end up dating that guy,

but even if they did, everything was on the up

and up and it's far less galling. They go out

of their way to gaslight, insult the guy and the

entire premise. Are you kidding me? He's got the weird

big head. No, absolutely never. He's so stupid. That's the

giant red flag because they do end up dating that guy.

Story 27. I'm a single father now who probably won't

communicate with his mother until she gets back from military

training a little over a month. To keep it short,

I tried communicating with her, and when she finally told

me about him, she said they've done nothing and was

debating if it's worth telling me since she didn't think

he's worth it. Long distance, leaving the base, etc. Now

I guess he's worth it and I'm not. I haven't

heard from her, really, for almost a month while I'm

taking care of her, son. If you're in a similar position,

trust your gut. Good luck. Story 28. Well, she didn't

even want to admit she liked him. Even when I

directly asked, considering she was always texting and spending time

with him because he was a work colleague, she said,

He's like you, but also like me. It's so crazy.

He had completely different personalities, so totally. Surely he's not

flirting with someone in a relationship and being exactly what

she wants him to be. I find out she went

to his basketball game with his family without telling me

that was the case. This was days after she tells

me she wants a sudden break from talking out of

the blue due to her health, both physically and mentally.

Next minute she texts me she wants to break up.

What a surprise when I see her post herself in

a day with her friend two weeks after her health issues.

That was the end of a six-year relationship. Got a

love of breakup text followed by an immediate monkey branch

to her friend. It's been a year now and they're

convinced they found true love. Sucks because I was going

to propose that year but I guess it was a

sign from the universe not to. Story 29. She was

away in a scout camp. She was one of the

adult instructors or leaders for the youth organization and told

me not to worry about this guy she always hangs

out with there. One night I was on the phone

with her and he was walking her back to her tent.

I could tell she just wasn't interested in talking to me.

She was always messaging him too. Anyway, as soon as

she starts at university, we have an argument over the phone,

and she, in my mind, overreacts and dumps me. A

day later, she's with a guy. Come Christmas time, about

four months later, I finally healed, feel confident, and I'm

back to my old self again. She calls me out

of the blue, making amends. Turns out he cheated on

her at a party with a girl he told her

not to worry about. She even said she fully realized

the irony. Anyway, we had insanely good, crazy ex-intimacy for

a few months, and then she eventually met someone nice

and settled down with him. I wish her the best.

I have my own family now that I love, and

this was nearly a decade ago. Story 30. She probably

dated him, but something didn't quite match up, but she

likes his company. He's still on the team, but he's

not getting playing time right now. Yeah, she's probably giving

him some compensation occasionally to keep him on the team

and maintain patience. Maybe letting him go in to spike

the ball and run out some clock that Saturday night

when you had an argument and she went out with

her friends. You know that's what's going on, but if

you remove emotions from it, it makes sense. She's measuring

the field, seeing who the best contender is. It's not

without reason. That's kind of what dating is. There just

should be cleaner breaks and better communication. Story 31. The

guy started as my friend. My girlfriend started including him

when we were supposed to do things together, even supposedly

romantic things. My girlfriend invited him to replace me on

vacations after my work schedule suddenly changed and I couldn't go.

They come back and my girlfriend creates relationship drama to

end us. My girlfriend moves in with him a week

afterward and she claims they're getting married. He comes home

from work about a year later and finds another friend

moved into their house because he couldn't afford her lifestyle.

The partner I replaced her with and I have been

together for almost 30 years now and she's on her

third or fourth marriage now and is still looking for

someone to support her lifestyle. Story 32. I was actually

the guy not to worry about. I became super good

friends with a girl who had been with a guy

for over a year. I had a super hard crush

on her and something definitely could have happened under different circumstances.

He was a schmuck. He openly threatened to end it

all in a dramatic fashion if they were arguing. If

she took too long in a public bathroom, he would

kick the door in and shout for her and even

suspect he may have beaten her a time or two.

I was honestly just waiting for it to implode. She

had asked me straight up if I liked her and

I said yes and she said the same to me.

But she wasn't the type to cheat and I would

have hated for anything to happen on bad terms. Time

kind of kept going on. I met someone else who

I'm now married to and have a beautiful son with.

actually passed away from cancer a few years back, and

she was with someone else at the time, which she

seemed super happy with. So at the very least, she

got away from that schmuck. Story 33. First guy I

shouldn't worry about. She had intimacy with him while we

were together, so we broke up, and she had intimacy

with a second guy I shouldn't worry about. We get

back together and break up again. Then she had intimacy

with a first guy I shouldn't worry about, plus a

third guy I shouldn't worry about. After all of this,

I show my intelligence and get back together with her.

We break up, and she had intimacy with a second

guy I shouldn't worry about, plus a fourth guy I

should definitely not worry about. Getting my men's degree at

this point, I get back together with her. That time,

after a while, she just one day tells me she

wants to have intimacy with a guy I shouldn't worry about,

so we broke up. I haven't talked to her since.

Story 34. I was in a long-distance relationship. We talked

for an hour or more every day over Skype. I

never had an issue with any of her friends. This

one guy she told me about was a lot like me.

She couldn't wait for me to meet him. I was

able to visit for two weeks, two months after she

met him. Near the end of the visit, I asked,

When am I going to meet this guy? She replied, Well,

I was not going to say anything, but I can't

lie to you. One night, a bunch of us went

out and landed back at his flat with everyone. I

was too intoxicated and was going to taxi home. He

said just spend a night in his bed. He was

going to sleep on the couch. He didn't sleep on

the couch. After I got home, I broke up with her.

Story 35 He kept pushing the boundaries, and one night

we were having game night at my girlfriend's and my place.

I kept making overly dirty comments directly to her in

front of a group of eight to ten people. I

pulled her into another room and said, Two options. You

kick him out or I do, and I'm not going

to be nice about it. She asked him to leave.

We started to make a scene, and I ended up

having to physically remove him from the house, carried his

butt outside, and sat him down like a toddler. Last

I heard, he married a woman with the same name

that looks very similar to my girlfriend, and then they

got really fat. They've only got regular fat and we

were coming up on 10 years together, so I'm calling

it a win. Story 36. Yeah, luckily in my dating life,

I had no tolerance for a guy she told me

not to worry about. Major red flag to me. Too

much baggage. Happily married now. My wife and I, before

we met each other, both had people we were talking to,

but both dropped anyone else we had as soon as

we made things official. She had guys try to hit

her up, which she was very open to me about,

and quickly shut those guys down. Either by just straight

up telling them or blocking them if they were persistent.

The same happened on my end. I guess that stuff

is rare these days, but I found a girl with

the same instincts as me, so we were able to

cut through the BS real quick. I guess that's clearly

hard to find these days. Lol. Story 37. She and

I had been dating in high school. I'd left for college,

and she joined the military the following year. There was

a guy that kept paying her attention, but she always

said it was no big deal. Unwanted physical contact, always

wanting to go out, comments about her looks, etc. I

went to visit her at base and he was trying

to outdo me the whole evening. Buying drinks, one-upping stories.

The glances she gave him were enough to finally make

it click. The fact that she included him in that

evening should have been a huge red flag to begin with.

I broke up with her shortly thereafter and she was

officially dating him on social media within 24 hours. What

a gut punch. But validation for ending things. They married

after a few months and divorced after two short years.

Lesson learned and bullet dodged. Story 38 My ex convinced

themselves we would break up because of a number of

things that weren't real, which we could have fixed with communication.

They started hanging out with this online friend a lot more.

A couple of months later, the two of them are

spending more time together than my partner and I were.

Watching my partner's favorite anime alone together and giving some

lame excuses to why I wouldn't want to watch it.

The reason being it was queer coded. We were in

a queer relationship. Without telling me or asking if I

wanted to watch it. We broke up a couple of

weeks after moving into an apartment together. The two of

them were dating just over a month later, but started

doing video calls every day just a few days after

we broke up. I wasn't able to move out for

a few months, so I got to hear the whole

sprouting of what was probably already there. The whole reason

we broke up was avoidable with communication, but they gave up,

so what could I do alone? I was being emotionally

cheated on, and the two of them are still together

eight months later. Story 39. She cheated on me with

that guy, then asked me if I was into open relationships.

I said yes because I loved her. She then fell

in love with a guy and never stopped seeing him

when she wanted to, but she didn't want to admit it.

I broke up with her. Then she broke up with

him after she fell in love with some rich guy

in another country hundreds of kilometers from her place. The

fun part is, when we were together, a one-hour drive

was too far and I was too old. The new

guy is like five years older than me and it

takes her like six hours to get there. I started

therapy and I'm fine now. Story 40. She spent all

night talking to some guitarist at a local gig. Don't

worry about him. She actively avoided me on the night

out and spent her time with the guitarist. At the

end of the night, she had a huge argument with

me and tried to gaslight me into thinking I was

avoiding her. We ended up breaking up and yes, you

know where this is going. We started dating within a

week and after a few weeks, she realized the guy

was dirt and asked me to take her back. I

backed off and kept my distance. We reconnected after university.

She was pregnant with her second child and no baby daddy.

I kept my distance and just remained friends. We became

good friends eventually after she met her husband. I was

even invited to the wedding. Story 41 First major relationship.

Together for four years and all was going well until

she started her first job out of university, where her

new temp guy suddenly became the only person she wanted

to talk about or talk to. I voiced some concerns,

but they were brushed off, along with any attempts to

do a couple things together anymore. Thanks to her staying

logged into apps across multiple devices, what was actually going

on became painfully obvious when she'd leave the room to

chat on her phone and her iPod touch would vibrate

and flash up with his responses. The best part is

that we tried to patch things up and then I

eventually learned that she had told him not to worry

about me as well and that that was just some

obsessive roommate. I had a lot of satisfaction telling him otherwise.

Story 42. He had intimacy with her after they went

to a conference and had coffee. A two-year relationship led

to a cheating-driven breakup. Her depression got worse and he

forced her to get on the pill because he doesn't

feel anything with protection. She promised him she would not

see me again. She did. She told me they decided

to part but I'm inclined to think he left her. Lol.

What makes me angry the most is that a radical

feminist would start taking the pill out of love and

relinquish control over her body for a man, or said

man would treat her like crap. In the end, he

mostly likely is still doing menial jobs and studying theatrics,

or theater, or acting, or whatever. Meanwhile, I got better,

started therapy, and I've been going to the gym regularly

for two and a half years. So okay, he had

a bigger Johnson and a 17 centimeter height difference with me,

but in the end, I'm going to have the bigger salary.

I'm still bitter about it now. I'm disappointed and have

trust issues. He probably does not. The morality of that

story is you'd rather be an obnoxious and uncaring schmuck

rather than a sensitive one that will get hurt. Story 43.

We'd been dating for over a year in high school.

She forced us into a double date for prom, kind

of last minute. Soon after, but before prom, she missed

a date with me because we were watching Forrest Gump

and lost track of time. She spent most of prom

night watching his every move like some weird puppy dog.

She dumped me three days after prom. As to why

she didn't just tell me that she wanted to go

to prom with him instead, so I could have been

there with someone that wanted to be there with me.

She was really dumb about it. They totally weren't dating

after that, even though a lot of her friends were

telling me they were seeing them out of everywhere. Honestly,

I didn't care at that point, and I took the

opportunity to ask out her best friend, who eagerly replied yes,

like she had been just waiting for me to ask.

Then she had the nerve to accuse me of being vengeful,

even though she's the one that dumped me for my

own buddy. Ironically enough, he and I are on good

terms these days, but for some reason, he thought I

was mad at him for a few years in the

middle there, where I clearly was not rude or spiteful

towards him. When he finally brought it up, I laughed

about it and said, you've been thinking about that for

a while, haven't you? Don't worry, I haven't been. What's

a silent red flag most people don't notice in relationships?

Like a lot of stories here, this one is about

accountability and fake apologies. My last relationship was far from perfect,

and we tried to save it. It took me far

too long to realize that the biggest issue I faced

was my partner not taking accountability. Most times, they twisted

scenarios to make me the villain. For example, I'm sorry

I made you feel like that, but do you not

understand how you make me feel when you tell me

something I did upset you? Guys, if you notice this, leave.

It doesn't get any better and leads to resentment really

quickly once you realize the pattern. Story two, passivity. My

son had a girlfriend like that. Sweet and likable, but

dear God, she had zero ambition. She earned her degree

in my career field. She asked for my help getting

her internships. I set up two separate contacts and she

never called. She moved in with my son and did

pet sitting, but never found a job that actually earned

reliable money. While she was home most of the day,

she never did anything but watch television. So, my son

would come home to a trashed house and nothing done.

I mean, it's one thing if you're off working. It's

another thing entirely if you're doing nothing at all. Plus,

because she was bored, she started to drink. My son,

a good kid, finally tossed her out when she promised

to change and then three days later spent the entire

day at a bar. You don't have to be some

type A, hard-changing person. That's not it, but you have

to have the basic motivation to get off the sofa

and do something. To contribute to the relationship in meaningful

ways rather than just absorb what's handed to you. Story three.

If someone says no to anything and you pressure them

under the guise of, come on, you'll love it, or

it'll be so fun, and you keep asking, maybe even

recruiting others to change their mind, it's pushing a boundary

they've already set. It doesn't matter how kind you are

about it. Anytime this has happened in a relationship, that

person would later on start picking away at other boundaries

since I'd previously allowed it by dropping my boundaries to

cave to social pressure. If I didn't give in, then

usually there's the boundary pushing with constant digs about to

stick up my butt. There isn't. No just means no.

Story four. you're expected to do a lot more for

them than they are for you, regardless of what you're doing.

I dated someone who would constantly ask me to do

small things for her. It started with asking me to

get something from another room, even though she wasn't busy

in any way while I was. It escalated to a

point where anytime I tried to study, she'd stop me

every five minutes to do things for her that she

could have easily done herself. It was entitled low-key controlling behavior.

One of my friends pointed it out to me later.

I thought I was crazy for complaining about it, but

it was obvious even to other people. Story five, content.

When one person starts mocking or belittling the other or

choosing to disbelieve them, reading into their actions based on

assumption or acting like they're smarter or better, it drains

all their respect from the relationship. Over time, that behavior

shuts down trust, curiosity, and any real chance to stay close.

It doesn't even have to be big. Something as simple

as not giving the other the benefit of the doubt

over small mistakes will quietly erode over time. Story six.

If they talk crap about their friends or family, it's

a red flag. It's common to vent on a surface

level about those closest to you, but If they're criticizing

the core traits of their loved ones over and over,

or if they confide their secrets to you, just know

there is a good chance that person will also talk

crap about you and air your dirty laundry. My ex

used to tell me, unsolicited, all the drama and scandals

of his friend group, and it took me a while

to realize that he was a disloyal person who wasn't

considerate of anyone's feelings so long as he got attention.

Story 7. How they react when they don't get their way.

It's easy for everyone to be nice in a relationship

in the beginning because you're in the honeymoon phase and

the other person is your number one priority all the time.

But as relationships go on and life gets in the way,

things come up. Seeing early on how somebody is able

to cope with others saying no or just things not

going their way is a big deal. I saw this

with my ex but ignored it early on. Of course,

after two years and some tough general circumstances in life

for us, she basically turned on me. Story 8 My

ex was super nice and went out of his way

to be friendly to make sure everyone liked him. This

included his friends and family. He would go to things

out of obligation even when he didn't want to go.

He would talk crap about his friends and siblings to

me but never speak up to their faces. It turns

out he just had this fake front on at all times,

except with me. Him being so nice to everyone else

threw me off so I let things slide but really

he was just narcissistic and wanted everyone to like him

while treating me like crap. I found out this weekend

that most of my family saw right through it and

didn't like him. Lol. Story 9. I'm seeing a lot

of red flags that really aren't that silent, but this

could just be my perspective. One that I believe is

silent would be someone who's overly agreeable or likes everything.

For example, you're on your first date and you're getting

to know each other through conversation. Today, it seems to

like every hobby, every sport, and every interest that you

express during these conversations. They even go so far as

to agree with your views on different topics, like favorite

classes in the school, politics, music, science, theory, or whatever.

A lot of people would see this and think, whoa,

I finally found someone that likes the same things as

I do and shares the same opinions. To me, this

is a red flag that won't present itself until years

down the road. This person could be totally honest. However,

it's also, and probably more so, likely that they aren't,

and they're just going along with you because the right

amount of things line up. You get along well, and

the physical attraction is there. In this scenario, the date

is essentially silencing their opinions, interests, and hobbies in order

to appease and appeal to you. Over time, this will

cause a lot of inner turmoil that will come out

and screw up their relationship. Story 10. Double standard or hypocrisy. Once,

we were eating on his bed, didn't have a dinner

table or a coffee table, and I accidentally knocked the

pizza crust off my plate. Story 11. This applies to

all types of relationships. The inability to sit in discomfort.

This manifests in different ways, such as defensiveness, deflection, and

inability to handle conflict or direct communication. Moving from one

partner to the next. They can't be alone and won't self-reflect.

They tend to be delusional, saying things like, they don't

like me because I'm too good for them, or they're

upset because they're so into me, or I have such

an effect on them. These aren't the worst people in

the world, but this trait is not conducive to a

healthy relationship. Early dating, the biggest red flag I've noticed

is when they do something. You tell them it makes

you uncomfortable. They may even apologize and stop for a

little bit, but then they continue to do it. They

don't care about your feelings. They just care about getting

what they want. Speaking ill of their prior partners is

a major red flag, but that's not technically a silent one.

Story 12. He makes a mistake. ignores the matter, and

doesn't apologize. Instead, he tries to change the atmosphere between

you by joking without mentioning his mistake or when you

ask him to apologize or discuss what happened between you,

he gets angry. Another thing is when you give your opinion,

he makes fun of it as if he's telling a

joke or he says, I know better than you. Or

when he does something that hurts you or violates your

boundaries and instead of taking responsibility, he tells you, I

did this for your own good or you and I

are one. It's a soft rap. Story 13. I would

say anything to do with money. My ex started off with, oh,

have you got a couple of pounds in cash? I

don't have any cash on me. Then it would be, oh,

I forgot my card. Would you mind getting this round?

By the time he left, he was rinsing me for

so much cash I was in default on my mortgage

and had to borrow 16,000 pounds to cover the debts

I'd accrued. He's doing the same to his new wife

now and it was so insidious I didn't notice how

it was growing. I'm sure she hasn't either. Story 14.

They always check your phone or even keep it for

long periods of time, answering it or using it for you.

but they don't let you see theirs at all. Last

but not least, the one that my last ex used

to do to me almost every day, which I hate

more than anything and I wish I never had to

deal with it in my life and hate myself for,

they would cheat on you almost every day. But then

they would be very cruel about accusing you of being

unfaithful or they would be very untrustworthy of you even

though you were literally only in their room all day

every day and didn't even leave. Story 15. If someone

has a bad relationship with their family, it's a red flag.

A lot of red flags are some kind of adaptation

to a toxic environment. It could be a work environment,

a roommate situation, or a previous marriage, etc., but family

seems to be the big one. And it's easier to

ask about than previous marriages. Lol. If their parents gave

them a hard time about doing chores wrong, they're going

to be afraid of housework. If they work at a

place where everyone holds grudges, they're going to start doing

it too. And if their last spouse was passive-aggressive, they're

going to check everything you say for hidden insults. The

sad part is, it's not usually their fault that they're

like this, but they can make a relationship with them

very difficult. Story 16. A lack of consideration for your

time and an inability to think about how their actions

could impact your life. Little things like not checking in

with you, making plans with friends without giving you a

chance to be part of their schedule when it's convenient

for both of you, or making any relatively large decision

without even checking in with you. Your partner might not

always make the decision you want, but the best ones

will see you as exactly that, a partner in life.

At the very least, they will keep you in the

loop and prioritize you to a reasonable extent. Story 17.

Two silent warning signals, and I emphasize silent. are essential,

in my opinion, to analyze. The first is the way

a person treats others, especially those where he or she

has a position of strength. Animals, children, elderly people, waiters, cashiers, etc.

The second, and one where almost all my loved ones

and the people I meet fall victim to, is victimization.

It is one of the biggest manipulation tools, very effective,

and one that allows a person to completely establish control

in a relationship. If you meet a person who constantly

puts themselves in the victim position, who feels persecuted by everyone,

who's never at fault, who doesn't hesitate to cry in

private or in public to get what they want. Be careful.

This weapon is effective because if you dare to contradict them,

you will become the bad guy. In all the unhealthy

relationships I've had to listen to, this point kept coming

up and it's always very subtle. Story 18. For women,

watch how he treats and talks to his mom and

female relatives. I was an idiot for not noticing how condescending, dismissive,

and rude he was to his mom. Granted, he spoke

Cantonese and I don't, but even with the English he

used either or when talking about her to me, I

should have run. Run, run, run. I'm in him doing

nice things for others. Doesn't matter if he's mean or

angry about doing it later. He was a knight in

shining armor when people were watching, but behind closed doors,

he was mean, petty, and often resentful of the help

he gave unless it furthered his connections. This is why

mothers are key. They usually love unconditionally, take their crap,

and didn't need his mother to advance his image. You

see them at their truest self because they know they

can't ever lose that person. Story 19. I guess it's

not really a silent red flag, but it's a red

flag when someone love bombs you. And I don't mean

in the sense of literally telling you they love you

right away, but putting pressure on you to feel the

same way from the get-go. After only a couple of

months of speaking, my ex asked me if I'd take

a bullet and sacrifice myself for her. She told me

she would, but I said I wouldn't because I didn't

know her on a very intimately personal level like that

and I had responsibilities to my family. She got offended

that I didn't reciprocate the same sentiment. I almost felt

guilty and felt like maybe I wasn't putting in enough effort.

Patterns of someone really throwing themselves at you from the

start most times don't mean that they'll feel that way

about you in a few months or a few years

down the line. It usually stems from low self-esteem and

the need to be liked. If they can throw themselves

at you so quickly due to low self-esteem, they can

always do it to someone else as well, potentially blurring boundaries.

Story 20, monopolizing your time. It's almost endearing how our

new relationships want to spend all their time with us.

It's so cute that they care about us so much.

We found a perfect person to spend the rest of

our lives with. That's possessive behavior. Starts out as hyperdating

and you wake up five years later with all your

familial ties cut and no friends to hang out with anymore.

Of course, you write it off as a choice. Except

you're 30 now and stuck because everyone else has moved on.

I guess it's time to have a kid or two

since this is the way it's supposed to be. Story

21 People will start to rearrange or fix things in

your possessions or space very early in the relationship, especially

if you call them on it and they'll tell you

that this is how every normal person does it and

you should just get over it. The girl who insists

on taking down a painting by your departed best friend

today is going to ban your favorite foods from the fridge,

throw out your treasured old leather jacket, and use the

handmade afghan by your favorite aunt as a cargo pad

so that it comes back stained and torn. She will

insist she was doing you a favor every time. Story 22.

Might sound weird, but having mental health issues and actively

refusing actual help is a major red flag. I think

a lot of us want help and save these kinds

of people or excuse it, thinking it's not their choice

or they can't get help, but they'll drag you down

with them when it gets worse. Not always, but if

they refuse to do anything about it, they don't want

to get better, even if they say they do. It's

easy to be a victim of your own making. It's

hard to pull away from someone who pretends to want help.

They'll always be a victim and make you the villain

in any type of relationship, friends, family, or romantic relationships.

Story 23. The partner had better be doing 50% of

the housework, the cooking, the childcare, everything. regardless of how

much they work or how much they pay for. When

they're at work, they're at work. When they're alone at home,

they're responsible for the home. When they're both home, they're

responsible for half the load. If the man is earning $ 100, 000

and the woman is earning $ 20, 000, that doesn't mean the

man doesn't need to do everything to contribute. Intimacy is

not transactional. In return, she has intimacy with him when

she feels like it. Brother, that statement is messed up

in so many ways. Taking your example, what is she doing?

Is she doing 100% of the house and childcare? Is

she doing all the planning, organizing, scheduling, managing both their schedules,

reminding him of the tasks he'd promised he'd do that

have deadlines and then having to text him during her

work hours to walk him through doing it? Tasks that

he should already know how to do, because he waited

until the last minute. Does he say he'll do things

and not do them, so she ends up with it

on her plate and has to rearrange her schedule to

get it done at the last minute because she figured

he was an adult and could manage to get it

done without gentle reminders and regular follow-ups? If you sign

up for a transactional relationship, You don't get to complain

when it's transactional. You expect a partnership, fail to be

a partner, and then follow up with, you never do

anything for me. When that partner is burnt out from

taking on most of the load and still finding little

ways to show their spouse they care. Story 24. How

they understand and respect their personal boundaries and the boundaries

of others. A person who lacks awareness of boundaries will

often find themselves in situations where their boundaries are getting crossed,

which usually causes them to have heightened reactions. This also

usually indicates a lack of respect and awareness of others' boundaries,

which can lead to some uncomfortable and intense situations when

discord occurs. I struggled a lot with this myself, and

my ex did too. It really helped me to recognize

how important this concept is and how, generally, people don't

seem to have a good understanding or healthy examples of

what they look like or how they operate. Story 25

This may not seem like much, but my ex would

never look at me when we were around other people

and talking about a common topic such as politics, studies,

or general views of life. Even when I was a

part of the conversation, he'd only look at other people,

or the other person if there were only three of us.

I pointed this out multiple times, and he always said

it was unconscious and that he'd try to change it,

but never understood why it was happening at all. Never changed,

by the way. Just made me feel so crappy and dismissed.

Story 26. I dated a guy for two years and

never met his friends, kids, or parents. We were from

different countries, but he moved to my country so he

could give 100% of the relationship. Things ended really badly

and I had to go to therapy for a year.

I'm seeing someone now, also in a long-distance relationship. He's

two kids and we've met in person once. The second

time will be soon and our communication is great. I

think my red flag would be if he does this

again and doesn't introduce me to his family, friends, or children.

I think he wants to be cautious because the kids

are part of a 14-year divorce, but I think I

can wait a year to see if he does it willingly. Otherwise,

I'll end the relationship. Story 27 Deep insecurity. Yes, everyone

feels insecure, but someone who can't find a handful of

things about themselves they like or appreciate, who deeply does

not like themselves, will absolutely ruin you. I got into

a relationship while I was in the best place I

could be, and they were not. I was compared to exes,

both negatively and positively, all the time. I couldn't compliment her.

She told me all the time how she didn't deserve

me and how I was too good for her. I

should have taken that seriously. She cheated on me with

a friend because they showed her attention. I'll never know

if she wanted me because I gave her the attention

she was missing or... Because she liked me for me.

Story 28. Max never said anything of note. Nothing. No opinions.

No personal information. They refused to tell me their mother's

name because it doesn't matter. It was all superficial and generic.

It could be applied to anyone, anywhere. All opinions were

basic as heck. I had to ask what they thought

about literally everything, and the only thing I ever got was,

super cute. The same thing was said to everyone about anything.

Their entire personality was basically a cheeseburger with mustard and

lettuce only. All 30-year-old sitcom reruns. They were in their 40s.

I thought they were just really quiet and reserved for

a year or so. It turns out they were completely

disconnected from everything at all times. Five years. I still

have no idea what the heck I actually dated. Story 29.

Pointing out a task they are perfectly capable of doing

and expecting you to do it. This is not like,

can you do the dishes since I cooked or would

you fold the laundry while I'm at work? This is

things like announcing from the couch that the sink isn't

draining or telling you the garbage can is full when

nothing prevents them from emptying it. It shows they view

your time as inherently less valuable than their own. They

presume their desire not to do a necessary task is

more important and valid than your desire not to do

the same necessary task. If you're enjoying the video, don't

forget to hit that subscribe and like button for more

videos like this. Story 30 Someone who believes that nothing

is a simple accident and that every mishap must have

someone to blame Believe me, that person will never be them.

In the beginning, the blame will always be on others.

Other drivers, the waiter, his parents, etc. Later, 80% of

the time, it's going to be you who caused the mishap.

You're the one to blame in some way. Salt spilled?

They left the lid too loose or left the shaker

too close to the edge of the table, etc. Garage

door broke? Remember six months ago when you bumped the

sensor and tried to close it with a remote? You

burned the motor up. Nail in your tire? That's because

you insist on driving down the street where there's a

house being built. The list goes on. Story 31 I

think the biggest red flag is how they react in

a crisis, both yours and theirs, and unfortunately, you don't

know how they're going to react until it happens. I

saw someone on TikTok post that your long-term partner is

going to be there when both your parents pass away,

so choose wisely. It's painfully true. My mom had cancer

when I was dating my last ex. It was manageable

until it wasn't. She went downhill pretty rapidly. I was

scared and upset, and it was like three months of

waking up thinking, Is today going to be the day

it happens? Instead of being there for me, he dumped

me and got back together with his ex that he

told me not to worry about. He said he needed

something easier and more accessible. That was like four years ago,

and every six months to a year, he tries to

get back in contact, saying I was the one that

got away or whatever, but it's like, baby, you didn't

even let me get away. You kicked my butt out

the door and slammed and locked it behind you. It's

not my fault you regret your crappy actions. Find someone

who's going to be there for you when the world

is burning around you. Otherwise, they're just going to add

wood and fuel to the fire. Story 32. How do

they react when they're on the receiving end of manners

or general kind gestures? For example, how do they react

when you offer to pay for food, hold open the

door for them, or pull out their chair, or even

say something like, hey, I'm getting a can of cola,

would you like one as well? I've found that if

someone is super apprehensive about any of those things, then

it's usually a precursor for emotional unavailability. If they cannot

handle something as small as you buying them a $ 2

can of cola, then they're not going to be someone

who will hold space for you in a relationship. Story 33.

I don't know if this is considered a silent red flag,

but beware of people who tend to always fall out

with their friends. I've had two friendships like this with

people who had very different personalities, but the result ended

up the same. I stopped being friends with both of

them at different points in my life because their behavior

is very selfish. It's one thing to have conflict in friendships.

That's normal. However, someone who has had many friends and

has fallen out with all of them at different points

in time should start to raise some alarm bells. They'll

definitely be the villain in their story one day. Story

34 When they talk badly about family, it's a red flag.

Assuming there are good people trying to get out of

a bad home, do you really want to handle that? Also,

if they're just toxic in general, they could be mentally ill.

In my book, it's a no-brainer. A bad family often

means trauma or bad vibes. Even the small portion of

people who get out of this family trauma and end

up doing well might still unknowingly carry some narcissistic traits.

Coming from a toxic or dysfunctional family isn't just a

chapter in someone's past. It's often the blueprint for how

they navigate the world, especially in relationships. Story 35 When

their words don't match their actions, or their actions are

there in a showy way but not in the foundational

way they're needed. Not a relationship example, but I have

a friend who likes to boast about how good of

a friend she is. Her actions were there in performative ways.

She wanted to buy me an extremely expensive Christmas gift

while in debt. She said everything that was hers was ours, etc. However,

a lot of foundational actions between friends were missing. She

thrives in starting drama between people, and every time she's

with someone in person, she calls another friend at least

once to catch up or gossip. Foundational actions and trust

builders are always more important to have than showy displays

of affection. Story 36. Those who refuse to consider the

idea of therapy because they think it is silly or unneeded,

not for financial reasons or out of fear, subtly hold

things over you, such as bringing up how they bought

you a gift or took you out to eat during

an argument. This includes saying, you did XYZ in the

past to why you're bringing this up now. I am

admittedly guilty of this as well. Repeatedly doing something you

said you do not like, even when they say it's

a joke. Not standing up for you when friends or

family make fun of you. But they don't introduce you

to friends or family and instead just leave you to

do it yourself. This one might seem kind of dumb

to others, but it's more of a mannerism that irks me.

Story 37. This one can be subtle. Uh, you're doing

this task wrong, so stop, vibe. This is manifested for

me in a few different ways. For example, you're doing

something for yourself and maybe the other person might or

might not have experience. For example, I was putting up

some of that sticker wallpaper. I'd never done it before.

I bought a really nice pattern I loved and was

figuring out as I went. I did research on YouTube.

We didn't live together. They had seen the paper and

knew it was something on my to-do list. I told

them earlier in a text that it was what I

was doing and if they didn't want to help, they

didn't need to come over that night. But he was like,

I'm really good at that. I'm coming. My partner came

in and was like beside myself. I was doing it wrong. Yeah,

I had a bunch crumpled up because I messed up.

I wasn't sweating about the waste though. I was just

trying to have fun and learn. I wasn't cutting or

measuring right. I tried to show him the videos I

was referencing. At some point, I told him if he

wasn't having fun or didn't want to help, he could go.

But we got two rows up and realized we didn't

have enough fluff to finish the wall. And I was like,

I'll buy more, okay? And he was like, no, we

will do. Like paint and stencil. And just completely insisted

his way was better and that we should just stop.

I'm like, okay, so we just stopped. The painting and

stenciling never happened. They don't print that wallpaper anymore. Like,

I can understand being like, that's not my thing, but

I don't understand. Okay, but why would you actively stop me?

For example, can you build an Ikea shelf together? Will

the person be weird if you're on a lower skill

level than them? Will they be a butt about it,

or will they help you get better? Can you run

errands and grocery shop together? Do they have to do

it their way or else get annoyed with you? I've

had relationships where this was a nightmare and now I

make sure we run an errand early somewhere to make

sure they aren't a bum. It could be chores. It

could be the way you set up the kitchen. It

could be a hobby. If there's something that is inconsequential

to them that they get annoyed by and try to

meddle in, even under the guise of helping, get the

heck out. Story 38. I'm wondering if this is a

red flag now. Making decisions without consulting me, even in

minor ways, is a consistent issue. For instance, we agreed

yesterday that we would run errands to get items for

a barbecue, shop at Trader Joe's and pick up things

for Korean barbecue, then go into a Korean market, Trader Joe's,

and a grocery store. She wasn't feeling well, and her

kids' lunch is usually between 11 and 12, with a

nap from 1 to 3. While we were together running errands,

she suddenly announced at 11 a.m. that we needed to

cut the errand short after she got what she wanted

at Trader Joe's. That meant we got nothing for the barbecue,

because we skipped the grocery store and nothing for the

Korean barbecue because the produce was off. A change in

plans meant that I had to either stay at her

place until nap time was over or come back afterward.

I always have to circle back to be heard, but

it's annoying, to say the least. It happens with other things, too.

Decisions are made that inconvenience me without any consultation. Story 39.

A Flat-Out Refusal to Apologize or Take Accountability When you

try to bring something up that upsets you, instead of listening,

they literally walk away mid-conversation and even go as far

as regularly closing a door in your face. They gaslight you,

and when you point it out, they gaslight you further

by saying you don't know what gaslighting means. I'm still

married to this person, but we've separated while living together. Unfortunately,

my salary and the current high cost of living are

making it impossible for me to move out without being

forced to live with strangers, which is the last thing

I want to do. I've definitely learned my lesson about

not allowing those lovely early feelings of love to cloud

my judgments and make me ignore major red flags. Story 40.

This may not be the sort of answer you're looking for,

but you have a good way of telling whether a

relationship will work out or not. Are both people in

the relationship exactly the same person, whether they're alone or

with their partner? That's my key criterion. If they're truly

relaxed and true to themselves, they will be exactly the

same person with or without their partner. That's a strong relationship. However,

if only one of them becomes more talkative, silly, humorous,

or sarcastic when they're not with their partner, then they're

being stifled by their relationship or they're pretending to be

the person they think their partner wants them to be.

Those relationships never work out in the end. Story 41.

Never apologizing or refusing to accept that something was their fault,

even if it's a slight error. It should be no

big deal to just admit you messed up on something.

To some people, however, it's a huge deal and they'll

refuse to admit fault until the end. Another aspect to

add is when a person is trying to admit guilt,

yet the very act of admitting they're guilty of some

dumb thing absolutely not even a huge deal, causes them

to spiral out of control in despair and depression, and

they lash out at others or shove others away so

they can be alone. That right there, that's a ticking

time bomb of a broken relationship. Instead of trying to

calmly talk through any issues they have, they bottle everything

up and then just freaking explode at random. And then,

even worse, they hold that over you by never forgiving themselves,

so anything you've built up to that point is ruined,

and anything you try to build with them will be

ruined because they'll never forgive themselves for something stupid and trivial.

Yet at the same freaking time, for something that is

truly important to building a better relationship, to them it's

not a big deal. They'll be mad at you for

making it a big deal and they'll hold that against

you and claim to everyone that you're what's wrong because

you dared to care about something important. Story 42. Moving

your stuff. Mostly from your areas or using your stuff,

Is it out of convenience? Like, piling things on your

side of the bed instead of theirs? Do they use

your stuff and put it back where you had it,

or do they leave it where it was, or move

to an area where they can use it more easily?

I'm not talking about cleaning, tidying, or shared items, like

where to put the milk in the fridge or the

extra soap. I'm talking about this. If you have a

tool and you keep it on your desk and they

need it, what do they do after? And especially what

happens if they hate the reverse and get upset if

you were to move something of theirs. Is it a pattern?

Do they roll their eyes? Do they acknowledge it but

not do better? Story 43. Whenever I would tell my

ex about an instance in my day where I had

disagreed with someone else, it would be quick to take

the other person's side, even when I was in the right.

When I assumed blame for a disagreement, he would hardly agree.

I noticed that this was a pattern where I would

never get any form of support or validation from him. Later,

he would also pin my opinions and experiences against those

of online strangers or the proverbial, many people say this,

so you must be wrong. For example... He cited an

online discussion where someone claimed that eating eggs as a

snack was weird. I told them that where I'm from,

it's normal. He proceeded to argue that the people in

the discussion were right and I was wrong because one

of them was Asian, I'm also Asian, and he went

so far as to say that my people were weird

for snacking on eggs. After that, he further tried to

push the idea that he was also Asian because he

had relatives in Indonesia. He's Dutch and Caucasian, just to

absolve himself of accountability for calling my people weird. But

he would be equally quick to expect unwavering support and

validation from me and his friends, even when he was

in the wrong. Anytime he would be met with dissent,

he would either shut down or subtly threaten to block

the person disagreeing with him. Story 44 Not being on

time for dates in the beginning with sorry excuses. Damn,

I still think back to that first date I went

on and how something crazy happened. It was on his

way and he would be there, so we went. He

finally made it. Come to find out, that was just

a pattern and a part of his personality. When he

said he was 10 minutes away, it was an hour.

When he said he would be right there, it was

hours later. Still kick myself for not recognizing the red flag.

That literally opened the door to a lack of accountability

and disrespect. I mean, it was all shown from the

very first date. Story 45 When I was a few

months into a relationship with my now ex-girlfriend, I dropped

her off at the tanning salon. I then went to

two stores to pick up stuff for the house. I

said I was going to A and then B. It

should take about 15 minutes and I'll come back and

pick you up. It took about 20, but that wasn't

the issue. See, I said I was going to place

A and place B, but for whatever reason, I went

to B first and came into the parking lot from

the opposite direction, so I was lying to her. She

could no longer trust me when I told her things.

This turned into our first actual argument and then the

silent treatment for days. Little did I know this would

set the tone for most of the rest of our

relationship with her nutty, control freak behavior. I put up

with it for years because I had a crush on

her for almost a decade before we finally got together

and I really wanted to make it work. Story 46.

I'm not sure if this is considered a silent red flag,

but for me, that's someone who keeps complaining that what

you want is too hard for them to acquire or

that it's always too hard for them to afford to

go to a place you want to go. I've realized

that I'm always suggesting new places for fun, with a

full understanding that if someone says they can't afford it,

it's a good thing to try and change places to

accommodate them. But this keeps happening to me no matter

where I suggest and how many times I do it.

Sometimes it's not even a comment directed at me, they

just ruin the vibe by saying, why do you always

go to such expensive places, when I'm literally suggesting to

try out different things. Of course, money is going to

be necessary, and most of the time it's not even

an unreasonable price range. I was only suggesting it as

a once-in-a-while experience in hopes of introducing something new to

the group and to my partner. I think it's a

red flag if you always have to accommodate someone and

they haven't once thought about you putting up with them

or tried to make an effort to accompany you. It's

happened to me on my birthday when I asked my

boyfriend and best friends to try out a special collab

cafe event. They complained it was too expensive and we

ended up not going despite agreeing months in advance. They

gave me money instead of buying me a decent present.

I'd had it. Story 47. Odd behavior with her cell phone.

This became an issue with the last guy I dated.

He had his phone on him constantly and only within

his reach. It went off constantly and when he was

doing whatever he was doing, he would put the phone

face down. If he left the room, he'd take it

with him. Even if he just got up to walk

a few feet to grab something, he'd take it with him.

The first several times he did this, I really didn't

think much of it. Eventually, he started noticing that he'd

do these things literally every time he touched his phone.

I finally asked him about it and he got super defensive.

He said it was just a habit he'd gotten into. Oh,

it's a habit, alright. Someone trying to hide something. Which

he was. Story 48 People always say relationships are about compromise.

If you have to compromise on so many things, then

what is the incentive to be together other than intimacy?

No one is perfect, and the grass isn't always greener

on the other side, but you don't have to be

in a relationship. If you can't agree on music, then

all road trips sound terrible. Going to a concert or

a movie you sincerely don't like doesn't sound fun. You

just got off work, so let's spend the evening watching

a show I or you dislike. If you don't agree

in politics and or religion, have fun raising kids together.

Divorce is so bizarre to me because I don't understand

how a majority of those circumstances aren't obvious before marriage.

I've been with my asshole for over 12 years now,

married for over 5, and the idea of divorce is incomprehensible.

The stuff we enjoy together, we do together. If she

wants to watch some Grey's Anatomy, then I'll go play

video games. If she wants to see a Blair movie,

then she has friends and family. This works both ways. Luckily,

we enjoy most of the same things. Story 49. Not

being happy for you. My last relationship was the first

time I dealt with something like this. I graduated from college,

got a good job, and got into grad school. Instead

of being happy for me, he was jealous and complained

that I did too much. All he did was talk

about how he hated his life and wanted more, not

understanding how that truly hurt me. I was like he

was saying, you're not happy? Even with me in your life?

All the work I did was for us. Yet it

wasn't enough. It really broke me down. But now I'm

in a relationship where for the first time, someone is

happy for all I've done and accomplished. If I get

a raise at work, he's super happy. If he gets promoted,

I'm ecstatic. We're happy for each other because what we

do is for us, and this is something that my

ex never understood. Story 50. How they talk about the

woman in their life. A string of crappy exes is bad,

but how he regards the other women in his life

is more telling. It's true that there are exceptions, but

I always feel good about a guy who is appreciative

of his mother and female relatives. Also, how often he

takes initiative, and if not, why not? I know good

guys who happen to be chronic overthinkers, but they try

to be appreciative. And they do try. But there are

guys who will ask for ridiculous things and not even

think about reciprocating, and when asked for even minor things,

they throw a fit. Lastly, and I don't know if

this counts for others, but I'm wary of cynical or

negative people. It brings me down and I feel uncomfortable

being more positive. Story 51. Secrets. There were so many

things that would upset him that I was constantly keeping

things from him. For example, I didn't approve of the

radio station I used to listen to, so I only

listened in secret. I'm sure it happened a few times,

but I distinctly remember one time where we were driving

and a popular song came on at some other radio station.

I started humming or singing along to it without realizing it,

and he was furious. Absolutely livid. He turned to me

and demanded to know how I knew the lyrics and

why would I listen to that type of song. A fight, crying,

and profuse apologizing in my part ensued. Sometimes secrets are good,

like engagements or pregnancies. If, however, you find yourself keeping

a lot of secrets because you're afraid, there's something wrong

with the relationship. Well, if you like these stories, here's more.

YouTube thinks you're gonna love this. Catch you in that video.