Opinion: The 5 Biggest Red Flags in Women

These are the things I’ve learned to look out for while dating

Photo byMohamed_hassan on Pixabay

This is intended to be a fun article, and I wouldn’t take anything herein too seriously. Having said that, after getting caught up in serial dating (57 first dates last year alone), I have begun to recognize a few traits that seem to consistently foreshadow danger to come. Plus, I’m a little bit of a red flag myself, and seem to frequently trauma bond with women, so I feel well-equipped to share my findings on this matter with the reader.

My view is based entirely on anecdotal data, my conclusions may very well be wrong, and there are exceptions to every rule, but here’s what I’ve observed are the 5 biggest red flags in women: 1) works in mental health, 2) chest or collar bone tattoo, 3) obsessed with astrology, 4) itinerant, and 5) doesn’t reciprocate questions. Let’s unpack each.

1. Works in Mental Health

It seems to me that mental health professionals, contrary to what one might expect, are not the most well-adjusted individuals. In fact, they seem to be facing a lot of the same issues they work to cure others of. Perhaps, this natural alikeness serves as a draw to the field, or maybe they started studying the subject after learning a little about themselves from one of the books. Whatever initially sparked their interest in that field, it seems that working in mental health is often a sign of mental health issues.

Now, as someone carrying around more trauma than most, I don’t want to vilify anyone. I’d also argue that mental health issues can actually make for great partners; a person suffering from anxiety, for example, can be among the most caring and considerate people you’ll ever meet. I have some serious anxiety, and I look for it as a green flag in my partners. The people I’ve met working in mental health are indeed great people as well, but their idiosyncrasies were impossibly challenging to navigate, so for that reason they top the list of red flags.

2. Chest or Collar Bone Tattoo

I’ll have a hard time elaborating why this one is a red flag. I have no idea why the placement of a tattoo should correlate with some deeper issues, but it certainly seems to! And it’s all about how front and center it is. If it’s off on the ribs, under the breast, over to the shoulder, etc., the effects are nullified. But women with anything within the triangle that can be drawn with lines connecting the two shoulders to each other, and the two shoulders to the solar plexus, are a no-go for me.

One woman with such a tattoo tried to steal my phone after a few dates. Another would block me every time we had a slight disagreement, just to unblock me and apologize later on. When things finally ended with her, after a month or two, she lied to the police and said that I was sending her threatening messages! Obviously, it was demonstrably false, and the case was immediately dismissed, but the application for a restraining order is still public record to this day. She had great qualities to match her craziness, but in the end, it definitely wasn’t worth it.

Photo byLeah Newhouse on Pexels

3. Obsessed with Astrology

This is probably the most common one. It seems that a lot of women have at least a passing interest in astrology, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if everything links back to astrology, there’s usually rough seas ahead. I lean towards saying that, like the chest/collar bone tattoos, there’s really no reason this should be a red flag, but I also see someways that it can be causal and not simply just correlative.

If you’re really into astrology, you tend to talk about your behavioral repertoire as if it’s preset. Your behavior, and your dynamics with others, are governed by the stars — not by your personal efforts to manage them — and that can be a self-limiting belief. However, a lot of the major astrology buffs I’ve met have actually been very considerate and fastidiously self-governing. But they’ve also all seemed to have a wild emotional side that wasn’t obvious at first. Well, causative or correlative, this one has definitely stood out as a red flag in a lot of past experiences.

4. Itinerant

By itinerant, I mean women that have moved to new cities, or new countries, by themselves. I want to make clear here: This is honestly an action I have a lot of respect for. It takes a tremendous amount of bravery and fortitude to do something like this. And if it’s done for certain reasons, it’s not a red flag at all. One reason in particular would be if living conditions in their country or city of origin were really terrible.

There are two reasons I see this as a red flag: The first is that it often signals someone who might be looking for geographical solutions to emotional problems. They seem to be dissatisfied with life and think that being somewhere else will automatically make everything better. It’s like trying to outrun our problems, instead of working on them directly, and it’s not healthy.

The second reason is that if this person has up and left everything behind, you can best believe they are capable of doing it again. This is the type who is always threatening to take off to the other side of the world after every argument. The song “Trackstar” by Mooski comes to mind: “She’s a runner, she’s a track star. She gon’ run away when it gets hard.” (I’ve linked the song below.)

I’ve had significant relationships with three women who this description applies to. One ended things by suddenly moving to a city that’s a 9-hour drive from where we were living and then ghosting me. The other broke up with me while visiting her parents on the opposite side of the world — even though we were living together at the time. I moved her stuff to a storage unit, and she came and collected it two months later. The last one moved to a city hundreds of miles away after an argument that only temporarily stopped the relationship, and the relationship then had to continue as a long-distance one!

5. Doesn’t Reciprocate Questions

It’s perfectly fine to not respond to every question with “and you,” but if it almost never happens you’re in for some issues. There are people who seem to somehow go through entire relationships without ever showing any real interest in who their partner is as a person or what they have going on in their lives. I’ve gone months talking to women who only talk about themselves, and seldom ever hand back the microphone to hear about what’s going on with me.

Sometimes, honestly, I’ve liked this dynamic. If they’re able to functionally monologue with the occasional follow-up question to keep things moving, it makes for very low-effort conversation on my part. Other times, however, it’s dreadfully boring, since there’s no natural back and forth, and you kind of just have to keep feeding them prompts to speak on. Either way, the conversation itself is not the issue.

This trait speaks to lack of consideration and self-awareness. The women I’ve met who act this way have no idea how self-involved they are and engage in very little introspection. Forget the fact that you’re nothing but an ear to them, they will eventually treat you very poorly and not even realize it. Look out for who takes an interest in you early on — the ones who don’t are bad news.

Conclusion

These are the 5 red flags that either put me off or put me on my toes when I encounter them. Some I can see directly how they point to deeper issues; others seem to simply be correlative. In all cases, there’s no science to it. It’s all just things I happened to notice, and if I were to relive my love life with all different women, I’d probably have made a very different list. Still, it’s fun to remark on the patterns we come to recognize, even if it does point to a sad truth: I’ve done way too much dating!