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26 Women Share Extremely Specific Red Flags They Learned Because Of Their Exes
#1
Ha. My ex had two that I thought were strange.
1) He was incapable of not realizing that he can't leave expensive [stuff] in his car and not have it get stolen. Stereo? gone. Leather jacket? gone. Tool kit? gone.
I think somehow, he felt like it made him a better person for being so trusting or something?
2) he was extremely jealous. But not of other men. He was jealous of me. If we were out for dinner with friends and I said something funny that everyone laughed at? He would shut down. I mean, HE was the funny one! How dare I? I was also trying my hand at writing and got myself a literary agent. He (my ex) refused to read anything I wrote, because he just didn't think it would interest him. I was a singer in a band, and he rarely came out to see us play. And when he did, it never seemed like he was enjoying himself at all. Honestly, it seemed like the typical 'Manic Pixie Dreamgirl' (tm) scenario. I love all the quirky/creative things about this girl, so I should date her and squash them all.
Good news, I left him and have not dimmed my light since.
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#2
After several years together, my ex proudly proclaimed he hadn't read a book since college. I was floored, this man had been a science teacher!
I'd found an interesting nonfiction book on a niche topic I tend to get nerdy about. He walked in on me and said "Are you reading a TEXTBOOK... for FUN?" He looked and sounded so disgusted that I put it down and never finished it. It hadn't even occurred to me that it was a textbook, just an interesting-sounding book recommended by a podcast I liked.
We didn't last long after that.
#3
Grown men should not be obsessed with anime girls. Full stop. I've seen it multiple times and it's never a good sign. I gave them the benefit of the doubt.
#4
“I don’t need friends.” Meanwhile complaining that he’s lonely because I’m not filling my niches in his life correctly.
#6
My ex used to leave open packages of raw chicken sitting uncovered in the fridge. He also never washed his hands and would eat food that he'd left sitting on the counter for days.
He had explosive diarrhea every day for years. He visited multiple doctors, even specialists, and had two colonoscopies in his early 30s. They couldn't make a diagnosis. Eventually, they figured out that it was due to his abysmally poor hygiene habits.
He did not change.
#7
He was into luxury things like diamonds and expensive watches. That in itself wasn’t a deal breaker for me; I like nice things, too, but I thought he could be stuck up and ignorant about it sometimes. One day I learned just how incredibly ignorant he was about it all when he tried to tell me that diamonds are so expensive because they’re star bits that crashed on earth from outer space. We’d been talking about how his brother bought his fiance a lab-grown diamond and how he would never do that, doesn’t understand why they’re such ethical hippies and what’s wrong with diamonds blah blah blah. He stated it as a fact just out of his own beliefs and despite being so into his luxuries, he had never bothered even once to look up information about them and what blood diamonds are and why ethical diamonds exist. We didn’t make it another year after that, and I never let him put a diamond (lab grown or otherwise) on my finger.
#8
He was so sensitive to criticism that he quit perfectly good jobs just to stop getting it, instead of taking the initiative to improve.
#9
He didn't know that things can expire even though they've been refrigerated. He ate a meat pizza that had been in there for at least over 2 weeks and seemed surprised when it made him violently ill.
#10
He wore glass frames. Just the frames. No lenses. Like you could poke your fingers through the frame. I asked why, and he said his mom told him he looked better with glasses. The frames weren’t as much of a red flag as the fact that he took his mom’s criticism to heart so deeply he felt the need to wear fake frames all the time. I remember thinking I might let it slide if we were very young, but man was nearly 40. I couldn’t help but assume committing to the guy would mean deferring to his mom’s opinions about everything. Obviously no way to have confirmed those anxieties, but I wasn’t willing to find out.
#11
He had a party which his family attended. One of my friends, who is black, arrived and let himself into the house through the unlocked front door (as had everyone else). His mom screamed and grabbed her phone.
So, uh, could I stay with someone whose parents were so racist that when having a party, they thought a black man arriving at the party was, like, there to do crime? No. No, I could not. Immediately after that, I began noticing a lot of little things that I had thought were my ex being socially awkward that suddenly got recontextualized as racism.
#12
He would always have something disparaging to say about women in larger bodies, a lot of times unprovoked. Like he would see a woman and say that she's disgusting or ugly and that he's not attracted to her, as if there was a secret camera somewhere and a tv show host asked him a question. Meanwhile back at the ranch, I'm not the smallest girlie pop and had gained some weight during the course of our relationship. It made me really side eye him.
Also, he would claim that he's apolitical and that he doesn't vote but would regurgitate every Conservative talking point if given the chance.
#13
He liked to break social norms to make everyone around him uncomfortable. He liked to watch them squirm trying to play off what he’d just said or done as something more normal than it actually was.
He was also great at picking out just the right gift. So imagine my surprise when we’re out at a fancy restaurant for my birthday and he’s eagerly asking me to open my birthday gift at the table. IT WAS AN AXE.
#14
He doesnt like going to the barbeshop and having an adult male do his hair. he thinks its gay to have anither guy touch his head.
Always want a woman and doesnt like getting the free shampoo, and head massage. He said he emphatizes with the boyfriend of the “pretty” hair dresser. He wouldnt want his girlfriend touching other guys head like that.
#15
I found out about malicious incompetence from my ex. Until him, I never met anyone who purposely did things horribly.
#16
He introduced me to 4chan and said he went there every day to keep up with the news, without seeing anything “too disturbing”, which is literally the mainly kind of thing there.
#17
He was a culture snob, only read classic literature or award winning modern fiction, wouldn’t listen to up and coming music, wouldn’t watch any TV.
He was the 2000s version of a performative man.
#18
Not giving me any compliments. Expecting me to just believe that he likes me just because he exists. Not looking into my eyes even during intimacy. Answering with "Understood" when I was sharing my feelings. In general being very lukewarm. Being more affectionate to a cat than to me (when I asked why, his answer was "well you're not a cat"). I'm shocked I wasted my time with that dude and had to really dig into my traumas to understand why I ended up there. I left after two and a half months but it still was quite traumatizing.
#20
He was secretly obsessed with Marilyn Monroe. I went to his childhood home for the first time and his room was covered from floor to ceiling with calendar cutouts and posters, with a large poster on the ceiling over his bed. And then I found a Marilyn tie, cigarette lighter, Christmas ornaments, pillowcases, and other “collectors” items in the dresser.
#21
He struggled to regulate his emotions.
My nervous system often did not feel safe around him.
#22
He got some kind of mouth infection after eating from a plate he hadn’t washed for a long period of time.
#25
Did not want to talk about any ex-girlfriend ever.
Didn’t think that getting to know one’s neighbors (after living in the same house for multiple years) was a good idea.
What was this guy afraid of?
He had major AUD.
#26
Being obsessed with selvedge denim. I have never met a man who was obsessed with selvedge denim and emotionally healthy. My "ex" (loosely termed as we didn't go out for long) was sooo self-obsessed/superior about it, and so was every one of his friends also in this selvedge denim cult. The man literally had a "supplier" in Japan whom he would never stop bragging about. It was like every conversation with him would eventually circle back to selvedge denim.
Honestly, I love fashion, but my experience with straight men who also love fashion has been ghastly. I dated a few because of common interests, but omg they were all just insufferable about it and super snobby/gate keep-y rather than celebrating the fun parts. I'm sure I was probably just unlucky or something, but there's definitely at least a pink flag that pops up in my brain every time I meet one of those guys.
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