Six Romantic Relationship “Red Flags”
From “Clingy” to “Gross”, research identifies the deal-breakers people watch for in short- and long-term relationships.
While waiting for the bus recently, along with about twenty other poor souls, I was somewhat involuntarily subjected to a conversation between a man and a manifestly recent love interest. In a rather harsh tone, he was notifying the woman on the other end of the line (we could all hear both parties publicly negotiating their not so fresh relationship) that he was “no longer going to use lotion”. He went on emphatically: “It was cute at first, but I’m not doing it anymore “.
As the bus was over an hour late, we got to hear many similar exchanges. I found myself reflecting, with some concern, whether this was turning out badly for the woman. He seemed to be making a case that he was being mistreated, a self-professed victim in spite of his aggressive tone, a sign of future gaslighting risk. His next call was to work, saying he was sick and wouldn’t be able to come in. He was most evidently in good health!
Evidence-Based Deal-Breakers
A recent article in the journal Personality and Individual Differences (2023) re-analyzes data collected from a prior experiment to distill out key…
