As a Single Woman, These Are the Cringiest Things I’ve Ever Heard Interested Men Say to Me

These may be the ultimate red flags of men who tell you too much before the first date.

Since the ending of my first and last (toxic) relationship back in July 2017, when it comes to men who are interested in me, I go by one quote:

Once you see one red flag, don’t stick around to find another.

A red flag is anything that threatens your peace, sanity, current lifestyle, or your life in general. It can be unhealthy or manipulative behaviors. Or patterns in their daily life that are questionable. Some people are walking red flags because everything about them screams trouble, danger, drama, delusion, or instability.

Taking a risk to be with someone who has multiple red flags can be negatively life-altering.

So, suppose you can stop justifying everything about a person and see them for who they show you. In that case, you will not only stop wasting valuable time on the wrong people, but you will understand the difference between a red flag, a green flag, and a yellow one.

“You know, it’s funny. When you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.” — Wanda from BoJack Horseman

What’s a Green Flag?

Well, if the proper definition of a red flag is a warning of danger, then a green flag is an indication that it is safe to proceed [with that love interest].

A few green flags would be:

• Consistent communication
• Mutual respect
• Emotional support
• Shared values and goals
• Encouragement of personal growth
• Affection and intimacy
• Sense of humor
• Teamwork
• Honesty
• Actions align with words

Green flags bring harmony, closeness, and balance to a future healthy relationship.

What’s a Yellow Flag?

A yellow flag is a marker of where your relationship may be experiencing some tension [but can be resolved by acknowledging the issues at hand].

It doesn’t indicate that a relationship should end but that things should be reevaluated to see where individuals stand in each other’s lives.

Yellow flags may occur in the relationship versus the dating phase because problems may arise over time rather than at the beginning of dating.

A few yellow flags may be:

• Inconsistent behavior
• Difficulty with conflict resolution
• Boundary issues
• Unwillingness to compromise
• Lack of growth
• Control issues

Yellow flags may have been once green flags, but people evolve — and not always in a good way. But what is best is to figure out if the changes in the relationship have an underlying reason for taking place and to focus on what can bring forth a new understanding of an evolved version of the same relationship.

Now, I want to discuss the conversations that sometimes happen before even the first date and how they can bring forth red flags that should not go past the first meeting with the other person. But who nowadays has deep conversations before the first date? Not many!

The Red Flags: The Cringiest Things I’ve Ever Heard Interested Men Say to Me

Financial issues

Now, I am not saying that men should be millionaires before diving into the dating scene, but it’s a red flag when a man shares his financial issues but is willing to date — intentionally.

Intentional dating means seeking a relationship that leads to a possible marriage.

For instance, I had a guy once say that he didn’t have a place to stay and was living out of his vehicle, yet he was open to date because he desired a wife.

This same man was offended because a previous woman he liked didn’t want to date him because he only wanted to invite her to random hotels, which gave her the impression that he only wanted sex. But it was either a hotel or the front seat of his car because he was homeless!

Yet, when he expressed that he was interested in me, he was trying to convince me to open my home to him and play house during the dating phase (Which we were not even dating), which I laughed it off and told him that even if he were my husband, we wouldn’t be living under the same roof as one another. But I refuse to do things as backward as people do now in the dating phase.

I will not allow someone to live off of me and then ask questions later. If a person cannot take care of themselves, they will bring struggle love to your front door wrapped in a -1 credit score, a user mentality, and no contribution to the peaceful elements within your life. It’s 2024! I am not for this struggle love nonsense anymore!

Unless you are a woman who enjoys taking care of grown men, he will bring financial strain and leave you mentally, emotionally, and physically drained.

But if a man tells you his financial troubles even before the first date, be prepared to pay your way — and maybe even buy his dinner. But my philosophy is that how a situation starts can be how it ends. You may be carrying the entire relationship if you are carrying within the dating phase.

If he is pursuing you but can’t even afford to take you on a date because of his financial issues, he should not consider dating until he is stable. Therefore, I wouldn’t take him seriously until I saw that he was trying to change his situation because I refuse to be any man’s meal ticket! No pun intended.

If I am currently working two jobs and one side hustle to maintain just the necessities in my life, why would I want someone who would make my life harder? I’m better off single, right?

If he doesn’t have a pot to piss in and a window to throw it out of, you may struggle to maintain the home you built for yourself. And home can mean a lot of things, such as your physical address, your peace of mind, and the structure of your life.

Empty plans for the future

I remember asking a guy who liked me, “Where do you see yourself in the next five years?”

His response?

“Moving somewhere that will allow me to smoke weed — legally.”

Men make me want to give up on all of them because of a few that belong to their side that just seem to be living to exist — with no intentions of doing anything but be a waste of space on the planet.

I know that was harsh to say, but I’m starting to believe that some men want to be alone because they are scaring women away for not striving for anything more than what they may currently possess. But if you are a man who has no goals, ambitions, or plans that could elevate you to an improved version of yourself, it tells a lot about how you may approach the dating phase or a relationship.

You may just be dating to have something to do, or you may just want a relationship, thinking it could bring you closer to figuring out your own life. Either way, you would be wasting someone else’s time exploring what you want or don’t want for the future.

A man without a plan is like a woman whose only talent is twerking. No man wants a woman who can only move her butt — in a provocative way — with no substance. And no woman wants a man who has no direction in his life.

Dating should be about something other than passing the time. It should be about investing in another person — not trying to distract yourself from working on parts of yourself that need serious attention.

Haven’t achieved certain typical milestones

Now, I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt because we never know why people don’t get to a certain level in their life like others. And what I mean by this is some people are in their 30s who are just now getting their driver’s license or just now getting out on their own in their 40s.

Times have changed. Life and the economy have made a lot more things more challenging to achieve — such as homeownership.

There is nothing wrong with having to live with your parents or even having to share a car with another person. But it concerns me when a person states that they haven’t made progress in their life because of things they didn’t experience in their childhood (and blame their parents).

Maybe because I have always taken accountabilty — even as a child — I don’t understand why some people will place the blame on someone else for not learning certain things when, as an adult, you can learn the things you feel you lacked instead of allowing the past to hinder you from being a fully capable adult?

For instance, I have a friend who liked me, but one thing that was a turn-off was that he lacked accountability for anything. He said he never got his driver’s license because he had been waiting for his parents to put him in driver’s ed when we were teenagers.

Ummm…Sir, we are now in our mid-30s. My mother didn’t teach me anything about money except how to spend it. But I am an adult with grown folks’ bills now. So, I better grow up or lose everything.

So, if I don’t know how to budget, I will not complain about what my mother should have taught me. I am going to learn either how to budget or how to live a tough life. Either way, there will be some life lessons to pass on to someone else.

I was tired of hearing him say that it was his parents’ fault when so many years had passed, and he never made an effort to achieve that typical milestone in a young person’s life for himself.

There are plenty of people in this world who don’t get their driver’s license until later on in their lives, and it’s for different reasons. But it annoys me when someone can do something about their situation and chooses to constantly complain. I can’t live life for no one else but myself. And I will not blame others because I am lacking in some areas of my life — especially when I have the power to change certain things.

It’s super unattractive when a man is all (negative) words and no (positive) action.

Sharing stories that show parts of their personality — in a bad way

An ex-guy friend from college who had finally admitted that he liked me after I graduated had told me a story that made me think I would be in danger if I made him feel any emotion less than happy.

But it also made me feel like I could catch a case if this incident were ever to happen in front of me because, at the time, I was taking care of my little fur sister (my deceased mother’s poodle). So, to hear certain things would instantly make me question someone’s mental health as well as their character overall.

Now, after he shared this story, I did look at him differently because I felt like he was a threat to me. He had already stated that he had plans to start seeing a therapist due to his anger issues, but I was wondering why he wasn’t in therapy years ago. But I wasn’t judging him. I just wasn’t sure how I would react if he had been around my fur sister and supposedly was so pissed off that he killed her.

I know that everyone has done things they aren’t proud of, nor do they want to share with another living soul. But to this very day, I still wonder why he decided to share that specific story with me. People change — but sometimes it’s for the worse, not the better. Could that story have been a warning in disguise?

The fact that my mother died in a horrific way, and I was taking care of her furbaby would have triggered the darkest parts of me to know that I put my fur sister at risk of being harmed by someone who had already told me what they were capable of doing.

If a person can share traumatic experiences with you that they created within their own life, is this person implying that they could bring more traumatic experiences into your life? I don’t want to chance it.

Now, I have discussed how people tend to feel very comfortable telling me a lot of interesting things about themselves. Again, I don’t judge.

I appreciate people — specifically men who are honest, even if it hurts my feelings or makes me cringe.

The cringiest things aren’t always red flags. But if it places you in a bad headspace, makes you feel like it could hinder you from moving forward with someone, or turn you into a person you don’t even recognize, there is no point in sweeping that red flag or any red flags underneath a rug just because you want to see the good in every person.

When a red flag appears, it’s protecting us from much more we have yet to discover. Don’t overlook or deny it because it could be one of many things that will be hard to digest about a person. It’s not about judging someone. It’s about how someone aligns with your desired life for yourself and your future lover or spouse.

“Most human beings choose to ignore the red flags because they’re not in the emotional space to accept the truth that they are seeing. If they were to see the red flags for what they are and acknowledge their significance, they would have to make a decision that they are not emotionally ready to make. To put it simply, fear keeps most people from seeing the red flags” — Joe Amoia

— Teri Nickels

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