When You Are Wearing Rose-Coloured Glasses, You Miss All The Red Flags
A hilarious yet inspiring take on a missing the red flags in a relationship.
Once, a long back, I started talking to one of my readers on Instagram. We were going through something similar at the moment and found a sense of comfort in each other. A few days later, I came up with the idea of starting a mental health club where everyone could feel safe and supported. She told me her best friend would want to join too.
Glad to already have a new member, I asked her if I could talk to him first to get a basic idea of who he was. Obviously no one would talk about their personal problems to a random dude so I wanted to make sure everyone knows everyone and feels at ease.
So I introduced myself to this guy and within a few days of talking, I realised he was madly in love with my friend. I encouraged him to make a move, perhaps ask her out. Turns out, she knew. But she was not interested in him. She had near about brother zoned him.
Things went on mundanely for a few days until my friend mysteriously disappeared. Nobody knew what happened, she just wasn’t there anymore.
I was worried, he was worried. I tried my best to comfort him as I could imagine what he must have been going through. I supported him through it to the best of my ability, which could be a reason why he fell in love with me.
This was the first red flag I missed. One does not simply change their love interest in a span of 10–15 days especially when the previous love interest might be in danger.
Nevertheless, a few weeks later, my friend resurfaced. I would not disclose what had happened to protect her privacy. But, we all were happy that at least she was back. Now that she was here, things started going back to normal eventually.
I told her about how he had confessed his feelings — to which she strongly discouraged me from dating him. It was here that I started getting really confused. She was not interested in him but she did not want him dating anyone else either.
Nevertheless, with time, the guy and I became close and I decided to give the relationship a chance. Although, even after we started dating, he used to prioritise her over me. He used to stop talking to me when she came online and would come back to me when she was gone. This was red flag number 2. It hurt me but I told myself it was fine because he loved her once and perhaps it takes time for feelings to fade.
When my friend got to know about our relationship, she immediately broke all ties with me. It baffled me to the point of utter madness. She did not want him yet she also wanted him to just be hers. And she would forsake a good friendship for this weird logic.
When I talked about this to him, he shrugged it off. This was red flag number 3. Apparently it was no big deal to him and he continued talking to her like nothing had happened. Eventually, after a lot of arguments, he told me he would stop talking to her. They stopped interacting, at least that is what I think. But nothing changed in him. Normal human beings get upset when they lose a loved one or let's just say a good friendship, but he was unmoved by the whole ordeal. He carried on like nothing had happened. Like there were no feelings like nothing bad had happened to her or about how it all was affecting me. Not even her absence affected him one bit. This was my red flag number 4. No matter how emotionally strong we are, it hurts at least a bit when we lose someone close to us. But somehow he was immune to this pain and as we are going to find out how this pattern repeated with me.
Things went on smoothly for a while until this time, he disappeared. A little while later he too resurfaced and told me that ‘he was serious in a hospital’. My first instinct was to be worried about him. I asked him what had happened and which hospital he was in. But he refused to give me any information. This was red flag number 5. After a lot of pushing from my side, he probably googled hospital names and told me the first one that appeared.
When I told him I’d come to visit, he instantly refused. Now I started getting a little suspicious. I told him I’d at least call the hospital to check-in with him. This too was met with a strong refusal. Now I was getting much closer to figuring out it was a lie. Now, I don’t think any hospital allows its ‘serious patients’ to chat. So, I told him to click a picture. Zero points for guessing — he refused.
He told me it was not allowed. Now, this was one strange hospital that allowed you to chat but not take a picture. So, I told him that he did not have to project the image on the screen. He could just snap a quick pic, send it to me and delete if required.
A normal good quality smartphone clicks a picture in less than 3 seconds. The image can be sent in 5–10 seconds. The whole ordeal would have taken less than 10–15 seconds. Half a minute tops. I was outsmarting his lies.
To this, he told me that his dad was keeping a watch on him. I was shocked and I asked him if he was texting me with his dad reading all the messages. Now here begins the funny part.
Him: No, my dad can not see the screen.
Me: That’s good, now you can take a quick pic.
Him: No, my dad can see the pic.
This was a new discovery in the field of neuroscience and biology. A human with selective vision was discovered that day. Someone whose eyes magnified enough to see an image but shrunk the contact name, texts and emojis.
He was being 100% unreasonable but it was a dead end. I had to come up with something different as I could not find any evidence that ‘selective emoji vision’ does not exist. So, I told him I’d send over an uncle. Perhaps this worried him and he got angry and warned me not to send any uncles. I insisted on sending a bunch.
Now he told me he had to go as he was being tested for cancer. This is where I started losing my shit. He was fine 12 hours ago and suddenly he is in a serious condition in a hospital that allows its ‘cancer-testing’ patients to chat for hours with a selective-emoji-visioned dad beside.
The next morning he sent me a photo of what looked like a cafe. He told me he did not have cancer and he was discharged and was sitting in a cafe now. If he was smart enough to either visit a cafe or get a stock photo from the net, he could just have sent a stock photo of a hospital and I would have shut up.
Nevertheless, time passed and he disappeared again. This time, it was exams — much more believable than the whole cancer-selective-vision-dad-chatting-hospital scenario. I did not hear from him for weeks at a stretch and it kinda started getting me angry.
I told him even if he was studying for JEE Advanced, he could find 10 seconds in a day to at least check if I am alive. But, he was just giving his local exams that had nothing to do with anything IIT and perhaps logically he could spare 10 minutes or more but he refused.
Eventually, things got way out of hand and I told him I was breaking up because things were definitely not working out. Now as anyone would expect, he stopped me, promised me he’d change. Yeah, I know lol.
This went on for a while. Every morning he would be a jerk and when I told him I have had enough, he would apologise, stop me from leaving, promise me the moon and perhaps cry a bit for an extra touch. Jerk-breakup-cry-promise-stay-jerk-breakup-cry-promise-stay-jerk….
Time passed and after a lot of pushing (yeah, I know I had to push for everything, no wonder the relationship exhausted and drained me), he started giving me appointments. Yes. Appointments to talk.
By this point, it started feeling like I was his client and had to finish yabbering before my time runs out. Red flag number what, 100?
A long while later, one day we were talking about feminity-masculinity and, in order to prove he was “masculine”, he asked me if I wanted him to hunt some deer and make drums out of their skin. Up until that point, I did not know that men had to hunt deer and make drums out of them to preserve their masculinity. So, I suppose I should thank him for enlightening me.
Things started getting real real bad to the point where I started hyperventilating and having panic attacks because he was triggering my past trauma. It became unbearable enough to the point where I decided to end it once and for all, myself, not the relationship.
No, this isn’t the most shocking part. I was shaken into awareness when I was in the middle of my attempt and he told me to ‘do whatever because he had to go to class’. Apparently, he was willing to let me die if it meant he could get a full attendance.
Nevertheless, as you can see, since I am writing this blog, I am not dead. In fact, I’m more alive than I ever was. Now I see it with open eyes and not blinded by love. When I was at my lowest, he decided to abandon me for a class. I may be dumb enough to put up with him for so long but I was smart enough to know that this was it.
It did not matter how much I loved him. If he was cool with leaving me alone to die so he wouldn’t miss a regular lecture, I knew staying with him was just a long term suicide.
I may have missed all the red flags but I sure as hell saw the large volcanic mountain screaming, telling me to run for my life. I left the relationship, it was traumatic at its best. But the worst part is, he never checked in to see if perhaps I went through it and died.
He just moved on with his life not giving a shit about what I had done to myself. This really, really moved me. It all came back to me at this point. How he had simply forgotten my friend, regardless of what had happened to her. He never once looked back, not at her, not at me.
No matter how much this whole episode traumatised me, it taught me to remove the rose-coloured glasses of love and spot the red flags. It taught me that you can love someone and yet choose not to be with them because they are toxic, psychopaths who will ruin you if you let them.
Focus on the last part — if you let them. You have the power. You have the choice. No one can hurt you against your will. No one can take away your power unless you give it to them. It can be easy to get lured in by the traps, after all, we are all just humans looking to feel loved.
However, know the difference between love and a make-believe that leads to emotional/psychological abuse. You are more powerful than you think. The moment you put down the blinds of love, all the red flags will come flying into your face. And when you spot them, see them for what they are. The more red flags you brush under the carpet, the more traumatising it will be to get out later.
See things for what they are instead of what you want them to be. It can be hard to accept that a person you hold so dear can be a toxic psychopath. But even if the tiniest part of you alerts you to the truth, listen. Your intuition knows what you may not want to see/know/accept.
I read a quote somewhere which has become my mantra since —
Remember, when it’s your mind against your heart, your mind is fighting for your worth.
The heart may want what it wants, but the mind knows you deserve better. Listen.
