3 Red Flags in Early Dating (That Don’t Look Like Red Flags)

The biggest red flags in dating aren’t always obvious. They’re the ones you justify, overlook, or explain away. Today I break down 3 subtle (but meaningful) red flags that seem harmless at first but often lead to confusion, inconsistency, and dead ends. If you’ve ever felt like something was “off” but couldn’t explain why, I know this will land for you.

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Transcript

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Welcome back or welcome to the Seerly You podcast. My name is CT, and I hope you understand why you love the way you do. Today let's talk about red flags in early dating that don't actually look like red flags. I don't think people struggle with the obvious red flags of someone's being rude, disrespectful, disappears for weeks on end. We all get that. But where people get stuck is when someone feels good, when there's potential, you can feel that potential, you're excited about that potential, but something other underneath it doesn't quite add up. Number one, intensity without stability. This is probably the most common one. There's a fast connection, there's long conversations. We're feeling things deeply, quickly, but there's no consistency, there's no grounding, there's no follow through. Just because it feels strong doesn't make it stable. We can feel the emotional spike, but that doesn't mean there's real connection there. But there's really not enough data to back that yet. So we can say all the right things, they're most they're emotionally aware, they have the language, they can say what they're looking for, they can articulate that. But there's really no way but there's really no way to see that quickly. So awareness without action is just performance. We can all be sold a bag of goods and not actually get what we paid for, so to speak. So in a way, it can kind of feel it. So in a way, it can feel incongruent when we look back, like what they're what they're saying and what they're doing can feel like it was mixed signals, right? Like it was, well, you're saying this, but then you treated me like that. Or you're saying that, but then you're doing this. And those two things don't add up, they don't make sense. And so we want to be aware of that and be aware that and I think I think social media in general, just because everything is so freaking curated and so performative that this can end up happening more than we even realize, whether that's from an online dating profile and just curating the heck out of that to truly the in-person connection and creating that connection, but then they actually have to show that they can follow through. Number three, let's just call it go with the flow energy. That sounds chill, right? That sounds easy, awesome, but that often means then that connection has no direction. It has no intention, it has no real investment. Go with the flow usually just benefits the person who said it because they want less. They don't want the pressure, they don't want any of that. They just want to keep it free-flowing and vague. So it feels good to them, but it's not going to feel good to you long term. I got a bonus one for you. Here's number four. You feel slightly off, but you can't explain why. That's probably the deepest one. Because nothing is technically wrong, but you feel a little anxious, or you feel a little unsure, or you feel a little unsettled. So you want to think about confusion. When you're feeling that confusion, that rarely is ever going to mean neutral. It's definitely not going to mean posit be positive, right? But it's it's mostly never going to even be neutral. Confusion is your body's way of trying to alert you. Hey, something doesn't add up here, something isn't right. It's your body's picking up on inconsistency before your mind can catch up. I think the real problem is we've been conditioned to give things time, you know, to not be so quick to judge or to stay open. But I think in doing that, or or I should say, I think as a society, we've kind of swung too far to the to the casualness. And that's really caused a detriment just to dating as a whole, because then everyone is, I shouldn't say everyone, but a lot of people are coming into dating with wildly expectation wildly different expectations, and a lot of it is that more casual vibe where somebody that wants a deeper connection, they're not only not going to feel connected in that in that connection and trying to create a connection with that person. It's actually gonna feel it's gonna feel isolating, it's gonna feel confusing, it's gonna feel like dating is 10 times, 100 times harder than it really needs to be. And it's not that there's anything wrong with them, it's that the people that they are coming into contact with aren't able to meet them on that deeper level because we just want to keep it all casual, surface level, and all of that. So just remember that the right connection doesn't feel like you need to figure them out. It becomes clearer, not more confusing. They appreciate clarity as much as you do, they appreciate your intentionality just as much as you do. That's all I got for you today. I appreciate you being here. If you found this episode helpful and insightful, would love if you could share it with a friend, leave a five star review wherever we get your podcast, host to some reach. Till next time, take care.