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How do you stop ignoring red flags?

datingisnotfun

I seem to be struggling with ignoring red flags in dating. Recently I was dating a guy I really liked. Everything seemed to be going great (in my head) but then he went quite for a few days and it raised questions in my head. Without going into too much detail, it turned out he was going to ask for us to be 'official' but on the day he didn't think I was in the same mind frame. As a result he went back on a dating app briefly for a browse, but denied it when I found out.

For some reason I chose to ignore all these red flags. I knew it was a problem, but I kept telling myself "but he really cares about me, he did X, Y and Z for me". Or I keep remembering the things he said, like how much he cared about me and how he has never wanted to be with anyone else as much as he wanted to be with me. I keep choosing to listen to his words over his actions.

Even now, after we broke up, I think back and still believe he really cared about me (despite everything he did) and want to get back together with him. Today I saw him on a dating app, only a couple of weeks after we ended things. This looks to me that he's not that broken up about it and is moving on already. Yet I keep making up reasons why he might be doing what he's doing. "Maybe he misses me and wants attention from elsewhere". "Maybe he just needs to talk to someone". "Maybe he's trying to make me jealous to win me back". All very silly and unlikely, but I can't help thinking this way.

I can't seem to disassociate what guys tell me from the way they're actually behaving. I choose to ignore the negatives and come up with excuses, just so I can make things work. I always worry that my intuition is wrong, or I'm overreacting or overthinking things and choose to forget I saw the red flags.

How do you trust your gut when you care so much about someone and don't want to let them go?

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hcoben111

If you seen him on a dating app doesn’t that mean you were on one too? How do you know he isn’t feeling the same then and wondering if you don’t care?

datingisnotfun

hcoben111 wrote: »

If you seen him on a dating app doesn’t that mean you were on one too? How do you know he isn’t feeling the same then and wondering if you don’t care?

That's a fair question. I went on out of curiosity to see if he was on it. He had a fully filled out profile with new photos so figured he was actively looking to chat to people. I didn't even bother putting up a photo of myself.

leggo

I mean here the problem that’s leaping off the page to me is you’re not accepting rejection. The point about how he was on a dating app because he was so mad about you and wanted to make it official but didn’t get the same vibes from you reads as naive at best. It’s the type of thing we convince ourselves because we don’t want to accept that someone just wasn’t that into us.

I get it, it’s something that a lot of people struggle with, and it can be difficult to marry the mindset of “I’m deadly and everyone should want to date me”, that you kinda need to be successful in finding someone decent, with “That person wasn’t bothered with me at all and I went along with it.” But there is middle ground there: people can have bad judgement, they can only be attracted to toxic situations and be put off by something good, maybe you didn’t represent yourself fully and can learn a thing or two, look up ‘attachment styles’...people can reject us for any number of reasons that doesn’t mean we have to think less about ourselves. And as much as it can be a bitter pill to swallow, look at the situation inwardly, accepting it for what it is instead of telling ourselves some pleasant-sounding lies, and learning lessons from that is how dating improves and strengthens us until we meet someone special.

I don’t mean to ignore your question and give you advice on something you didn’t ask, OP, it’s just that you still seem to be guilty of missing the red flag here. The red flag was that this guy just didn’t care that much. It wasn’t some big mad drama about two forlorn lovers who couldn’t be together despite their deep love for each other. It was a guy who didn’t care for or respect the girl he was seeing and went back on apps to try find better while you were still dating. That’s what you’re dealing with here and only by accepting that will you actually grow from this and not keep repeating the pattern you’re looking to break.

JasonStatham

Basically you just have to be decisive; take a decision, don't look back. If you see a red flag, say right, this is going to be problematic down the line, start to search for someone better. Don't think. Don't second guess.

I will give you an example, if I meet a religious girl, it will be over straight away. This is just not my thing.

Augme

Self confidence is important. There are people out there who seem so desperate for a relationship or so desperate to have someone like them that they will jgnore significant issues and incompatiblies because all they want is a relationship/someone to like them. Self esteem plays a big role in this.

Tig98

You guys weren't even official. I don't want to undermine your feelings of being hurt but I think they are definitely exaggerated.

He went off dating apps because he wanted to give you a chance and thought what ye had was special, which was sweet of him. When he realised that it didn't work like he thought he went back onto whatever apps. I don't see any red flags there, and I think it's unfair of you to pursue him.

Life is made up of a lot of failed relationships and almost relationships. Just let it slide, gotta pick yourself up and move on...

bitofabind

It's an interesting question. I think most of us have experience with ignoring our gut and later coming to regret it in our dating lives. It's easy to intellectualise on what the red flags are when you're not blinded by your feelings for someone new and exciting.

I think your username is quite revealing. Why is dating not fun? Is it because you're desperately searching for a relationship and keep meeting these chancers? Could that be because you're emotionally over-investing quickly when you meet someone new so by the time the red flags appear, you're too far gone to turn around? I think it's worth examining exactly why you find it hard to walk away when all your alarms are going off. What's so scary about drawing a boundary when someone you like isn't giving you what you need? Look up 'scarcity mindset' - this could be at play here. There's lots of people out there who will put up with all kinds of crappy behaviour rather than be on their own. Working on that fear of being single / not meeting anyone helps with this. It'll remove that instinct to latch onto someone you're attracted to, because being on your own isn't some End-of-Days scenario. Being single is great in so many ways.

What helps for me is to do a bit of a cost benefit analysis. How much am I getting out of this headfcuky dating situation versus how much I'm putting into it? How much is he investing versus me? How long am I gonna be out of the game because I'm heartbroken/ headwrecked / working through the trust issues this dude inflicts on me when this situation inevitably ends? I've a few experiences to draw on there where I spent way too long trying to get over some non-runner because I didn't read the warning signs. I'll do anything to avoid wasting time like that again when some dude is getting buyer's remorse, so I'd have low tolerance for the words-not-matching-actions stuff in general.

So in summary, I think you need to work on your self-confidence and your beliefs around dating. When you begin to really believe that your time is precious and you deserve someone that's thrilled to be in your company and nothing less than that, you naturally build these boundaries when you see flaky behaviour.