I’ve never been one to get all teary-eyed over a flag. Unless that flag is pure red, and it turns out I should have paid way more attention to it. Just like in these stories from the r/AskReddit thread that kicked off with the question:
There were thousands of responses about people of all stripes and situations. Here are a few tales about men in particular. As you can imagine, some of these stories are disturbing and/or NSFW. Reader discretion advised.
1. Moving on up?
was hooking up/very casually dating a guy (an idiot) I’d met on tinder. i had a cat at the time, and was leaving for a long weekend so asked him to feed the cat.
i came home and he had moved in to my apartment. like fully moved in. his clothes in the closet, his sheets on my bed, he’d brought furniture from his parents house, and he put his high school hockey trophys on display in the kitchen (we were 26 and 27).
i regret to say it lasted several months, but it did not end well. what a d*ck, pun very much intended.
– allblackeverythng
2. Solve for ex.
His “ex” kept showing up at his place.
Come to find out months later, they were still together and just fighting.
And I was the unwitting other woman. :\
– femmemalin
3. You’re no superman.
His savior complex with everyone around us, when we could barley manage.
– 7129527190
4. Sometimes it’s literally trash.
He would let his garbage overflow and never take it outside. His kitchen was gross. So much drug abuse, he was a plug.
Dated again, within a week he was sending me pictures of him slitting his wrists and saying he could get anybody killed.
I ran like hell.
– Readkt92
5. Smoking out the truth.
He told me he didn’t smoke cigarettes when we met and then a week later he did because “his friend started up again and needed emotional support because he didn’t want to smoke alone” (????)
He also told straight-up told me that if this one friend didn’t like me than I wasn’t “allowed” to be his girlfriend. It red-flagged a bit in my mind because I was like what’s up with this control-freak friend and why do you obey him?
And then I just ignored it for 6 months. His friend would almost never speak directly to me but I was always getting, “friend says you don’t have to hang around if you’re not going to play beer pong for 3 hours for the 4th time this week,” or “we don’t have enough controllers for the Wii U, so if you want to play, friend says you have to buy your own controller because we can’t share,” “friend says that you and I can’t hang out today because he’s upset about something.” etc.
…anyway, whatever the deal was with this friend the smoking thing was definitely in part an excuse, because it quickly became clear (another red flag that I ignored) that he was an addict. He literally needed to smoke something (either cigarettes or weed resin, but usually weed.) like every 45 minutes to an hour and we couldn’t go anywhere because he’d start getting cranky. Not like he ever had money to go anywhere because he had like a dragon’s horde of weed to maintain.
Anyway, he ghosted me, because his friend told him to, I’m sure. I was devastated lol
– noexplanation2069
6. Let’s retake anatomy 101.
He legitimately believed his butthole was self-lubricating…
– WolfNThorn
7. Rick & Morty has the worst fanbase.
His tattoo of an anthropomorphic pickle smoking a joint.
Think Towelie…but a pickle.
– hammetar
8. Abuse isn’t cute.
He liked to put me down.
He’d tell me I was stupid or that I didnt matter, in a tone that walked a fine line between joking and laughing with me and not joking at laughing at me.
I should have left him sooner but DAMN, could he work a c*ck
– Appstmntnr
9.
He would get a boner when I would cry..
– m_olive14
10. That must have been killer good.
I jokingly told him only serial killers and married men don’t have a Facebook and that’s when he told me he was wanted for murder in the U.K.
So I fucked him one last night and stopped answering his calls.
– Ikonic1904
11. Sometimes the red flag also has a little white and blue.
The giant Confederate flag on the wall
– nathz7754
12. Old fashioned doesn’t mean good.
Was really pro misogyny. He wanted a girl to save herself for him.
Didn’t want to use condom, but I forced him.
But the sex was good and he was generous with me.
– crystalclearbuffon
13. Watch out for that ego.
The fact he had a poster of himself blown up to fit his wall In his room
– ObjectiveTwo5
14. A rose by any other name would still have thorns.
He lied about his name. We were just casually seeing each other (FWB) so I never thought to question things.
Finally found out about 6 months in by looking at his license.
Turns out he lied because he didnt trust having his personal information on the internet (tinder) and never thought to correct it after we started seeing each other. Super weird. I stuck around for a while because no one likes a dry spell but it wasn’t as good after that for some reason.
– clamber333
15. Run, run, run, run!
He was 34 and I was 22. He never stopped talking about his best friend who was female and 21.
One night he got really drunk told me he was single (we had been dating 3 months) and he was mad his best friend told him she loved him but wouldn’t break up with her boyfriend.
He also once mentioned about how her doing a cartwheel when she was 17 turned his dick into “jelly” I don’t even know what that means.
– SanjiLove
What can we say but yikes? Glad to know that all of these people got out of those situations. Remember, don’t let a good time cause you a whole bunch of bad ones. Know the signs. Only you can prevent dumpster fires.
Do you have a story like this?
Share it with us in the comments.