First Date Red Flags: Tell-Tale Signs Your Partner May Not Be as Capable of Love as You Might Believe

9 ways to tell if your date is mentally and emotionally present — one of the most important characteristics of relationship success.

Photo by Jarritos Mexican Soda on Unsplash

I think we forget sometimes. Dating is not a separate entity from a relationship. Dating habits are a precursor to anything in the relationship.

Dating is a “proto-relationship”.

Once you go on that date with someone, regardless of how long you may or may not have known them, or however long the two of you may end up knowing each other, both parties have some type of shared relationship.

Anything that happens during the “dating phase” is a prelude to what’s to come. It’s that simple. If your partner next to you is displaying some annoying or worse, abusive behaviors on the first date, that will be the trend moving forward.

If someone is being abusive, mean, or saying derogatory things to you, that’s often easier to recognize, but what if you get that “weird, uneasy feeling” but can’t figure out why?

Some kind of red flag has probably cropped up you didn’t realize.

They’re harder to spot in the moment until you look back.

However, anything in this list is not meant to justify our decisions to end relationships or connections with people just because we think “It’s not working out.”

I’ve compiled this list from personal experience.

As I’ve interacted with women, been on dates, and entered into relationships that didn’t work, I noticed I was ignoring red flags that popped up on the first few dates.

Nothing extreme, but they were subtle inconsistencies that I brushed off as “normal behavior”.

These red flags weren’t the main problem, but rather, a symptom of an emotionally unavailable partner. This is someone who is not capable of reciprocating love, connection, consistency, communication, or empathy.