31 Women Share The Red Flags To Identify “Crazy” Men

Some of these stories are disturbing and deal with abuse.
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1. He’s got some baggage

Recently started talking to a new guy, I sent him a text saying I was going to go home and change and get my car and I would be over. And he flipped out saying “omg if it’s such a chore then don’t come out” followed by “you’re probably stalling to fuck your ex” and then some other statements. Side note, we have been talking a week and never once have any of these problems arisen. So, yeah, red flag that he is probably crazy.

2. Right, they’re all crazy

When he refers to all his past girlfriends as being crazy.

3. But we hardly know each other

When guys talk about a future with me on first or second dates. It’s happened several times now. I’ll casually mention I want to move to NYC one day and they’ll make a frown and say, “Aww, but I don’t want to. Can’t we move to X instead?” or talk about how cute our babies would be.

4. What a shithead

He asked me to make a minimum payment on his credit card statement.. Finances had been rough that month. We had went on about three dates. I was 20. He was 30. Wtf. Nope.

5. What a weirdo

When he shows up at your job unannounced and you barely know him.

6. If she’s going to cheat, she won’t say who she’s with

If he’s super uncomfortable with me having male friends.

I had an ex break up with me because I gave a male friend a SIDE HUG. He begged for me back the next day but I ran like the wind.

7. This goes for anyone, though

Guys who want to have sex without a condom. “I’ll pull out.” or “I don’t have diseases, I swear.” are NOT convincing. I’m sorry, but you do realize that’s how people get pregnant and STDs, right? Guys who want to have sex without a condom make me instantly NOPE the fuck out of there.

8. Men can be obsessive

I knew this guy, we’ll call him Adam, in middle school, but became friends around our freshman year. We had a few classes together and would hang out after school in groups with other mutual friends, including my boyfriend at the time. One day, out of the blue, I get a text from Adam.

In this text, Adam confesses his love for me. We weren’t that close as friends, never hung out alone. I don’t believe I ever gave him a reason to think that I had those kinds of feelings for him. I tell him that while I am flattered, i don’t have the same feelings. I try to let him down easy. Adam takes it hard, he avoided me in class and stopped hanging out with our friends. after a month or so, things go back to normal.

This is where the red flags come up. I start getting flowers delivered to my house. They’re from Adam. after the 4th delivery, I call the florist and ask to stop having flowers sent to me. Then I get envelopes full of torn petals. One day, I come home and there is a box of roses on my bed. When i asked my dad if he brought them in my room for me, my dad tells me he didn’t. We check all the doors and windows, and the latch on my window is broken. Adam broke into my house. We called the cops, but with no proof of it really being Adam, nothing was really done. My older brother takes it into his own hands and threatens Adam, and things cool down for a while.

Now 7 years and a restraining order later, I still get flowers and letters sent to my parents house occasionally. All sent anonymously, but we all know its Adam.

9. This sounds like emotional abuse

I didn’t see the red flags. I see them in hindsight but didn’t realize then because I was so thrilled to finally have a boy notice little ole me. I was a painfully shy and a teensy bit awkward 17 year old girl and a 23 year old guy noticed me and liked me! Wow! I fell in love fast and I fell in love hard, I’m 22 now and the relationship is finally over for good after years of being together, then being an on-again-off-again couple and all the while him being extremely manipulative and abusive. It wasn’t until it finally ended that I realized all the red flags I should have seen. I should have gotten out of it earlier. But I was young and naive and insecure and in love…and did I mention terribly, terribly insecure.

    1. The age thing. 17 and 23? I’m not saying it can’t work and be healthy but this dude was thrilled to have a little 17-year-old. Mind you, I look about 15 now, so at 17 I looked like a damn child. He loved it. Sure some guys are into the petite young looking thing but he was just obsessed with the idea of me being so young. When we had sex, he’d always ask me my age and get off at me being so young. Creepy.
    2. Obsessed with sex from the get-go. Again, can be completely normal. If that’s what both people want. But we’d met online and I recall specifically saying that I was interested in a more serious type relationship, no hook ups, one night stands, or FWB. I was a virgin as well and told him I wanted to take things slowly. We’d been talking for a couple weeks but I slept with him the first time we actually met…about 2 hours after meeting him. I’m not putting all the blame on him by any means. He didn’t hold me down and force me. But I remember feeling so dirty and awful about it afterwards. In fact, I think it could kind of be considered date-rape. I don’t know. I said no multiple times but he kept persisting and eventually, we were having sex. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with having a high sex drive or with sleeping with someone shortly after meeting them. That’s cool. But this guy was so pushy about it. It was the absolute only thing on his mind, despite me saying I was interested in a relationship like that. It became a problem later on. I was required to have sex with him EVERY single time we saw each other. I had a fairly high sex drive but shit, sometimes you have a stomach ache or just don’t feel like it or you’re on your period and don’t enjoy period sex! Did that matter? Nope. He’d berate me and kick me out of his house if we didn’t have sex. And if we did have sex…well since I really didn’t want it, I was a little, uh…dryer down there. So he’d get pissed. And of course it was totally my fault my body was doing that. It got to the point that if I had my period or anything I’d make up excuses so we wouldn’t hang out. I guess this one could be considered more selfish from the get-go. I dunno, maybe a bit of both. Also obsessed with porn with a really skewed perception of what real sex was. I later found out he’d only slept with like two girls before me and both were on-night stands. He’d told me they were awful hideous bitches. He had absolutely no idea what healthy, good, real sex was like. He thought porn sex was real life.
    3. Everything was my fault, nothing was his fault. He was always right and I was always wrong. There was the sex stuff. If the sex wasn’t great one time, my fault. If I couldn’t get wet, my fault. If I was in pain during sex, my fault. Nevermind more foreplay, changing positions, or taking breaks. Nope, my fault, I’m a worthless bitch. Traffic’s bad? He’d yell at me. I was worthless, as were my opinions. I suggest don’t take that road, it’ll be busy during rush hour. He’d take it and sure enough, busy. All my fault. Get out and walk, stupid bitch. Whether it was a little thing or a big thing, my fault, I was wrong. He’d read ridiculous shit online and got a lot of crazy and incorrect ideas from it. He was super obsessed with stuff like /r/mensrights and /r/theredpill, especially TRP. I’d disagree with one of his statements or theories or whatever and not only was I wrong but ohhhh would that set him off, which brings us to…
    1. The Temper! Holy shit. The littlest things set him off. And I mean SET HIM OFF. I remember walking into a restaurant/bar once and it was pretty crowded. We were seeing a movie later and running short on time. There were no seats at the bar and about a 1 hr wait for the restaurant. I suggested waiting til a couple people left the bar, going somewhere else to eat, or just waiting to eat afterwords and maybe grabbing a snack to take into the movie to tide us over. Oh boy was I wrong and those were stupid ideas. He paced around the bar, infuriated, swearing and shouting, looking for empty seats. I was mortified and terrified. He grabbed my arm and we left. All over not being able to grab a beer and some bar food before a movie. Even smaller things set him off, like dropping a fucking potato chip on the floor would be followed by him throwing a tantrum and shouting. I was afraid of him, he’d get so mad over the littlest things. And if something big happened…..fuck.
    2. Takes jokes too far. Again, this is one of those constant things. It’s one thing to tease people about things, but there are just lines you don’t cross. As I said, I was very insecure ( my own fault) but he’d tease me about stuff relentlessly and would get to saying actual mean things instead of teasing funny things. I can take a joke. Though insecure, I have a thick skin. I can take a lot of smart-assery and sarcasm. He took it like 50 times too far, daily. That and practical jokes and making jokes to strangers. It wasn’t that he lacked social filters, it was that he chose to ignore them because he found it funny. He’d openly admit he was mean, and said he enjoyed it and thought it was funny.
    3. You Can’t See Your Friends. I know have no friends. I still have my old friends but I very rarely see them. He wouldn’t let me. (Granted, I let him do this to me, but as I said being young and dumb and infatuated and insecure contributed). He’d get so angry at me if I chose to see his friends instead of him. Even if I’d invite him too. He’d get pissed and threaten to break up if I spent time with my friends. It was either sit home alone (while he went out) or be with him. Or else he’d get mad. Leading us to….
  1. Refusal to Meet Friends/Let Friends Meet You. Yeah, we were together about 2.5 years before I finally met his friends. The entire time we were together he refused to meet my friends or family. Caused me a lot of problems amongst people I knew “Why the fuck won’t your boyfriend come around???” And how do you explain something like that to people you love about someone you love? He never even gave explanations why.
  2. Double Standards. All day, every day. He went out and drank with his friends a lot, guys and girls. I wasn’t allowed to, especially not with guys. He drank a ton, but if I drank I had a problem. He’d flip shit if I went out with friends but when I questioned his relationship with one of his female friends, he pinned me against a wall and “how dare you question my faithfulness to you”. I don’t answer phone call/text within an hour and “Fuck you, you worthless bitch.” Then he’d go days without talking to me or responding.
  3. Something important to talk about…text only. Yeah. And it wasn’t like because he expressed himself better via writing than orally. No, he just didn’t want to see me cry or be upset by something he’d say. He’d constantly break up with me through text and bring up super important things through text. Not to avoid confrontation, not because he could express it better, but for his ease and so he didn’t have to deal with any consequences. Some things are better said in person, but he never had the decency to do this. He told me that if I cried he’d feel guilty and he “didn’t want to deal with that shit” I at first assumed that he just felt more comfortable talking this way since he was a bit of an introvert. So one day I had a pregnancy scare and told him via text. And oh shit was that the wrong thing to do because “why the fuck would you tell me something like this in a text???” Again, double standards.
  4. Communication. This motherfucker had god-awful communication skills.
  5. I could probably think of a thousand more but this got long enough. Some of them seem pretty huge now that I write it out but at the time, it was so subtle and happened so slowly. They were little things that piled up. For instance, at first he just didn’t want to meet my friends. Okay, fine, the relationship is still newish, we’re going slow. But 4 months in turned into 6, then to a year, then to two years and so on. That’s how it was. Very subtle at first. And of course very situational. But these sorts of little things could be cleared up with communication. Which he sorely lacked. Had I asked him why he didn’t want to meet my friends, he would have taken offense and said I was accusing him of stuff. A normal healthy person would say “I’m not ready for that yet xyz reason, let’s see where we are in a couple months.” Not him, no planning for the future, and no regard for my feelings or well-being. It all seems so glaringly obvious now, but he was very manipulative and would make me question my feelings of uncertainty and feel guilty and ashamed about my suspicions and doubted my instincts.

10. This is a pretty big red flag

When he wouldn’t let me wear shorts because “No one should able able to see that but me.” Sadly this didn’t actually strike me as crazy/possessive until after the relationship ended.

11. A pushover

A red flag for me is a guy who doesn’t know how to set limits with his family. Someone who doesn’t know how to speak up for himself against his family, letting his mom control his life, and trying to live in the footsteps of his father instead of paving his own road.

12. If you repeat that thinking it’s going to work, you’re crazy

I was with a bunch of friends at a bar getting drunk and towards the end of the night everyone left except one of their friends I had just met that night. He ordered us another drink and I reluctantly stayed. Then he asked me to come back to his home and I told him no. He asked over and over again and then started saying, “It’s not like I’m going to rape you.” He said this over and over and I got the fuck out and left.

13. We can get really weird, huh

There’s a fine line between a crush and overdoing it. I’m flattered if you have a thing for me, but there’s a right and wrong way to go about it. I’ve got two notably weird examples.

I met this one guy in high school while I was out with my friends. He added all of us on Facebook, and didn’t say anything to any of us for about a year or so. Then one night, my friend Valerie got a chat message from him saying, “Hey Vince, what’s going on?” She replied to tell him he’d clicked on her name instead. He replied, “Oh, sorry about that. I was trying to do that quick. While I have you here, though, how’s xAnDeinerSeitex doing? Is she doing well? Is she seeing anybody right now?” Valerie advised that maybe, he should talk to me. He then sent me a message saying, “I don’t mean to be so forward, but you’re the most amazing, most stunning girl I’ve ever seen. And your glasses are so damn sexy.” I brushed it off with a quick “thanks”, because I wasn’t interested. A few months later, he went through and liked a bunch of my photos, and sent me another message, “You just get cuter and cuter every time I see you!”

There was also another guy who I had been loose friends with in middle school and reconnected with in high school. He had a crush on me, but I didn’t reciprocate the feelings and started dating another guy a few months after my “friend” and I reconnected. He was hysteric, screaming at me about what a bitch I am and what a piece of trash the guy is. He then called me at 3AM on a school night to tell me that I’m wasting my time and nobody would ever love me like he loves me, and that the guy I was seeing should “watch his back”. He never did anything more than call me a few more times, and he stopped when I told him I’d get the cops involved for harassment if he called me one more time to vaguely threaten me.

14. Dammit!

Complimenting too much. I understand if you want to compliment me, but every other sentence and I start to think, “Maybe this guys a little weird” and it just gets worse the longer it goes on.

15. If you have to say this, you’re probably not a nice guy

“I’m a nice guy, girls just want to date douchebags.”

16. Don’t be possessive

If he doesn’t trust anyone and tries to separate you from your close friends and family, he’s probably crazy.

17. Really freaking nuts

If he gets into the school system and spends countless hours looking through student pictures to find your name just so he can add you on skype, then he’s probably crazy, trust me. Oh and if he finds your facebook, becomes friends with your friends to get your phone number and messages you every few hours, you can bet he’s crazy. (They were two different people.)

18. If you have an answer for everything

I’ve dated a sociopath (ok, he probably was a full blown psychopath) and the disturbing thing about that experience was that he set off a TON of flags, but every question I asked was answered by something plausible enough or deflected so skillfully that I doubted my gut.

So that became my new Uber Red Flag: men who always have an answer at the ready to every single question or scenario, or who deflect/redirect the conversation so it appears you are in the wrong for even asking questions in the first place.

19. Ain’t nobody got time for that

Comparing me to his mother constantly. Definitely going to be some weird ass neurosis down the road that nobody’s got time for.

20. “Epitome of a pathetic loser”

Stage 20 clinger status. Always found an excuse to come over, even after I’ve repeated told him no. Show up at my door anyway, and conveniently be around dinner so he’d have an excuse for me to cook him dinner. This boy was 27-years-old and is the epitome of a pathetic loser. Long story short, police had to be involved and restraining order filed.

21. He’s got hang ups

If a guy constantly shit talks other women or his ex girlfriends, I get concerned. If a guy refers to all of his exes as bitches, sluts, or whores I’m out.

22. An alcoholic

Save yourself a lot of pain and heartache, if he wakes up in the morning and starts drinking, then continues to drink all day, run far away and don’t turn back. Living with an alcoholic is the worst fucking nightmare that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy.

23. That’s not very gentlemanly]

A guy I was casually dating was giving me a lift back to my car after a night hanging with some friends. I got a little turned around as it was an area I wasn’t that familiar with and the one way streets were throwing me off. After driving down two streets and not locating my car, he angrily pulled over and told me to just get out. At 2 am. In the middle of downtown Los Angeles.

24. Here’s some red flags

  1. Talks A LOT about the friend zone.
  2. Obsessed with his own look, and very concerned about how you feel about the looks of other men.
  3. Talks about women in terms of bitches, hoes and/or sluts
  4. Overly clingy /needy after one date, or worse, feels that you owe him all your time after just some texts.
  5. Calls all his exes crazy.
  6. And my personal favorite. When a man feels that he has me “figured” out, or can tell me what type of person I am after one date.

25. Oops

He has absolutely no other friends besides you and is constantly available to the point of you being his #1 priority.

This is mostly creepy when you’ve only known him for a few days.

26. Ugh, really crazy

Was still living with my parents at the time, broke up with this guy. Went to my night class at college and came home to find him on the couch crying to my mom about how I broke his heart. The next week he tried to break into my car when I was leaving work.

27. This is a sign of a man who is WEAK

A guy who can’t admit to ever being wrong about anything, even little things.

28. Okay, what the fuck

I was meeting someone for coffee from an online dating site, and I mentioned that he was the first guy I’ve ever met via an online dating website. He proceeded to ask me how many other “dates” I had planned for the rest of the day, how many messages I got per week, and how many visitors go to my page. Not a great start to online dating.

29. Although, if you’re going to say mentally retarded, I’m going to have problems with you too

Making fun of and laughing at a very sweet mentally retarded man who approached me at our cafe table to tell me he thought I was beautiful.

Yeah, there was no chance there was going to be a second date.

30. Good old Facebook!

Creepily commenting on pictures I posted to Facebook over a year ago. Also continuing to hit on me over a period of months even with the knowledge that I’m not interested and I’m already dating someone.

31. Bro code

Just a good side point. If you’re a guy and you catch one of your guy friends pulling some of this “red flag” borderline psycho shit, it’s your responsibility to check that shit, confront your friend, and explain why it isn’t okay. There’s a huge gulf between romcom cute Pursuit and stalk/possessive abuse and it happens when we let it happen and it starts stopping when we start stopping it.

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