Is This a Red Flag, or Just Something You Don't Like? The Quiz

The internet has become very efficient at issuing flags. Red flag. Green flag. Beige flag. Yellow flag. Sometimes a person orders sparkling water and, before the bubbles have settled, someone online has opened a file with the Department of Future Catastrophes.

The problem is that a red flag is supposed to mean more than 'I do not enjoy this.' A bad haircut is not a warning signal. A hobby you find boring is not evidence of a hidden collapse. A person can chew too loudly, own deeply suspicious shoes, organize their books by color, and say 'expresso' without necessarily being dangerous to the social order.

Preferences matter. Compatibility matters too. So do concerns. But those categories do different work. A preference tells you what you like. An incompatibility tells you that two perfectly decent operating systems may not share the same ports. A concern tells you to pay attention. A pattern tells you the concern has started reproducing. A red flag is the point where the pattern carries meaningful risk: disrespect, coercion, instability, dishonesty, punishment, boundary violations, or some other behavior that can predict real cost if the relationship continues unchanged.

That means the useful question is not, 'Do I dislike this?' The useful question is, 'What does this behavior reliably do to the relationship, and what happens when somebody tries to address it?'

So let us once again use the most rigorous diagnostic instrument available to modern culture: a twelve-question glossy-magazine quiz, now with fewer clairvoyants and more pattern recognition.

The Quiz