Counselor Shares One Of The Biggest Red Flags In A New Relationship That Says Everything About Who Your Partner Is
You're known by the company you keep, as the saying goes.
Dean Drobot | Shutterstock Thrilling as it is, one of the hardest parts of a new relationship is often figuring out if the person you're dating is who they say they are. Many people put their best foot forward in an effort to woo someone, but of course, that can obscure all kinds of potentially unsavory things about them.
One counselor said there's an easy way to navigate this if you're early in a relationship — and it's one that people all too often ignore or don't take seriously.
The counselor said the biggest red flag in a relationship is your partner's social circle.
We've all been there a time or two: We start to fall for someone, and all is blissful and happy — until we meet their friends, family, or coworkers, and they don't exactly match up to what we'd expect.
Often our instinct is to play this off — we all have a problematic friend or two, right? But counselor Kim Polinder said this is hugely revealing about a new partner.
In a TikTok, she explained that who your partner spends their time with is "one of the biggest red flags that people in new relationships ignore." Turns out ol' Aesop was onto something when he coined that maxim about "the company you keep" being revealing.
Polinder said your partner's social circle reveals not only who they are but also how they view themselves.
"Look at who they hang out with," Polinder advised. "Who is their best friend?"
She recommended that people look not just at the quality of people their partner hangs with — "sketchy people," as she put it — but also their status relative to their partner because this can be very revealing about their own self-image.
"Why does my partner hang out with … people who are below them? Does your partner think they're below them?" she said. "Your partner is telling you what they think of themselves."
Polinder also explained that people have a tendency to back off their own personal growth and progression when they get to the hard parts — something we've likely all experienced at one time or another. That's when we tend to revert to old patterns and relationships that might not be the best choice.
She narrowed this down to one maxim that applies both to you and your partner: "What kind of person do you really want to be? It starts with who you surround yourself with." If there's a mismatch between your partner and their circle, it may reveal that they're not quite in the most solid place in life at the moment.
Studies reveal that our social circles affect everything from our income to our physical health.
At first blush, Polinder's advice may sound snobbish — like you should judge your partner by how much money his friends make or something. But scientific studies have long found that our social circles really do reveal not only who we are but also how our lives are likely to shake out.
It starts in childhood, in fact. A major 2022 study revealed that one key mechanism for raising low-income children out of poverty was friendships and school relationships with more affluent children.
That influence continues into adulthood, where research has shown that maintaining loose connections with people different from you, instead of staying in a like-minded echo chamber, is the biggest predictor of large-scale career success.
It even affects your physical health. A 2019 Notre Dame study found that people's social lives were strongly correlated with certain health indicators like fitness level and heart rate.
So Polinder is definitely onto something. "People allow their ‘real’ selves to come out when they are most comfortable and at ease. This can either be when they’re alone or with people they don’t feel judged by," she wrote in her video's caption.
Asking yourself what this might reveal about your partner might just crack the code on who they really are and whether you're on the same page of readiness for a lasting relationship.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.