Single People Reveal The 'Red Flag' Hobbies They Avoid When Dating
If your potential partner is into these activities, it's time to shut it down!
Joshua Resnick, corelens, pixabay, Getty Images via CanvaAs anyone who's done it knows all too well, dating is a minefield.
Trying to figure out who someone is before dating them often feels impossible—and most of us have dated someone who later turned out to be a completely different person.
Luckily, people on Reddit have identified one way to figure out if your new romantic interest is better left on "read."
They listed scores of red-flag hobbies that ended up being all they needed to know their new suitor was a human "yikes."
Here are 'red flag' hobbies to avoid when dating.
So what sort of interests set off Redditors' warning alarms? For starters, things that indicate a person's boundaries are off—like way off.
One person called out a former roommate whose idea of hilarity was "to go out driving on rainy days specifically to splash pedestrians." The Redditor added, "that seems pretty red flaggy to me." Um yeah, you think?
Another user mentioned a woman they knew whose favorite pastime was to "find random people on the net, find everything about them and message them about it."
The woman seemed to think she was doing people a favor by helping them protect their privacy, but as another user pointed out, "I’m pretty sure it’s also considered cyberstalking."
Yeah... let's definitely go ahead and cancel the date with this person, but let's also call the FBI. You can't be too careful!
People who are really into animals—but like, *really* into animals...
Lots of people are into bird-watching or horseback riding, and there's nothing like a good bond with a cat or dog.
But enthusiasm for animals can go south real fast, like when someone is "adopting too many...animals, especially when you can't afford them," as one Redditor pointed out.
Unless you want to end up on an episode of "Hoarders" down the road, it's probably best to let that person go.
And then there are those who raise animals not as pets, but for fighting. This isn't the medieval era, people!
Redditors specifically called out dog fighting and "cock fighting, you know, the bird one."
But if you do nothing else while on a date, pay attention to animal-related conversation cues.
For instance, as a Redditor pointed out, if you use the common phrase "there's more than one way to skin a cat" and your date responds, "Four...There [are] four ways to skin a cat"? RUN.
As another user cautioned, "Sounds like something Dwight [from 'The Office'] would say," and if ever there were a guy in the dating pool to avoid at all costs...
When social media becomes anti-social.
Social media obsession ranked pretty high on Redditors' red flag lists, too.
One called out people who thrive on the drama of things like Next Door threads, spying on their neighbors and looking for trouble in their neighborhood by "being admin (dictator) of a local area Facebook group."
Others were more concerned about dating social media influencers or influencer wannabes. As one user put it:
"If a person is so preoccupied with their social media that this person hasn't had time to actually live and communicate in the moment."
"...I am not dating a person in a three-way relationship with Zuckerburg."
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.