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People agree these 19 things are weirdly romanticized, but are actually huge red flags

"The idea of someone cheating on their spouse to pursue you. How is that romantic? Please be serious."

Photo credit: Canva

One person's romantic is another person's cringe.

We all love a good love story. The grand gestures, the unbridled spontaneity, and those "against all odds” moments that give relationships a dose of movie magic are everything. But, sometimes, the things we’ve been taught to swoon over—whether that be due to pop culture or more overarching societal trends—are actually pretty toxic when you stop to think about them.

Recently, someone asked folks to share their own examples of behaviors that are “weirdly romanticized” but are actually major red flags once you look past the glossy surface, and honestly, it’s eye-opening.

Here are some of the most surprising (and perhaps unsettling) examples they shared. One major category belonged to those tropes we see in many, many television shows, movies, and even songs…

1. "Having someone who is completely obsessed with you."

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia1.giphy.com

2. "Enemies to lovers. It's cute in theory, but how can you be with someone when you know all the disgusting things they've said about you before your relationship?"

3. "I used to love the 'asshole-to-everyone-except-you' trope until he started being an asshole to my friends. Some tropes are meant to stay fictional."

4. "The 'I'm just a girl' trend and other TikTok trends that are used to deflect any accountability or responsibility as an adult human being."

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia4.giphy.com

5. "The idea of someone cheating on their spouse to pursue you. How is that romantic? Please be serious."

6. "Pressuring someone to hurry up and put a ring on it."

Two people brought differing, yet equally important views on work/love life balance.

7. "Sacrificing your professional or personal life to pursue someone."

8. "Honestly, I think we conflate hard work with unhealthy boundaries between the self and career, and we romanticize working overtime, long shifts, and doing excessive tasks as a display of personal growth. We've manipulated ourselves into feeling that giving our time to pursue our work is noble. I'm saying this as a student in medicine, where hours are absolutely wild. I know I'll work my hardest, but I won't sacrifice my sense of self and my time to eke out my own passions and life just to get ahead in my career track. At least, I hope I don't lose sight of myself in the pursuit of following my dreams. It can be really hard not to notice that that's where you're headed until you've already sacrificed so much."

How folks handle—or don’t handle—conflict also was a major red flag.

9. "Not being confrontational. Needless confrontation is bad, but sometimes, you do need to confront someone."

10. "Fighting all the time. No, it doesn't mean that your relationship is 'passionate.' It means that you're probably incompatible and shouldn't be together."

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia.giphy.com

Finally, this category belongs to things that many people think often carry a hidden warning, even if they seem workable, even harmless, at first.

11. "I knew a girl whose boyfriend went everywhere with her. He wouldn't let her go anywhere if he weren't there, and she thought it was cute how 'possessive' he was over her. It thoroughly icked me out when she told me. Like, that is not healthy at all."

12. "Being a 'free spirit.' Like, there's a gray area, but there's a time and place to be inhibited and misbehave. Not following rules in public settings because you're 'free' gets old really fast."

13. "Being the charismatic 'heavy drinker' in friend groups. Goes for men and women."

14. "When people say things like, 'He's just broken,' as if it's something romantic. Having pain doesn't justify cruelty, and loving someone shouldn't mean bleeding just to make them feel whole."

15. "People who brag about not being interested in reading or learning. Here in the US, there is a huge anti-curiosity or anti-intellect movement, and people will literally brag about being ignorant."

16. "Being over controlling. My coworker thinks it's adorable when they say stuff like, 'My husband would kill me if I got a tattoo there!' Gross. Sorry that your husband is so fragile."

17. "People who constantly post about their partner. It's not romantic, it's performative. Real love doesn't need a PR campaign."

18. "'Traditional values.'"

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia3.giphy.com

Lastly, perhaps the oldest red flag in the book…

19. "The idea that playing games or being 'hard to get' in a cruel way will make their crush or interest want them more."

Note the one gesture that no one mentioned as un-romantic: flowers. Just sayin'.

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Joy

Couple asked who ate more of their shared cookie. They got more than 50,000 responses.

“This isn’t a cookie anymore, it’s a math problem with emotional consequences.”

Photo credit: Canva

We've all been in this predicament, haven't we?

We all know that being in a relationship means having…er…getting to share everything with our partners, including sweet treats. However, just how much to share isn’t always straightforward.

After all, was this yummy snack designated for either of the two significant others, like a birthday cake situation? Who brought it home? How much does each person like this treat? Who got most of it the last time? These are all factors that could make splitting it 50/50 not all that fair in the long run.

One wife found herself in a bit of a dessert dilemma and sought the advice of strangers online to determine whether or not she ate more than her fair share of a cookie, as her husband accused.

Admitting that she cut the cookie horribly—her love of crunchy edges may or may not have gotten her “carried away”—the wife shared a picture that contained a red outline of the full cookie, with a cross in the middle, and the chocolate chip triangle that was left after she cut into it.


I cut it horribly and now my husband says I ate more than half of the cookie - how much did I really eat?
byu/virrrrr29 inmildlyinfuriating


While this was clearly a very wholesome debate, folks (nearly 60K folks, to be exact) took this cookie quandary incredibly seriously.

"This isn't a cookie anymore, it's a math problem with emotional consequences. Would you agree?" one person wrote.

Tons of folks shared screenshots of their own calculation, moving pieces around to get as “accurate” as possible. One person (dubbed a 'professional cookie measurer' by the readers) even used Photoshop to retrace the shape and wrote code to compare the pixels of instant cookie to eaten cookie. That’s the Internet put to good use.

ask reddit, cookies, sharing food with partner, relationships, marriage humor, marriage, best cookie recipe, funnySerious measurements.preview.redd.it


Comment
byu/virrrrr29 from discussion
inmildlyinfuriating


ask reddit, cookies, sharing food with partner, relationships, marriage humor, marriage, best cookie recipe, funnyGetting closer to the truth.preview.redd.it


Comment
byu/virrrrr29 from discussion
inmildlyinfuriating


People generally agree that the wife ate somewhere between 45-48% of the cookie. So, not quite a full half, but very, very close to crossing the line. However, a few thought there were other ways of avoiding the issue.

"For the love of God, next time, either: A) PROPERLY cut the damn cookie in half, not like a maniac or B) get more than two damn cookies.” (Though I’d argue that they’d still run into this problem with the last shared cookie, no matter how many they got).

“Just eat the rest of the cookie.”

“Eat the rest of the cookie and just gaslight him ‘huh? what cookie? There was no cookie, what are you talking about?’"

“The rule of fairness is that one person cuts it in half, the other picks the half they want.”

To this, another person echoed, “Divider-Chooser method is best. One person cuts. The other picks first. This makes the cut person more honest with making a 50/50 split. The other person gets to pick first in case they feel one side is better than the other.”

And then there were the comments that fell int a category of their own for humor alone:

“You ate a Pac-Man worth.”

“Nice Try Mrs Henderson! I STILL refuse to use geometry in my day-to-day life!”

“What kind of psychopath cuts a sharing cookie this way?”

In relationships, fights over really insignificant things can indicate larger underlying issues of not feeling understood or appreciated. Other times, partners are simply having fun. When your only “fight” is over precise cookie measurements, you’re doing pretty well.

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Love Stories

Woman discovers her husband's been leaving love notes in her shoes for over six years

The patience he displayed in orchestrating this adorable prank is incredible.

via Anna Mellor/TikTok
Anna Mellor can't belive she never noticed.

Anna Mellor is a popular TikTokker best known for making videos where she pranks her husband, Rory. In one hit video, she forces him to dress as Mrs. Claus for the family Christmas card. In another, they plan a romantic movie night and she pretends to fall asleep just as Rory's entering the room with popcorn. Basically, they're couple goals and it's extremely obvious to anyone watching that they are best friends, even soulmates — despite the lumps Rory takes along the way. But poor Rory may have got the last laugh after a secretive long-con he played left her stupefied.

The secret? He’s been leaving her love letters in her shoes for years.


sneakers, shoes, fila, love, marriage, relationships, love storiesWe should all make sure to double check our shoes for hidden messages. Photo by Mehdi-Thomas BOUTDARINE on Unsplash

Anna took to TikTok to share the tale with her near one-million followers.

“I just discovered a six-year secret my husband has been keeping from me,” Mellor captioned a post with the big reveal. The video has over 2.6 million views since it was posted in March.

Anna got hip to her husband’s secret joke after she purchased a pair of used Fila shoes and found a secret message written in black Sharpie on the inside: “I Fila lot better when ur around." (A love letter and a dad joke, to boot. We love to see it.)

After making the discovery, she called her husband to tell him the strange news.


“I was like, ‘I just found a love letter in my shoes,'” she explained. Rory acted confused to hear the news. “He's like, 'Are you being serious?' Acting as if I should know what's going on,” Anna said.

But he couldn’t keep up the charade for long. “We have been married for six years. I have been writing in your shoes for six years and you just noticed for the first time” he admitted.

Anna then opened up another sneaker that had "If your feet get tired I will carry you" written on the tongue.

@mellorlite

Me thinking it was a love letter for someone else has same energy as when Rory was proposing and I thought the ring was somebody else’s that got lost at the beach😂😂

It makes you wonder how many pairs of shoes that she’s thrown out had secret messages in them?

Anna was clearly shocked by the revelation and thought it was a wonderfully creative way for her husband to show his love. It also shows that the man has an incredible talent at keeping a secret. Not to mention the outstanding patience on display! Commenters on the video thought that Rory is definitely a keeper, with all the makings of an all-star husband and dad.

"Immediately getting a divorce… none of my shoes say stuff!" TheMrsGarcia1111 wrote. "Where did you find him and how do I get one…asking for a friend," Keelyn added.

"Ughhh *getting up to take my shoes to my husband and start and argument*" another user joked.

"It’s so much sweeter that he kept doing it even though you never praised him for it" added another.

This isn't the first time the couple has gone viral. Back in 2020, Anna posted a video on TikTok where she sent her husband a dirty text message, but it was intercepted by her mother-in-law.

In the video, a horrified Anna can be heard saying, “Wait, wait, no… oh no” as she watches Rory’s mother reaching for the phone. “Did you read that?” Rory asks after taking a look for himself. “I thought it was my phone,” she responds. “That is so gross!”

Talk about embarrassing.

But, mostly, viewers love the pranks. They can't get enough of the pranks.

@mellorlite

What was he dreaming about?!?!? #sleepprank #fellasleep #prankingmyhusband

Research shows that good-natured ribbing, like the type that Anna and Rory share in their videos, is great for a couple. A meta-analysis of 39 studies found that couples who “create humor together” though inside jokes are more likely to last than those that don’t.

“People say they want a sense of humor in a mate, but that's a broad concept,” Professor Jeffrey Hall from the University of Kansas said according to The Daily Mail. “What is strongly related to relationship satisfaction is the humor that couples create together.”

And little love notes and other small displays of affection? They're key in a happy marriage. They seem small and maybe even silly, but they communicate a lot: Commitment, effort, and love. Anna and Rory are such an inspirational couple because beyond even love, it's so obvious that they like each other. That's a highly underrated aspect of a great relationship. If you're trying to inject a little more of this playful fun in your own relationship, well, shoes might be a good place to start.

This article originally appeared three years ago.

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Joy

Her husband mysteriously brought home bananas and tuna, then she found the note explaining why

“Marry him again, sis."

@jaethefade/Threads, Photo credit: Canva

This is so, so thoughtful.

Actress Janaé Basemore recently shared (via Threads) how she found it perplexing that her husband bought what she called “an obnoxious amount” of bananas—not that she minded, per se, as she was eating them daily—and tuna fish, which she found strange. Not only that, but the hubs offered to cook trout for dinner, which wasn’t exactly a dinner staple in their household.

Lo and behold, the oh-so endearing motivations behind this perplexing grocery haul became clear once Basemore was cleaning the house and found copious notes on her husband's desk.

The subject of these notes? Each phase of her menstrual cyle—and how best to support her through them.

View on Threads

Basemore’s husband seemingly left not stone unturned—from jotting down which foods are best for each phase (trout and bananas are particularly great for the follicular phase) to anticipating what her moods would likely be (“follicular phase=likes me,” “luteal phase=hates me”).

Down in the comments, people called this an undeniable “green flag.”

“Marry him again sis,” one person quipped.

“I’m gonna need a copy of this for my husband,” said another.

clapping, praise, green flag, woman clapping, good jobThe greenest flag. media1.giphy.com

This list is especially helpful considering that Basemore is diagnosed with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), a more severe form of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) where symptoms like extreme irritability, depression, anxiety, and other symptoms like fatigue, sleep disturbances, and changes in appetite typically start in the week or two before menstruation and usually subside a few days after menstruation begins. However, those symptoms can be managed by a diet that helps to restore hormonal balance and manage inflammation.

But really, even if a woman doesn’t have PMDD, a diet that helps restore balance during each of their phases can be extremely beneficial. That, and a little emotional support from their partners.

Granted, this kind of intel (along with most aspects of the female body) aren’t exactly well known even to many women, much less to the men who love them. That’s kind of what makes this whole story so sweet. Her husband clearly made an effort to learn something that wasn’t common knowledge. Some folks murmured that the handwriting in his notes looked like it belonged to a female…but, even if that were the case…who cares? It was still him applying those notes in real life. The trout, people!

And for those guys (and gals) looking to learn more about how to best support each menstrual phase, here’s a quick general rundown, courtesy of London Clinic Nutrition:

Menstrual phase: Day 1 to 3-7

This is the ‘period’ stage of your cycle, when the uterine lining sheds causing you to bleed and estrogen/progesterone levels are low.

Foods to eat:

  • Shellfish
  • Pork
  • Pumpkin + flax seeds
  • Black + kidney bean
  • Red: Beets, berries, grapes, peppers
  • Seaweeds

Avoid: heavily processed foods, alcohol, spicy foods and sugar as these can contribute to inflammation which may cause painful period cramps to be more severe. That said, it’s okay to slip in a couple of comfort meals.

Follicular phase: Day 3-7 to 12

This phase begins on the first day of your period (overlapping with the menstrual phase) and finishes when you start to ovulate. Energy levels might increase during this phase, making it a good opportunity to add some more vigorous exercise. This is a time to up magnesium-rich foods to reduce heavy periods and PMS symptoms.

Foods to eat:

  • Trout
  • Chicken, eggs
  • Pumpkin + flax seeds
  • Lentils, mung beans
  • Berries, grapes
  • Green: Broccoli, lettuce, zucchini, avocado
  • Citrus, pomegranate
  • Fermented foods
  • Barley, oat, wheat

Ovulation: Day 12 to 16

Estrogen levels reach their peak in this phase, so eating foods high in fiber can help to reduce those levels and avoid estrogen dominance.

Foods to eat:

  • Salmon, tuna
  • Lamb
  • Sesame and sunflower
  • Red lentils
  • Berries, grapes
  • Spinach, tomato, eggplant, dandelion, brussels sprouts
  • Apricot, cantaloupe, fig
  • Chocolate, coffee, alcohol (in moderation)
  • Corn, quinoa

Luteal Phase: Day 16 to 28

Unless a woman becomes pregnant, this phase is commonly associated with premenstrual symptoms as the body prepares for the next period. Again, foods high in magnesium can help mitigate pain, low energy, and low libido that can occur during this phase.

Foods to eat:

  • White fish
  • Red meat, turkey
  • Sesame and sunflower
  • Chickpeas, navy bean
  • Berries, grapes
  • Cruciferous + bitter veg: garlic, ginger, onion, sweet potato, cauliflower, cabbage, dark greens
  • Apple, date, pear, peach
  • Mint + greens powder
  • Brown rice, millet
This is just a starting point, but hopefully it helps women (and their partners) navigate the never-ending adventure that is the female body.
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