Rosie Green I can recommend a romance checklist - YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Sign in Welcome!Log into your account Forgot your password? Password recovery Recover your password Search Sign in Welcome! Log into your account Forgot your password? Get help Password recovery Recover your password A password will be e-mailed to you. YOU Magazine Fashion Beauty Celebrity Health Life Relationships Horoscopes Food Interiors Travel Home Life Relationships Rosie Green I can recommend a romance checklist By You Magazine - October 31, 2021 David Venni When I was a smug married I didn’t go in for relationship analysis. I didn’t know my ‘attachment style’ from my ‘intimacy blocks’; my ‘abandonment trauma’ from my ‘trust issues.’ I thought it was all a bit navel-gazing. But there’s nothing like your own marriage blowing up like a North Korean missile to make you re-evaluate. Divorce made me think about how I had acted in my relationship – and how my behaviour might have contributed to its downfall. So these days I’m more aware of the things that trigger me and the sometimes irrational responses that result. I know all the lingo. I can tell a narcissist from a control freak; a gaslighter from a hedonist. This means that in my new relationship, I’m looking for compatibility, emotional maturity and self-awareness – as opposed to ooh, he looks nice in a T-shirt’. It was early on in my dating odyssey that I first encountered the concept of red and green flags. A date had sent me the main points via WhatsApp then ticked off my qualities against a checklist. Luckily, I passed on most fronts (or maybe that’s just what I inferred). Thanks to him I understand the concept of working out the yeses and nos you want from a partner. Some are obvious and don’t require a crash course in psychology to figure out. Take personal hygiene. That’s non-negotiable. It was a hard ‘no’ to the guy I met in a London café who hadn’t moved out of the student self-washing-hair phase. Ditto the man who told me that because you’re clean after a shower, you need never wash your towels. It’s also about knowing yourself and what you can and can’t deal with. I couldn’t date a flouncer or anyone who could keep an argument going for days. I have friends who maintain the silent treatment for a week‒then by the end can’t even remember what they’re peeved about. So, here are the green flags to look for in a potential suitor ‒ and the red to beware: GREEN FLAGS Self-responsibility. How much do you own your mistakes? Beware the man who blames everything on someone else: his predilection for five-day benders on his absent father or his lost job on his ‘psychopath’ Self-care. We are not asking for Gwyneth Paltrow-style clean eating or Daniel Craig levels of nattiness, just the basic ability to clothe and feed Long-standing friendships. Pub or work ones don’t count because they are more about circumstance than choice. Empathy. This is key. Supports your personal growth. I take this to mean a partner that wants you to do well without being threatened by Honouring boundaries. Emotional, sexual and physical. And they respect that stealing your expensive moisturiser is crossing the line. RED FLAGS They think you are perfect. This is thrilling at first but soon becomes like eating a giant bag of Celebrations – delightful, but sick-making. They hide you from their friends. This says, ‘I’m keeping my options open.’ They rush relationship milestones. See point one. I once talked to a guy on a dating app and before I had even met him, he was booking me on a flight to his villa in Ibiza. A different attitude towards money. If they’re a stingy tipper or don’t want to turn on the heating because ‘snow insulates’ – it will soon be discounted soaps for Christmas. They can’t communicate. I refer you to my earlier flouncer comment. They can’t apologise. One green flag I love about my boyfriend is our sleep compatibility. I’m famously an early-peaker – dancing on the tables at eight, unconscious by 11pm. Only last week he passed out at 10pm, mid-dinner party. 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