Red Flags/Green Flags

IN LIEU of actual writing on love or romance or Valentine’s Day, Maya Chen is back to share her full roundup of (largely gender-neutral) green and red flags.

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Red Flags

* Film photography
* Has an opinion on Selena Gomez versus Hailey Bieber
* Wants Jeremy Allen White [1]
* Considers themself a part of the Succession “fandom”
* Holds cultural pretensions (will not engage with musical theater, cannot watch a movie derided by Letterboxd, etc.)
* Blue Wave enthusiast
* Follows Shaun King on any social media platform
* Took French in high school
* Picky eater
* Works in any creative industry or any business-adjacent industry (banking, consulting, finance, etc.)
* Gaylor and abnormal about it
* Equinox membership
* Uses emojis in Instagram captions
* LinkedIn thought leader
* Understands anything about crypto
* Too proud of being able to play an instrument
* Cried listening to Drake
* DJ
* Erewhon membership
* All-white friend group
* Addicted to nicotine
* New Yorker tote bag wearer
* NPR tote bag wearer
* Has a major fallout with extremely close friends every 2–3 years and has to make new extremely close friends, repeating the cycle
* Really into lifting
* Owns clothing by Braindead Studios
* Attended a “The Dare” show
* Harry Styles fan
* Plays music/Zoom calls out loud in public
* Is a self-identified writer
* Loves Asia (alternatively: backpacked through Southeast Asia)
* Thinks movies that were obviously bad but brand themselves as good are actually good (Saltburn, Don’t Look Up, etc.)
* A24 worshipper
* Felt attraction to Matty Healy
* Tenants of the Trees attendee
* MCU attachment
* Barbie warrior
* From a major metropolitan area suburb (Great Neck, New York; Bethesda, Maryland; Encino, California; Evanston, Illinois; Berkeley, California; etc.)

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Green Flags

* Has a hobby they are passionate about
* Enjoys being outside
* Less than 1,000 Instagram followers
* Tips at non-sit-down restaurants
* Knows how to cook and is normal about it
* Knows a handy life skill (can sharpen knives, has done woodwork, knows how to operate power tools, etc.)
* Reads but is normal about it
* Had a Hamilton phase in the mid-2010s but feels shame about it now
* Generally liked by animals and babies
* Knows and reads small mags (n+1, Guernica, Byline, LARB!!!)
* Writes and sends letters
* Can gossip
* AMC Stubs membership
* Thinks people who travel to other countries and take pictures of local elderly people are fucking freaks
* Understands a good grocery haul
* Eats vegetables without being vegan/vegetarian
* Will do karaoke
* Likes dessert
* Can talk to strangers
* New York Times Games: Connections player
* Had fun during Wonka
* Has cried watching a movie
* Tries to overcome colonial restrictions on our imaginations
* Only has one tattoo
* Does not use Snapchat in the year 2024

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Notes

[1] I have nothing against Jeremy Allen White and have in fact been rooting for him since his Shameless days. All seemingly negative opinions related to him are just reflections of how I believe the culture will progress/the kind of person who is attached to him.