Red Flags Are Starting To get So Easy To Spot

Dude. While on my little healing journey, discovering my self-worth and all that, I am realizing that I am kind of a red flag magnet.
But here’s the thing—that’s totally my fault.

(Side note, I keep trying to write without emdashes and ellipses… and y’all I just can’t. Apparently that means I write like an AI, but no—I’ve decided it means I write like me. So we cool here with me doing me? Yeah, of course we are. It’s my blog. We should discuss this more in-depth later.)

The flags are always there. You just have to look at the colors.
Every time you meet someone, they tell you exactly who they are and how this is gonna go. But you have to pay attention—and not just completely look the other way because they’re really fun to hang out with. Or just tall.

Lately, though? I’ve been meeting a new kind of red flag.

Since I started speaking openly about my abusive marriage and what the last few years have looked like, the Savior Guy has been showing up.

You know the one.
He finds out I’ve been through hell and suddenly he’s like, “That’s so terrible. Not all men are like that, you know.”
And I want to believe him. I want to believe the good ones exist.
But honestly? Every single man who’s felt the need to say that to me lately has ended up with a story in his past that—well. It’s a little too familiar.

Like okay.
Why are you trying so hard to make sure I know you’re not that guy… unless maybe you are?

I think this is part of healing.

Not just learning to protect yourself—but recognizing when someone’s trying to use you to feel better about who they’ve been.
If someone starts by proving how “not like that” they are, I’ve learned to ask: who are they trying to convince—me or themselves?

Anyway.
Yesterday was textbook.

I live above a bunch of bars, which means that sometimes people randomly end up at my place to “sleep it off.”
I don’t go out much on weekends anymore (hi—anxiety, and also I like my couch), but somehow I ended up with a drunk friend and a couple of random guys in my living room while I was just trying to play video games.

…And one of the guys?

Totally more than ready to prove he wasn’t that guy.

Except, spoiler: he was.

He started in with the usual not all men speech, the “crazy ex” story, the “I have scars too” bit, and how he was the one who got hurt.

Not in a scary way.
In a “let me unload my unresolved trauma and get defensive the second you call it out” kind of way.
That thing where they’re so desperate not to be the bad guy, they make everything about them.
And listen—I get it. Shame is a beast.
But I don’t have the bandwidth to stroke someone’s ego while they work out why they traumatized their ex.

I’m not saying men can’t be hurt or that their pain doesn’t matter.
But if you’re standing in front of a woman who spent years surviving actual abuse and your contribution is, “Well, my ex threw a remote at me once, so I get it…” —you can see yourself out.

And that’s what I told him.

I said,
“You’re comparing your ex tossing something during a fight to a man trapping me in my house, threatening to kill me, and controlling every second of my life. You got to walk away. I couldn’t. That’s the difference.”

He did not take that well.

He got defensive.
He started unsending messages.
And then he said, “If you write about me, I’ll come after you for defamation.”

Which—like—totally normal thing to say when you’re definitely not guilty of anything, right?

But here’s the part that really got me:

He already knew my story.
He told me he admired me for surviving it.
And then he still tried to make it about him.

Because some men don’t want to be the good guy.
They just want someone to tell them they are.

So I told him the truth.
That his “I was lied to once” isn’t the same as being scared for your life.
That his shame isn’t mine to hold.
And that if being called out makes him feel threatened, that says a lot more about him than it does about me.

And then he blocked me.

I’m proud of myself, honestly.
I’m proud I said something.
I’m proud I didn’t let the conversation twist itself into knots to protect someone else’s ego.
And I’m proud I don’t stay silent anymore just to make people comfortable.

Healing looks like that sometimes.
Not giant milestones.
Just quiet little moments when you realize—you don’t have to carry someone else’s shame.
Especially not when you’re still unpacking your own.