All of theeeeeem. He was one giant, waving red flag. 

I was afraid to have him around my friends, because he would tell misogynistic jokes (that, obviously, I didn’t care for either). I would sit him down and coach him ahead of time to try to make sure I didn’t end the night embarrassed. 

People, if you have to teach your SO how to hang out with your friends, they’re not for you. 

He often told me that he was into a very specific kind of girl in a very detailed way (totally off-putting, so I will refrain from giving you the details).  I was nothing like what he described - physically, mentally, genetically, NONE of it. I thought he was cute and he was 2 years older than me.  I think he might have even hated me lol but only went out with me because I was well-liked, got along great with his friends, etc. He also almost didn't graduate high school when we were together.

First of all, I'm the queen of ignoring red flags. I see them, and simply explain them away then after we break up I tell my friends, and they are like "ARE YOU DUMB". 

-had a blanket hung up with thumbtacks to be used as a curtain (it was brown zebra)

-didn't help me clean the snow off my car 

-took said car without my permission to go skiing 

-when I told him I loved him he said "thank you" then gave me a time frame of when he'd say it back IF I acted accordingly

My ex was from a different town and he used to change the name of my contact in his phone when he wasn't with me. He also didn't allow us to be friends on FB for the majority of our relationship LOL. We dated when we were young but damn there were so many red flags i'm not entirely sure how I missed them all. 

Idk if it's a specific red flag so much but I agree with number 1 a lot. Lesson learned. If my friends approval of a person is low, it's a no

This guy always played for laughs. And when he didn’t get a response he got irrationally distant. Went from 0 to 60 to 0 in seconds and I always just took it as something funny about him like, he couldn’t handle when ppl didn’t think he was funny. But then it became more obvious how important it was that people like WORSHIPPED him through more time and I always think about how the warning signs were there.  

We are SO good at ignoring the bad signs, aren't we? Even when the red flags are literally waving in our faces. 

What's one red flag that you wish you would have paid attention to more in retrospect? 

1) My ex's own FRIEND told me I shouldn't date him, and, yet, date him I did. 

2) Also, he was super protective of his phone — I'm not a snooper, but if i so much as touched it (to, like, look at the time if his phone were closer to me than my phone), he would yank it away from me. Definitely not the actions of someone with something to hide. Not at all. 

What red flag about your ex do you wish you had paid more attention to?