Relationship Series: Red Flags – Part 7 (Communication, Showing Interest, & Being Kind)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

This article will discuss lack of communication, not taking an interest in your life, and how they treat other people as relationship red flags. The accompanying video can be found here.

1. Lack of effective communication, specifically when you ask about something in particular or express a heartfelt issue to them. Some people are emotionally closed off and will seek to further emotionally distance themselves from you when you attempt to become closer to them through conversation. They may not understand or recognize the depth of what you’re telling them or they may be incapable of processing your words, which renders them ineffective in helping your deal with your feelings or even assisting you in finding a resolution to the given situation.

This person may also shut-down or further shut you out when you question how they’re doing or feeling about something. They may appear indecisive or nonchalant. They may seem to disregard your feelings due to their inability, or unwillingness, to put thought into what you’re telling them. They prefer to dismiss your words and move on in life as if you’d never expressed your concerns or questions.

Due to them placing their own troublesome feelings in the recesses of their mind, they’re unaware of how you may be feeling. They may rarely ask your thoughts on various topics because they subconsciously, or consciously, avoid certain things they seem to presume you don’t want to discuss them either. They’re usually silent when you share your thoughts with them and you may start to feel as if you’re talking too much or trying too hard to get them to understand.

You may feel you’re not expressing yourself and your feelings well due to their stoic demeanor. You may bring up the same topic later on and they seem to have forgotten you’d previously mentioned it. You begin to feel unheard and that your feelings don’t matter.

If you feel as if you aren’t being heard, you can ask the person how they feel about what you’ve said. You can ask them what they heard you say. If the person says something completely unrelated to what you’ve said and they remain stoic, they may have zoned out of the conversation. You can confirm, deny, or clarify what you’ve told them based on their response. It may be worth your emotional effort to continue sharing with this person if they begin focusing on the discussion. Otherwise, your words will continue to fall on deaf ears.

2. They don’t show interest in what’s important to you goes along with what’s written above. This person may ask how was your day and you may share you’ve been working on a project, and they don’t ask about it. Instead, they proceed to tell you details about their day. I share, in the video, a situation with someone new that entered, and has since exited, my life.

A person that doesn’t show an interest in you, as an individual, may also ignore the kindness you show them and others. They may never, or rarely, compliment you because what you do isn’t important to them. They also tend to only help others when it suits them and gives them something to boast about versus simply being kind. Pay attention to how people treat others because it’s a sign of how they’ll likely end up treating you.

Finally, pay attention to someone’s motives. If they’re being helpful to you so they can brag about it, they don’t really care about you, they care about looking good in front of others. Communication, showing an interest in someone as an individual, and genuinely being a kind person are important traits to have for building a strong healthy foundation. 

I’d love to hear if you’ve experienced the abovementioned red flags in a potential relationship and how you dealt with it. If you recognized yourself in the article, what have you learned or how did you overcome those challenges?

Comments are always welcome as well as sharing this article using the available social media buttons. Subscribe via email for automatic notification of new posts and the continuation of this series.

Thank you.

Published by

Dion

I journeyed from GED to a PhD in Psychology. I decided to focus on my writing once I retired from the clinical field. I write in various genres and have several WIPs for publication once edited. I post articles on this website for intellectual and entertainment purposes.

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