How many flags are we supposed to look out for in people now? There’s red: Signs and behaviours that indicate that a potential partner is bad news (or at least, not right for you). So, red is bad. A green flag is a mark of good qualities (or at least those that make them attractive to you. OK, green is good. So far, so good.

In 2022, beige flags started popping up over the internet. They pointed to partners with habits that were strange, but harmless: A boyfriend who spent the whole day with a divorced buddy but came home with no gossip; a girlfriend who got her best sleep after watching a slasher movie. Odd, but we managed.

This year has brought forth white flags, indicating that a person is so dull, they make ever after seem like a life sentence. There are now pink flags (worrying, but not fully red), and rose flags. Hoist the rose ones up when someone you know is blinded by love (or at least by some good moves). Indicators: Their partner keeps stealing money from them, but they think it’s cute. Their partner hangs out with an ex until 3am, but they refuse to think anything’s amiss. As with rose-tinted glasses, it’s more about the viewer than the viewed.

A rose flag is an ugly problem hiding behind a pretty colour. But that’s six flags already -- more colours than Olympic rings. Have colour coded worries simplified the modern dating, or are we just pigeonholing potential partners without giving them a fair chance?

Researchers are tracking the phenomenon already. A 2016 paper, titled Relational Red Flags: Detecting Undesirable Qualities in Initial Romantic Encounters Identifier, by Richard C White, at the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, offers some hope. White’s paper says that red flags “can be costly to a healthy, stable relationship because they conflict with the individual’s own expectations, similarities, and compatibilities.” We knew that already, no word yet about every new flag.

Flag waving only helps up to a point. We’re people, after all, not fluttering pieces of cloth. Dismissing someone as red, endorsing someone else as green, creates absolutes that no relationship should have. Besides, a lot of people don’t want to put a label on their relationships – why label the people in them, then?

And even as we make sense of it all, new flags are going up. Blue flags are for people who don’t want to commit (Blue, as in cold). Purple flags are for inconsistent behaviour (Isn’t that all of us in the early stage of a relationship?). Black flags are monsters (Why bother flagging when you can just run away?)

The colours leave a mark. In 1963, sociologist Howard Becker, who taught at Northwestern University, introduced his Labelling Theory, which states the labels we assign to a person ends up reinforcing their behaviour. Naughty boys stay naughty, weirdos struggle to fit in, losers wonder forever if they are good enough.

So, convince yourself that a date is a red flag, and you’ll never see their good side. Decide that a person is a green flag, because they paid for dinner, and they’ll be stuck playing the hero from then on. Neither makes for a healthy relationship.

Besides, people are so diverse and complex that we’ll eventually run out of colours. What happens then? Gold, neon and unicorn flags? No dating calendar should look like the outside of the UN headquarters. Meet people, give them a chance to show you who they really are over time. People might surprise you, and you might find that you’re a multicoloured flag yourself.

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