When you’re falling head over heels for someone new, it can be hard to tell if he’s going to be your Mr. Right or just your Mr. Right Now. How can you tell the difference when your heart does a backflip every time his name comes up on your phone? Here are a few differences between a guy who will lift you up and a guy who will let you down:
- Real deal: He introduces you to his friends. When a guy wants you to meet his friends, it’s because he knows you’ll be around for a while and wants to integrate you into his group. He’s saying that you’re important to him, so he wants you to get to know the other people who are important to him.
- Disappointment: He keeps you a secret from the people he cares about. Just as you wouldn’t take a one-night stand to meet your mom and dad, the guy you’re seeing isn’t going to show you off to the people surrounding him unless he is proud to be with you and thinks you’ll be sticking around. A guy who keeps you away from the people he cares about is saying that it’s not worth the effort to have all his friends get to know you since you’ll probably be gone in another month anyway.
- Real deal: He includes you in his future plans. If a guy really wants to keep you around, he might start saying “we” instead of “I” when talking about the future, even unintentionally. He’ll start keeping you in mind before making huge decisions like moving or switching jobs. He wants to keep you in his life for the long term, and his plans will reflect that.
- Disappointment: He shies away from making you a part of his future. Especially in the early stages of a relationship, it might be a bit presumptive to talk about growing old and having babies together, but if he’s saying stuff that suggests you might not be a part of the picture in the next month, it’s because he considers you disposable. If he’s not even asking you if you’d like to be a part of his future plans, you should at least think of it as a yellow flag.
- Real deal: He wants to hang out with you during the day. If he wants to spend time with you during normal waking hours, his main motivation is probably not just to get laid. He wants to ACTUALLY hang out and have the opportunity to go out to eat or do other activities that aren’t possible when most people are in bed.
- Disappointment: He only texts you after 11 pm. You’re fooling yourself if you think that he’s just “too busy” to hang out before there’s only time left to have sex and go to sleep. Those late-night texts are nothing but booty calls, and a guy who simply CAN’T offer you anything else is saying that the only part of you that he really values is your body.
- Real deal: He wants to spend time with you in public. A man who isn’t ashamed to be seen with you won’t have a problem taking you out to the bar, the park, or wherever else he might be spotted by someone he knows. He’s proud to be associated with you, and he wants the world to know it.
- Disappointment: He only wants to see you in private. Is he only suggesting you hang out at home or far away from where he lives? It’s probably because he’s worried about having to explain you away to someone. After all, it would be pretty awkward if he ran into the OTHER girl he was dating or if he had to explain you away to the waiter who has seen him come in with three different women in the past three weeks.
- Real deal: He cares about your happiness. He asks you what YOU want to do. He cares about YOUR orgasm in bed. Basically, he’s not just thinking of himself when it comes to the two of you. He recognizes that whatever you have involves two people, and he wants to make sure that you’re as content as he is.
- Disappointment: He only focuses on what he wants. If he doesn’t ask for your input when making decisions that impact both of you, if he constantly wants oral sex while refusing to give you oral, or if he makes it seem like your happiness is second to what he wants, he has only his own interests in mind. A guy who isn’t invested in your happiness now isn’t going to be invested in it a year down the road.
- Real deal: He invites you over to his place. They say that home is where the heart is, and by showing you his place, he’s showing you a place that holds just about everything important to him. He wants to share part of his life with you, and he trusts you to see the space where he spends most of his time.
- Disappointment: He only wants to hang out at your place. At first, it might seem like he’s just trying to make things easier for you, but if he NEVER wants you to come to his place, that’s definitely a sign that he’s hiding something. Maybe it’s as simple as him being embarrassed about his messy ways, but it could also mean that his place contains evidence of another woman in his life.
- Real deal: He’s willing to go out of his way for you. Does he pick you up your favorite coffee on his way home from work? Does he make time to take care of you when you’re not feeling well? Does he do something as small as texting you to ask how your day is going? If so, he’s investing in something long-term with you. He genuinely cares about you and wants you to know it.
- Disappointment: He won’t do anything for you if it’s an inconvenience for him. If he’s the type of guy to throw a small tantrum because you asked him to pick you up some tampons while he was out, he has zero interest in impressing you enough to keep you around for too long. The good news is that you don’t want to keep a jerk like that around anyway, so he might be doing you a favor.
- Real deal: He at least offers to split expenses 50/50. Money isn’t everything, but it can say a lot about a guy’s intentions with you. A guy who offers to either take care of you or pay his own way is saying that he’s with you for YOU, not for your money.
- Disappointment: He expects you to pay for everything. A guy who eats all your groceries without even offering to help you pay for them or constantly “forgets” his wallet when you guys go out sees you as a meal ticket, not a partner. Once you stop tolerating his extreme penny-pinching, don’t expect him to stick around much longer.
- Real deal: He takes you along to important events. Being the plus-one at his friends’ weddings and getting invited along to vacations are signs that he doesn’t just enjoy what you have now— he also trying to create memories with you. He knows that these big life moments will stay in his mind and heart forever, and he wants you to be a part of them.
- Disappointment: He wants to do everything solo. Everyone needs their alone time, but if he NEVER wants to bring you along to events that matter to him, don’t expect that to change down the road. That’s not to say he should be inviting you to major work events after your second date, but if he can’t bring himself to invite you to his friend’s Labor Day barbecue after three months of dating, don’t get your hopes up that you’ll ever be an important part of his life.
- Real deal: He accepts you for who you are. We all have flaws or things that we wish we could change about the person we’re with, but if he really cares about you and imagines himself with you for a long time, he’ll be able to look past them. This is because he knows that he’ll have to take the bad along with the good if it means being able to have you by his side, and that is definitely the kind of man you deserve.
- Disappointment: He tries to change you. It can be something as simple as him pushing you to change your hair color from blonde to brown or as something as big as telling you your career path is worthless. A guy who doesn’t think you’re good enough as you are and tries to change you doesn’t want a relationship; he wants a paper doll who he can change to suit his liking.
