People with no personality blame singledom on a made up flag

Remember when flags used to be associated with countries, groups or celebrations? Once again, we find ourselves in a world where we can’t have nice things anymore without the internet ruining everything about human relationships.

We’ve all heard of a red flag – something undesirable or dangerous in a relationship. But now – at least when it comes to dating apps – allow me to introduce: the beige flag. 

When meeting people online, there’s little to go on other than what they’ve selectively edited. But the beige flag is a newfound made up marker of nonsense that enables you to decipher if the person behind the photo is, well, boring – adding another layer on how just impossible it is to exist without being judged for actually believe alive – I mean, how to stand out by not being like everybody else but at the same time doing that in a way that is exactly like everybody else.

Does this defeat the entire point of dating apps, which are essentially meant to encourage people to meet in person and get to know one another? Yes. Perhaps I’ve been dating completely wrong, but I always thought you were meant to meet someone and get to know them, and then decide if they’re boring, rather than telepathically decipher the crushing social awkwardness of being vulnerable with complete strangers…

Amongst the ‘beige flags’ are scores of people’s personal interests: liking or owning dogs (what’s wrong with dogs?), references to popular TV shows, references to unpopular TV shows, defining your sense of humour as sarcastic, having a sense of humour at all, pineapple on pizza, cryptocurrency, the gym, your favourite food/film/musical genre, being professionally competitive, being a student, being and liking…well, anything.

When people put photos up but don’t write anything on their profile it suggests they can’t be bothered to make the effort which also makes me think they have no personality and won’t make an effort in life,” one app user bizarrely postulated.

Of course, the very fact that you think you’re so profoundly interesting when you don’t even have the ability to get to know people in person isn’t so much a beige flag, but a big, bold red one.

So generic ideas are a no-go, because they’re boring – the irony being if you were to write that you were extremely interested in Gothic architecture and a follower of post-war neo-noir cinema, you would be criticised for that too.

See here’s the thing. We’re all beige. When you’re waving around a beige flag at the things people like  and dislike, you’re also highlighting how fundamentally beige you are because you have absolutely nothing to contribute yourself. Dating is finding the person who sees your beige and realises it’s a whole palette of colour. It means absolutely nothing to screen everybody through a prism of

Besides, when you eventually move in together you’ll realise every relationship ends with either boredom or annoyance. Might as well just go with whoever you actually have something in common with – which means, yes, you are just as beige as the flags you criticise.

Proponents of the beige flag would be better off admitting that

a) they really hate people and don’t actually want to date them and made up the whole thing to avoid explaining that

b) they realise that actually, nobody wants to date them because they’re too shallow for comparing people to coloured flags

or c) they’re either too insecure or too in love with themselves and their own interests that nobody will ever be as good as them.

Which actually, are all big red flags.