• On Good Things Utah this morning – What are ‘beige flags’? Weirder than green flags, less concerning than red flags, are beige flags something to worry about — or to celebrate? Does your boyfriend feel compelled to announce everything he’s about to do before he does it, even if it’s just getting milk from the fridge? Or maybe your partner loves Bruce Springsteen. Like, a lot. So much, in fact, they’ve been to 89 concerts (and counting). If either of these apply, we might be talking about a “beige flag” situation, the latest relationship trend taking over TikTok. This isn’t the first time the color beige has come up in the context of dating according to Thomas Edwards, dating coach and founder of The Professional Wingman.
    • “Beige flags started as a way to see if someone’s online dating profile was seen as boring,” Edwards tells TODAY.com. “If you use very cliche lines or you like pineapple on pizza or Excel spreadsheets, it seems like it was hints that you were totally boring.” But recently the term has taken on new life and from the meaning of beige flags to if they matter in a healthy relationship, we’re here to help break it all down. According to online dating coach Max Alley, a beige flag is a behavior that your boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse or anyone else exhibits that’s, well, kind of strange without quite crossing into full-on freaky territory. “It’s a super niche idiosyncrasy that is kind of funny, weird and unique, but not necessarily bad or not necessarily good,” he tells TODAY.com. According to Alley, an example of a beige flag is your boyfriend reciting the etymology of someone’s name every time he meets a new person or knowing all the lyrics to every Jack Harlow song and singing them nonstop. “(It’s) a pertinent interest to that person that they go all in on, which is seen as endearing and kind of cute. But also, a little weird,” he explains.
      • Most everyone knows about red flags, or the blatant signs that your relationship is toxic, and green flags, the indicators that you and your love interest are well-suited for one another and it’s a positive situation overall. Beige flags, however, are relatively new to the relationship flag family and fall somewhere in the middle. After all, we’ve all got our deal, right? The thing or things we do that, to us, seem perfectly normal, but to someone else, may seem a bit odd. “We all have habits, traits and behaviors that are unique to us and that make us who we are. They may be ways we cope, how we react to stress or something we do to feel good,” Phyllis Ginsberg, M.A., MFT and author, tells TODAY.com. Are these behaviors something we should be concerned about? Not necessarily, says Ginsberg. “What might be called a ‘beige flag,’ that weird, odd, or quirky behavior, could be reframed and seen as cute or endearing. As long as it’s not so annoying that it makes you cringe or embarrasses you. That could be a deal breaker,” she says. Given that we’ve all got our own definitions of cringe and cute, what qualifies as acceptable in a relationship can be a little murky. That said, if something seems a little off, it’s not a bad idea to keep an eye on it. “If something comes up and it just makes you say, ‘Hmm,’ that’s something you just want to keep watching and paying attention to. See if it’s just the tip of the iceberg or is that a little thing, like he pins his socks together when he washes them and that’s pretty much it,” says Dr. Zoe Shaw, licensed psychotherapist. We hope you tune in as our hosts dive into this Hot Topic and so much more this morning on Good Things Utah.