Flex and Frooms, Flex and Frooms. This is the Flex and Frooms catch up podcast Flex and Frooms on cater Listen up. I think we have a rant brewing. Oh well, maybe I'm just speaking passionately. Who knows, don't get my tone confused with someone who cares deeply about this topic. I just want to get off my chest. Okay, who would have thought that we'd have all these new words and terms to understand what the heck is going on
with human connection? I feel like people are as more confused as ever, and yet we've got a thousand new phrases which are meant to make us understand things more clearly. We've clocked that red flags are things that make it clear that our relationship won't work correct or something about someone that is defective or makes them not a good match. Yes, now, pink flags are like subtle indicators that someone might not be the right fit. Green flags are signs of a
potential keeper. Those are good qualities, But where do beige flags fit. If you find yourself on TikTok, Instagram or any kind of social media, you've probably seen the trend that's popping off or has been for the last six weeks or so, it gets Instagram bit late. If you're on TikTok, you know that to be a fact. Beige flags are like those little quirks when you start befriending someone or dating someone, or interacting someone that you perceive to be a little bit off. They're like odd traits
or funny things, but they're not deal breakers. I would just call them personality quirks, but the Internet calls them beige flags. Apparently they're not necessarily problems, but they aren't plus points either. Now, based on the videos that I've seen, I've done a little summary of what no, no, this
is a text on screen trend. Oh. Based on the research I've done, I've made a summary of what people perceive to be beige flags You're good, which include, but aren't limited to, dunking biscuits in tea, sneezing a bit too loudly, using capslock excessively too many emojis, believing in conspiracy theories. Okay, how is emojis and conspiracy theories next
to each other? Babes not knowing the details of their friends' lives, oh, bit of me using lingo out of context when someone travels, so for example, saying what's the damage when the bill comes and you're in Greece? Oh, I'm seeing your process in real time. Yeah, okay, can I give you a second that hurts? Here's the thing, Like all of these terms and titles, at one point they were really helpful to give us common language to describe a universal thing happening.
It was the great unifier. Oh my goodness, it's not weird for me to not want my partner to light people's pictures on social media. Oh my god, it's not weird for me to not feel comfortable with my mum disciplining my best friend and yelling at her, whatever it might be. I now have a term for what's going on. I feel closer, I feel more connected. The early adopters, for the taste makers who bring this language to social media, I think they understood the breadth and depth of how
to use it, how not to use it. And then it reaches mass population. It reaches gen pop without the context and the education and the nuance, and then becomes this like reductive thing where people don't really know like, okay, yes, we know what a beige flag is. Why do we use them? Why we pointing out this behavior. Why is it necessary to single out someone's peculiarities? What good does
it do us? Right? And so I'm thinking with this beige flag thing, the frustration with the trend currently, or what I'm assuming is the frustration for those onlooking, is that there is a disparity between what someone perceives to be a beige flag versus a red flag that in itself tells us everything we need to know about human connection.
What I perceive to be great behavior ideal top ten is what you might think is weird, odd, disgusting, inappropriate or whatever, but because I think maybe it's humanate, Maybe it's just the byproduct of wanting to fit in when we see someone call out behavior, we want to be a part of the right group. Right, So if I say, oh, a beige flag is someone who has a best friend, and everyone's like yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, and you don't feel that way, somedden, you're slowly suppressing how you
feel so you can align with popular thought. And it's fine to want to align with popular thought. But it's without the thinking of what you actually think that makes it really confusing, because we start to inherit these really inflammatory ideas about the world with no second guessing, and
that to me is super odd. Also, I think that like people aren't seeing the contradiction in pointing out these red flags, beige flags, green flags, like we all are in some way searching for a perfection that doesn't exist. The older we get, or like the more connected we become by the Internet, people are forgetting that we're not the same. It's actually quite normal for us not to be alike at all. It's actually quite strange for me to point out every way somebody else is different to me.
It's quite regressive for you to measure me to yourself as a standard is like an internal practice. It's a barometer. It helps you understand where you fit in the world, as opposed to making it seem like other people are defective because they're not like you, and like, yes, it's like a funny little joke trend or whatever, but people lack common sense and brain cells to discern when is this contextually funny on the internet versus when am I not able to use this skill in the real world
trying to think of a situation. So, for example, right, one of the things I was trying to learn post twenty twenty on the internet. If you know, you know is to discern what I actually care about in terms of like what's hitting my heart and motivating me to learn and improve, and what interests me? What am I curious about, what has sparked, you know, something in me? And like, because I didn't know what I cared about versus what interested me, suddenly I was completed thinking that
everything was my priority. Right. Also, for example, we were talking before about let's say I would say, like half of my close friends are vegetarians or vegans, right, like me too. Half. Now I as the meat eater, I don't need to feel a way about that, but I have had conversations with all of my friends in some capacity about like what is motivating your veganism or your vegetarianism. So I can understand if there's like a level of discomfort with us going out to eat or you know,
hanging out sharing cups or cutlery or whatever. That is more useful than me saying, oh, because that you're vegetarian, we definitely can't be friends because you're gonna have a problem with me, or yeah, the baised flags that my friend doesn't eat dairy. No, your friend is just a regular person existing in a regular body in the same way you are. And also, you know, like when you make front of your friends in context of people who get the joke, it's funny right in front of you.
But then I'm like the viral videos of these people who aren't content creators putting their partners on blast and having everybody in the comments like either defend them or tear them to shreds because they think they're an idiot. I'm like, this is I don't know if this is co show. I don't want to go to sleep next to you. Yeah, I don't know if this is safe. Can you imagine if you woke up one day to your partner saying, oh, look at this video. I said, your bees flag is XYZ and then you look at
the comments and I was like, she's an idiot. Doesn't she know that doesn't make sense? When you travel to Croatia, you should dump her. You'd be like, what is this and who is this for? Also, TikTok especially has taken people who don't even share their relationships and turn them into people who are like profiteering off their relationship for quick clicks. Like it makes sense when content creators share themselves on the Internet to mass people with no incentive.
But I think, what does Chelsea from Maryland, Ohio sharing Richmond from Maryland, Ohio like to a million people? What does that do for their sense of self? I'm fascinated, Like are they Is he excited by that big thought? Everyone thinks he's a dummy who doesn't understand cultural competency. No, no, no, there's something to see here. Beage likes also aren't real, like to end, they're not real. They're really not hard truths. People having personalities is just is it is what it is?
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