How does the red flag test work?
A red flag is a behaviour that keeps coming back and should alert you. Not a bad day, not a flaw you can argue about. The problem is that you see them badly from the inside. You excuse them one by one, and you never add them up. That's what the test does.
You start by saying whether the person you're thinking of is a man or a woman. That isn't for show: the questions change. What people most often notice in a man (the way he talks about women, what he does when you say no) and in a woman (the tests, the silent treatment for days without saying why) don't quite match. The full lists, with an example for each, are in our articles on the red flags in a man and on the ones people notice in a woman; the test itself is there to count the ones you've already seen.
Then twenty questions about everyday situations, with four answers each time, from "nothing to report" to "that's exactly it". You answer about what this person does, not what they say they'll do, and not what you hope. It works for someone you've been seeing for three weeks as well as for the person you've lived with for three years: the situations were chosen for that.
The test is anonymous, and your answers stay in your browser. You can take it again as many times as you like, for the same person in six months, or for someone else.
Why the questions don't all carry the same weight
Saying "it's their job" to a waiter and raising a hand to you are not two boxes on the same list. So each question in the test has its own weight, from three to eight points, depending on what it says. Being short with waiters or badmouthing every ex is worth three points at most: these are well-known signs, but on their own they don't say much. The jealousy that goes through your phone, the anger, the apologies that never come, the people close to you being pushed away are worth five or six. And three questions are worth eight: what happens when you say no, physical anger, and whether you're afraid of their reaction.
The total comes to 100 points. Some answers even count on their own: if you say this person has already raised their hand to you, the result cannot drop below the last level, even if everything else is perfect. The nineteen other answers don't change that one.
The result reads on nine levels, from "green flag" to "this isn't a red flag any more, it's a danger", each time with what your answers say and one thing to do. Nine rather than four, because between "two or three small things" and "several signs that go together" there's a real difference, and that's exactly the one you came here for.
| Score | Level | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | Green flag | None of what the test looks for. |
| 6 to 13 | Nothing alarming | Ordinary flaws, not a behaviour that does damage. |
| 14 to 25 | A few weak signals | Two or three things to say, without alarming anyone. |
| 26 to 36 | A red flag, maybe two | A behaviour that keeps coming back and isn't a trifle. |
| 37 to 48 | Several red flags | Signs that go together and already cost you something. |
| 49 to 60 | Red flag confirmed | A way of treating you, not flaws. |
| 61 to 73 | A big red flag | Control and fear: you've started adapting. |
| 74 to 86 | A walking red flag | A relationship that is damaging you. |
| 87 to 100 | A danger | Violence or real fear: don't stay alone with it. |
A red flag isn't the same thing as a toxic relationship
A red flag is a signal: something that should make you slow down and look closer, at the start of a story or in the middle of it. A toxic relationship is when those signals have become everyday life and you no longer know whether you're exaggerating. If that's where you are, if the question is no longer "does this person have red flags" but "is what I'm living normal", you may already be in a toxic relationship, and that is measured differently.
And if what brought you here is a start that was too perfect, declarations in the first week, messages at all hours, it may not be love at first sight but love bombing, and that can be checked with a single sentence.
The other way round, a low result doesn't answer everything. Not being a red flag isn't the same as being the one, and for that the questions to ask are completely different.
