You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships.

I'm your host, relationship coach Stephanie Rigg,

and I'm really glad you're here.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode we are talking

about five green flags to look for in early dating. So I think a lot of the

conversation around dating tends to focus on warning signs or red flags or things to look out for.

And while, of course, discernment is important and while having clear standards and boundaries is important,

this is something I teach in pretty much all of my programs.

I also think that the tendency in the broader discourse to focus on all of the things that could

go wrong and all of the ways in which people are out to get you is really unhelpful,

and particularly for people who

are anxious as a starting point. And I've done many episodes in the past about anxiety in early

dating and why it makes so much sense that people with anxious attachment patterns would

experience a lot of anxiety in early dating due to the inherent uncertainty and all of our tendencies

towards people pleasing and approval seeking and maybe struggling with insecurities and low

self-esteem. All of that really primes us to feel quite vulnerable and a little wobbly when it

comes to early dating. And so I think with that as the backdrop,

layering in all of this advice that's telling you about all of the red flags and all of the,

you know, narcissists and the love bombing and that all of that stuff that, you know,

if you've been around here a while, you would know that I don't really buy into, and I certainly

don't use that language, and I certainly don't

use that language in my work. I think that orienting towards green flags or things to look for,

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