While it’s completely normal to brag during an interview, an annual review — or heck, even on Instagram about your OOTD — some people choose to brag about certain subjects that could signal a cause for concern.
So when Reddit user asked u/Zanderhal asked: “What’s something that people brag about which signals a red flag?”, people had A LOT of thoughts. Here’s what they had to say below:
1. “Bragging about how people are scared of them and no one will ever cross them because they know they will get beat.”
2. “Bragging about a time they pushed moral boundaries in order to make a quick buck, and how ‘smart’ they are for what they did. For example, buying out all the generators from six neighboring towns, waiting for the projected hurricane to hit, then upselling them to desperate homeowners to make a profit. So cruel.”
“Ah, the person at my job who bought up all the toilet paper during the pandemic so they could sell it to coworkers at an inflated price.
They can keep their Mercedes. I’d rather not be a monster.”
3. “I don’t have a filter.”
4. “How ‘crazy’ all their exes are.”
“This is the relationship version of, ‘If you work with a guy who’s an asshole, then that guy’s an asshole. If you work with 20 guys and every last one is them is an asshole,you’rethe asshole.'”
5. “When a professor brags about how many people have failed their class.”
6. “Bragging about successfully tricking people. Not like April Fool’s harmless pranks, but stuff like stealing or cheating.”
7. “How quickly they cut people out of their lives. Sometimes it can be a good thing to cut people out of your life. There are definitely people who are toxic to you and you are better off without their influence or presence. But it should almost always be bittersweet to actually do this. People who actually brag about this usually are people who refuse to accept personal fault or to work on themselves at all.”
8. “I know someone who brags about not reading. They didn’t read when they were in school, they didn’t read any of the assigned books, only read three books ever, and still won’t read as a full-fledged adult. Refusal to read.”
9. “Firing their employees. It can be necessary to do so, but when you brag about it (real bragging, not just telling), it sounds like you love executing power over weaker people and hurting them.”
10. “How much they ‘don’t care what other people think.’ If you have to constantly tell others and yourself ‘I don’t care,’ you totally do, you just wish you didn’t.”
11. “Self-victimizers who need to out-victimize everyone within a 100-foot radius. No one — and I mean no one — has ever had it harder than they did/do. One-uppers (or one-downers?) extraordinaire.”
12. “They boast about how many drinks they can hold ‘and still drive home without a problem.'”
13. “The people who instantly have a solution for everything. Addicted? Quit. Depressed? Smile more. Broke? Get a better job. Tired? Sleep more. There is nuance to the issues of society. Major red flag if you’re in your 20’s or older and can’t critically think.”
14. “‘I am (such a) a nice person.’ If you have to point it out, it’s probably not true.”
“There’s a difference between being a ‘nice’ person and a ‘good’ person.”
15. “’Winning’ the breakup.”
16. “How they grew up in a time when raging abuse was the norm. And they ‘turned out just fine’…”
17. “The similar salty person who has to drag you beyond their saltiness because you have any ounce of positivity drives them insane.”
18. “How much they work and how little they sleep. That’s an unbalanced person and they’re unlikely to have an idea of ‘success’ that includes other people.”
“Yeah, I’ve been in the office since 4:30am!’
Go home, Tammy, your kids haven’t seen you in 3 weeks…”