The green and red are joined by beige flags

Online and offline discourse on relationships is always alive and crackling, from the heart post on up. Especially at this time, there is a lot of talk about green flags and red flags, or the signs, fixations, habits and behaviours of one's partner that immediately warn of a nefarious or happy future at the start of a relationship and should therefore be carefully examined. The arguments that break down every little thing into its basic components and try to see the good or the bad in it, as if people and their actions were the tea bottles or the animal entrails of the Etruscan haruspices, are endless. Hence the spectrum of weathervanes is widening every day. The beige ones are a new addition.

What is a beige flag? Interpretations are varied, but they seem to fall somewhere between red and green, without being either. Although the most cited definition in the Urban Dictionary is: "Something that is neither right nor wrong, but makes you pause for a second when you notice it, and then continue on your way. Something strange". The concept is already changing before our eyes and expanding as people contribute.


On the internet, nothing is set in stone and everything is open to interpretation. On TikTok, the accompanying hashtag has been used hundreds of thousands of times and viewed tens of millions of times. The accompanying sound (a very generic jazz background sound) has been used 222 thousand times, in a type of content that is more descriptive than audiovisual. It works like this: A person shoots their face, which is off-centre, for any number of seconds and a long written description of their partner's beige flag is superimposed over their image. Examples abound and it is then decided in the comments whether this behaviour is more green or red. Sometimes someone discovers in the comments the risks of a certain behaviour or attitude in terms of a lasting relationship, and so the debate flares up, leaves TikTok and lands on other platforms. These weathervanes have evolved from ambiguous signals to simply cute, weird or quirky partner fixes, often described with affection and a hint (but only a hint) of confusion. Obviously under the benevolent or malevolent gaze of the entire online sphere.







It is said that happiness (even couples' happiness) is only real when it is shared, and social networks are there on purpose. Unfortunately, however, it seems that relationships only exist and are "tellable" and exciting when they are at the two extremes: when they are happy and idealised or when they are toxic and terrible. In both cases, everything is told without shame or modesty, putting sensitive information online and potentially accessible to millions of people.

From this perspective - once we accept the public nature of virtually every aspect of our lives and consider the underlying tendency to overshare - Beige Flags seem almost reassuring. There is nothing dangerous or irritating about sharing a silly and harmless aspect of one's relationship or partner. In fact, it is often amusing and shows us that not only are there fairy tales that come true, princesses and princes on white horses, improbable lightning strikes or manipulations, betrayals and crashes, but there is a third possibility that is not told because it is not in films, songs or advertisements that is most common. There are the long and happy, habitual relationships where nothing special happens, where you learn to appreciate and sometimes endure all the silly fixations and shrewd habits of the person with whom you have chosen to share part of your existence.