James' World 2

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There comes a special moment in every relationship when the person you are with reveals something that makes you go, “Hmm … okay.” It could be the particular way they do their laundry or their deep fear of astronauts. This tidbit of information is neither a dealbreaker nor a dealmaker, neither alarming nor alluring; it simply is. This, according to TikTok, is a beige flag.

Beige flags are traits that, while not immediate cause for concern, are cause for pause. Of course, this is subjective, making the exact definition of a beige flag hard to pin down. The phrase isn’t entirely new — videos listing beige flags made the rounds on Australian TikTok last year. And according to those TikToks, a beige flag is simply something that indicates a person isn’t very interesting. On dating-app bios, it manifests as phrases and interests that some users read as shorthand for “I’m boring.” (Think: saying you’re looking for the “Pam to your Jim”; listing “adventure” or “coffee” as an interest.) However, in the year since, what TikTok considers a beige flag has shifted.

If you’re confused, so is everyone else. TikTok isn’t in total agreement on what qualifies as a beige flag. The comments section of these videos is often littered with some variation of the question, “Isn’t this just … a characteristic?” Some people’s beige flags fall into the category of “charming quirk,” an innocuous trait (e.g., remembering everyone’s birthday). Or the everyday, recurring inside jokes that you have with yourself (e.g., throwing theme parties for no reason). Then there are beige flags that seem to be at best annoying habits and at worst red flags masquerading as beige flags.

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Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Ed Freeman/Getty Images

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Have you been feeling persistently sad for weeks or months? Perhaps you’ve been lacking motivation, or feeling irritable, or anxious, or constantly “on edge”. If symptoms like these are causing you concern and affecting your daily life – including your work, social life, or both – you might consider therapy.

If you’re experiencing persistent mental health symptoms, in the first instance you should consider speaking to your GP. You will be able to discuss your specific symptoms with them and possible treatments, including therapy.

If you decide psychological therapy is right for you, there are many different types available. It can be confusing to decide which one would work best for you, especially if it’s your first time seeking therapy.

So here’s a bit about some of the different options to help you work out what might suit you.

The options covered in this article are some of those used to treat mild depression, as recommended by health authorities in the UK and generally available for free via the NHS or mental health charities. But if you have a preference or want to specify your therapist, you may need to go private.

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It can be overwhelming deciding what kind of therapy is best for you. dodotone/Shutterstock

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Imagine you’re traveling through the desert. You’re exhausted, dehydrated, and on the brink of collapse. To the east, maybe a mile out, you see a pastoral outpost with an artesian well centered among the plain, clay-brick homes. To the west, teetering on the horizon, you see an oasis. Palm trees enwreathe a cool blue pond next to which stands a pavilion supported on alabaster columns. And, if you’re not mistaken, it’s populated with sexy servants armed with frond fans and dishes piled with exotic fruits. Which do you choose?

The pastoral village, of course. You may be dying of thirst, but you aren’t an idiot. You recognize a cliché, cartoon-inspired mirage when you see one, and know that such a pain-free paradise will remain forever out of reach. Better to seek true relief than risk further misery. 

Yet, when it comes to our happiness, the mirages of our minds fool us time and again. We set our sights on dreamy perfection, and despite our best efforts to cover the distance, such happiness eludes us. In fact, a growing body of research demonstrates that the more we value and pursue happiness, the less happy we become. This is known as the happiness paradox.

That puts us in a predicament. Happiness is associated with an oasis of life benefits: more creativity, a boosted immune system, stronger relationships, improved mental health, and better performance at work. Plus, it just feels good to be happy. But how can we become happier and enjoy those benefits if we can’t pursue happiness directly? Research suggests there is a way, but we first need to understand why the pursuit of happiness is so counterproductive.

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Credit: “The Blue Gown,” Frederick Carl Frieseke, 1917

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There’s nothing worse than flicking the lights on at home and spotting a rogue cockroach scurrying away. Roaches are a difficult pest to deal with at the best of times; they’re fast, hardy, and arguably clever. But, you can’t ignore their presence. These bugs are unhygienic to have in the home — they carry and spread disease, plus they multiply quickly given the right environment. 

Looking up how to get rid of roaches can deal with an immediate problem, but should you want to stop the insects from returning, there are further steps you can take. One thing you can do is introduce plants to your home which roaches plainly don’t like. In fact, there are several such plants which can help deter roaches and keep them at bay. If you’re keen to learn all about it, we’ve listed them here.  

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Here’s a situation most of us can relate to: We find ourselves facing a dull moment—maybe standing in a checkout line, sitting in a waiting room, or even stuck at a red light—and our hands suddenly feel empty. Like they have a mind of their own, they reach for our pockets and place a screen in front of our faces. Never mind the eyestrain, the neck pain, or the voice in our heads yelling at us to do something, anything, else. Before we know it, we’re tapping, swiping, and scrolling our attention away.

Addictive cravings have become an everyday part of our relationship with technology. At the same time, comparing these urges to drug addictions can seem like hyperbole. Addictive drugs, after all, are chemical substances that need to physically enter your body to get you hooked—but you can’t exactly inject an iPhone. So how similar could they be?

More than you might think. From a neuroscientific perspective, it’s not unreasonable to draw parallels between addictive tech and cocaine. That’s not to say that compulsively checking your phone is as harmful as a substance use disorder, but the underlying neural circuitry is essentially the same, and in both situations, the catalyst is—you guessed it—dopamine.

So, how exactly does cocaine leverage dopamine to hook you, and what does addictive tech do to mimic that habit-forming potential? Let’s take a look between your ears.

The human brain is divided into a number of different regions. You can think of these like departments in a company; they each take on particular sets of tasks and even have interdepartmental mail in the form of specialized chemicals called neurotransmitters. Dopamine, famous and largely misunderstood, is one such chemical. It’s used to transmit a variety of different signals in the brain (most neurotransmitters do) but what it’s best known for is the role it plays in reward processing.

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Illustration: Vicky Leta

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Being a good husband isn’t about grand gestures or elaborate displays of romance. If that’s your thing, hey don’t let us stop you. But it’s the small, daily habits that make the biggest impact on how loving, healthy relationships are cultivated. Because they’re “little things”, they can be easy to overlook or dismiss as insignificant, but they’re the real difference-makers on a daily basis. And as they become more habitual, they add smoothness to the journey for both partners.

A habit isn’t always something that requires concerted effort. Some are automatic and engrained. Others, though, require a bit of self-reflection to get started. Realizing what you are doing, what you’re not doing, what you could be doing, or what you should be doing in your role as a father and husband is the first step toward growth. And embracing simple habits that show courtesy, affection, respect, or open-mindedness is a great way to start growing.

Whether you’re newly married or have been with your partner for years, simple habits can help you deepen your connection and create a more fulfilling relationship. These 12 dads/husbands shared elements of their daily, weekly, or monthly routine as partners and caregivers that have made all the difference. And whether through words or actions, embracing these habits has made them better husbands.

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For Szabo, the low-wash habit began when he bought his first pair of raw denim jeans in 2010. Traveling from his native Canada to Europe, he brought his jeans for the six-month trip. “It was a quirk about me that I had these stinky jeans,” he tells BBC Culture. “They smelled awful.” In Budapest, he met his future wife, and the jeans became a character in their relationship. “My jeans would be in, like, a pile on the floor at the end of the bed,” he remembers. “You walked into the room, you could smell [them]… I was very fortunate that my wife was as interested in me as she was.”

Among the competitors in the Indigo Invitational, which starts its fourth year next January, more than nine out of 10 participants delay the first wash of their trousers until they have been worn 150 or 200 times, Szabo estimates. “Some of these pairs, as it’s coming up on the end of the year, I wouldn’t want to handle up close,” he says. “They would probably smell wrong.” A few of his raw denim friends go even further, abiding by what he calls a “never-wash philosophy”. “[For one of them], in very tight spaces like a small elevator or something like that, if the dude is wearing certain pairs you can smell it a little bit,” he says. “Some of his best-faded examples are also displayed in jeans trade shows. [They have] an aroma… It’s not an unpleasant smell, per se, but it’s a smell.”

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The way we talk to ourselves can be decidedly harsher than the way we talk to others. In fact, many of us are stuck in a toxic feedback loop with ourselves that is more damaging than we might think. And part of the problem of a negative inner monologue is that we’ve become so accustomed to speaking to ourselves that way that we don’t even realize we’re doing it. Even though we might not be conscious of it, our minds and bodies are still affected by it.

But there is a way to break free of your inner critic once and for all—with one easy trick from a therapist.

Dr. Peter Attia, author of Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity, explained as a guest on an episode of Huberman Lab that he used to have a severe case of toxic self-talk that stemmed from an addiction to perfectionism, as it related to performance. From childhood, he felt a rage within him anytime he didn’t complete a task to his very high standards. This would manifest in violent ways, like breaking windows and screaming at people (and himself), ultimately spilling outwards to everyone around him.

You don’t have to necessarily be punching walls to want to improve how you talk to yourself, though. We all have a relationship to ourselves that dictates how we feel, act, and are perceived in the world and by the people around us. And you can improve it.

How to silence your inner critic

While going to therapy, Attia’s therapist had an exercise for him to address the rage that had been a part of his 47 years of life. She promised him that if he followed through with the exercise, his inner critic problem would improve as long as he did the following:

Whenever Attia would catch himself having a negative self-talk, he would have to immediately stop whatever activity he had just messed up. Then, he would have to pretend it was actually a dear friend who had just flunked the task, and replace the self-talk by audibly speaking to that person as if they were there. He would record the “conversation” on his phone and send it to his therapist.

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Illustration: Bob Al-Greene

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One afternoon in 2020, early in the pandemic, I met Syl’violet and Matthew for a virtual session. Young, idealistic, deeply in love, they were also prone to dramatic fights. In this session, Syl’violet, a vivacious essayist and spoken-word poet, was trying to describe the ways she felt Matthew, a measured medical student, was trying to control her, in this case by trying to dissuade her from buying a slushy. He thought they should keep to a tight budget until after he became a doctor and achieved financial stability. Then she could have “all the slushies you want later.” Syl’violet found his reasoning maddening, especially since he seemed to imply she was reckless.

On the face of it, the fight seemed insignificant, but then an exchange took place that changed the tenor of the argument, connecting us to the underlying roots of the issue. “I have trouble envisioning that finish line,” Syl’violet exclaimed, tearing up, “because the plan that he’s talking about? My life has always been: The plan never works. You can do all the right things, you can obey all the right rules and get [expletive].” For a moment, Matthew continued to try to reason with her and convince her of his sound financial strategy. “I know that sounds very conceited, cocky,” he said, to which Syl’violet whipped back: “No! It sounds privileged!” She described her family’s relationship to money; they’d had nothing but trauma for generations. Syl’violet resented Matthew’s pride in his plan. “A privileged setting gave you access to all these things,” she said. “You’re taking ownership over it like, ‘I did it according to plan,’ as if, like, if other people did it according to plan, it would work out.”

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