It all began with a WhatsApp message. My friend, a green flag guy if there ever was one, sent me a voice note at 2 a.m. that could've easily been mistaken for a Karan Johar monologue. "Why do they always choose chaos over calm?” clearly referencing yet another relationship gone sour. The culprit? A girl who ghosted him for a guy whose Instagram bio reads “toxic but exciting”. boasted, "toxic but exciting". I sighed, knowing exactly where this was headed to.
He isn’t alone. We’ve all been there. Or know of someone who has been there. The guy who checks all the boxes: patient, kind, emotionally available, the quintessential green flag in the world of modern relationships. The guy who brings you your favourite snack when you're feeling low, never forgets your birthday, and listens when you talk. Yet, it doesn’t seem to work for him.
You May Also Like: A Deep Dive Into Gen Z's Love Maze
It’s the paradox of being “too good”. Being the one who loves without reservation, without holding back, and still ending up alone, heartbroken, and unsure.
The Green Flag vs. The Red Flag: Why Do We Run Toward the Chaos?
What is it that’s so attractive about an unemotionally available person? Why do "red flags" attract us like magnets, even if you know it's going to bring pain to your life? We go for the whirlwind, the emotional storm, even when we know it's going to be a battle. There's something intoxicating about the unpredictability. The person who is hard to get, the emotionally distant one? That's a challenge. We think we can change them. We think that somehow our love will be enough to make them whole, to cure them, to heal the broken parts.
And when someone offers a different kind of love, we don’t know what to do with it.
Green Flags Through Red Glasses
The attraction to the red flags always drowns out the green flags—those signs screaming "this is a healthy relationship" (emotional availability, patience, consistency)—because some people mistakenly believe emotional chaos is necessary for love to feel real.
In Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, Raj, played by Shah Rukh Khan, is the quintessential "bad boy turned good," the guy who takes a bit longer to realize what love really is, but the struggle makes his journey more dramatic and intense. We find ourselves rooting for him because his love feels hard-earned. Contrast this with the character of Ranbir Kapoor's Bunny in YJHD. Bunny, despite his own emotional instability, is someone we can't stop watching. He's flawed, messy, unpredictable—everything that draws Naina towards her ideal vision of love. That's also how 500 Days of Summer works: uncertainty, a chase, and, finally, frustration. The whole film plays on Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, Tom, obsessed with an emotionally unavailable woman and wishing for what he cannot have. It is a tale that unfolds again and again in movies, from Before Sunrise to The Notebook: the glee of love is in the chase, the unsolved tension.
You May Also Like: The Art of Unavailable Men: Understanding Their Allure
The world of film and music has taught us that the best love stories are the most dramatic. Think about Bollywood's most iconic love stories and their ideas of love are always tangled up in dramatic, intense moments. The idea of a perfect, steady relationship seems almost like a chore, like it lacks the passion needed to drive personal growth. The rollercoaster of emotions is so romanticized, but at the end of it all, you are exhausted. You question what love even is. We are always taught to equate intensity with growth; however, sometimes, it doesn't need chaos but peace.
Attachment Styles and Unfinished Business
A lot of this comes back to attachment theory. Have you ever heard of anxious or avoidant attachment styles? If you have unresolved traumas or subconscious wounds, you tend to latch onto relationships that repeat the chaos because that is a sense of familiarity. It is not about what's best for you; it's about what's normal. Stability—the green flag trademark—can feel strange if the only love you have known is drama.
Love, at its core, shouldn’t be a battle. It shouldn’t be a struggle, constantly trying to prove one's worth to each other. It should always be about connection, acceptance, and mutual respect. And until we learn that, unfortunately, we will keep questioning ourselves, wondering what else could we have done to make it work.