How to Tell if She's Crazy or A Keeper

Image via Complex Original

In the early stages of your relationship, you can be so pumped up on the dopamine high of getting a hot girl to sleep with you that you fail to see the warning signs. Or, you're so caught up that you willingly overlook the glaring possibility that she may be unstable and unfit for a long term relationship. Before you get in too deep, run down our handy checklist with your lady love in mind:

Early Signs of Lunacy:

• She frequently shows up uninvited. She always seems to be "just in the neighborhood."


• She reads into everything you say/do/text. You have to frequently remind her that "I'll be there at five." doesn't mean "I'm spending the afternoon with another woman."


• You're barely a month into your relationship and she's spilling deep, personal issues that most normal people would withhold until later in the relationship. As time goes on, you realize she wears the past like armor or worse yet, a sword. 

Early Signs of Sanity:

• She is understanding when your plans change. She doesn't automatically assume you've lost interest/are boning someone else.


• She doesn't rearrange her entire life to spend time with you. Sometimes you call and she has plans with her friends, and she doesn't offer to break them.


• She doesn't play text message games. She texts back when she feels like it, and doesn't seem like she's purposely following some crazy rule that requires she wait a minimum of an three hours to respond. Communication seems natural.

Crazy: You've spent three days with her this week, and you decide you need a night out with guys. When you spring the news on her, she pouts about how you never spend time together and accuses you of liking your friends more than her. Eventually, she makes such a big deal about it that you invite her along, and proceed to get grilled by your boys all night.

When her friends invite her out, she opts to spend time with you instead. It gets to the point where you begin to doubt she has any strong female friendships and you get the sense that her entire identity revolves around your relationship.

Keeper: A woman who is emotionally stable recognizes the importance of independence in a relationship. She is understanding when you decide to go beer-guzzling with your boys, and often encourages you to take time to yourself. Likewise, she enjoys having time to herself and spending time with her girlfriends. She loves hanging out with you, but she has tight bonds with other women that she is not willing to sacrifice.

Crazy: She is constantly accusing you of looking elsewhere and questioning your intentions. Whether it be your cousin or an attractive stranger walking down the street, she immediately begins lobbing accusations at you: "You want that? Go ahead, go and get it," or, "Suzy again? I don't care if she's your sister. Why are you spending so much time with her?"

Eventually, you find yourself avoiding your female friends and anyone she finds vaguely threatening (i.e. anyone with a vagina) to avoid the interrogations and temper tantrums that will inevitably follow.

Keeper: The woman you work to keep around is confident. If she sees you checking out another girl, she teases you before eventually conceding, "Yeah, she did have a pretty awesome ass." She lets you spend time with the opposite sex because she knows you're aware of what you've got, and she trusts you do to the right thing. 

Crazy: If you return from the bathroom, and frequently notice your phone is lit up or text messages you haven't looked at are marked as read, you might have a crazy on your case. 

If you haven't given her a reason to be scrutinize (i.e. you don't hide your phone, take calls in the bathroom or lie to her frequently), it's likely she's just looking for trouble. Maybe she has trust issues. Maybe she doubts she's capable of holding your attention/fidelity. Or, maybe she just enjoys instigating. If you confront the behavior and she continues to invade your personal space, it may be time to take some permanent space.

Keeper: A keeper doesn't take it upon herself to play detective. She is self-assured enough to believe in the strength of the relationship and your affection for her. She doesn't look through your emails, texts and Facebook messages. She's not clueless or naive, she just doesn't go looking for deception because she knows that if it exists, it will eventually reveal itself.

Crazy: Even if you're wild about the woman you're dating, you'll eventually make a mistake. Maybe you'll forget to call when you said you would or show up to dinner a half-hour late. Even if you have a perfectly valid excuse, Ms. Crazy flies off the handle and refuses to drop the issue. Hell, you're on dessert and she still hasn't let up about how you don't care about her. Instead of basing her argument on the incident in question, she uses it as a springboard to make wild generalizations about how you never keep your promises.

What's more, she'll bring up this singular incident a dozen times going forward. You'll be walking on eggshells for weeks thanks to that missed train that made you late. Bonus points if your minor infraction leads to a major public meltdown in said restaurant.

Keeper: A woman with a healthy attitude can take tiny issues in stride. If you show up late, she makes it a point to express that she's annoyed, but has moved on by the time the appetizers have hit the table. She resists the urge to generalize, and instead focuses on the larger picture. Her mentality: You made a mistake. You're only human. You're generally on time. No need to ruin dinner. 

Crazy: Beware the woman who silently holds grudges then spectacularly explodes over trivial matters. You leave the towel on the floor twice, and on the third time she's screaming on the top of her lungs about how deeply inconsiderate you are. And the worst part? She never told you it bothered her in the first place! If things like this happen regularly, it points to her inability to communicate her feelings, a major issue than can erode the health of your relationship, not to mention your sanity.

Keeper:  A woman who is self aware recognizes issues as they arise and feels comfortable discussing them. Problems don't immediately elevate to fights; she's capable of having a conversation about things that bother her without raising her voice. If she's annoyed that you never call when you're going to be late, she asks you to be more considerate next time. She doesn't pout until you guess what's on her mind. 

Crazy: Even the most sane woman human acts irrationally every once in awhile. Maybe she had a particularly stressful day, or she's super PMS-ing (the side-effects of estrogen are real, you guys!), but if she comes down from her outburst and still defends her erratic behavior, you may have a problem on your hands.

Think about it: Can you really be happy with a woman who lacks the self-awareness to realize when she's in the wrong? Are you cool with a lifetime of apologizing for her unbalanced behavior to friends and family because she refuses to do so on her own? 

Keeper: We all have our moments, and a reasonable woman will recognize when she's had one. She'll acknowledge that yeah, maybe she shouldn't have screamed at you for an hour because you put the cereal box on the wrong shelf. She'll laugh at her fleeting moment of lunacy, and after she's calmed down, she'll thank you for putting up with her lapse of sanity.

Crazy: At sometime or another, the woman you love might mention one (or if you're slacking, several) issues she has with you. If she's crazy, she will go about making her point in a manipulative manner, rather than directly addressing it. For example, if she feels like you don't pay enough attention to her, she'll try to get back at you by blatantly flirting with your friends in front of you. If she's feeling insecure about her looks, she'll hot-box you into complimenting her and then yell at you for making her fish for compliments. There are no right answers with her, just different routes to arguments.

Even when things are fine with the two of you, she finds a way to finagle some drama. She needs your attention and reassurance constantly, and if she doesn't get it, she will resort to tears and emotional fits. You're constantly taking her down from a ledge, and she holds you directly responsible for her every mood, particularly the bad ones.

Keeper: You may have ups and downs, and you're admittedly guilty of the occasional shortcoming, but your lady keeps her eye on the big picture and generally has a positive outlook on your relationship. She's comfortable bringing up her worries, fears and even insecurities, which allows you to work together to fix whatever issue come up. She doesn't resort to manipulative methods of getting your attention. She's perfectly fine with telling you she needs a little more affection. She's capable of joking about something that's on her mind, while also making it clear she means business.

Crazy: There is not a fine line between a girl who is crazy and a keeper. It's a wide divide, and often we're so entrenched in a relationship, we fail to realize when we've fallen in. For this reason, the most accurate indicator that you're knee deep in crazy is often your closest friends. If your boys are convinced your girl is certifiably insane, she probably is.

Rather than trying to convince yourself your friends are conspiring against you, or just "don't understand what you have," consider why they drew this particular conclusion. Has she kept you from hanging out with them the past few years? Are you constantly checking your phone when you are out, fearful you'll miss her call and she'll fly into a rage? Does she manage to make a public spectacle every time the two of you are invited to a party? It's easy to make up excuses for the person we love and defend their bad behavior, but your friends have the advantage of unclouded view from a distance.

Keeper: If your friends and family willingly invite your girl to gatherings and even encourage her to come by when you're not around, they genuinely like her. In fact, they routinely remind you to "not mess it up" because "you've got a great girl on your hands," and may say so with a slight tinge of envy in their eyes. 

Crazy: Crazy is contagious. If you're dating someone who constantly accuses you of lying when you're not and accusing you of doing the wrong thing when you aren't, it can start to wear on you. She's constantly picking fights, screaming at the top of her lungs and taking out her frustrations on you, and before long, you're mirroring her behavior. You're irritable and aggressive and you've resorted to using the same immature antics she employs to get her point across. You remember feeling like a sane person, but somehow she's infected your way of thinking to the point where you can barely recognize her behavior (or yours) as unhealthy.

Keeper: A woman worth having will make you feel good about yourself. You will run into hurdles every once in awhile, but she's the type of person who makes overcoming difficulties seem easy. You may even give yourself a pat on the back for how maturely the two of you seem to handle problems that arise. When you're in a full-fledged adult relationship with an emotionally stable person, hardships only seem to sharpen your feelings and the sense that your relationship is strong and healthy. Give yourself a pat on the back, sir. You're come a long way from whats-her-face!