r/AskReddit • u/AuthorConfident9386 • 13h ago

Men, what’s one small, seemingly insignificant thing you’ve noticed that can be a telltale sign of the difference between a genuinely good man and a bad one?

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u/sutree1 12h ago

The only way to judge a person is by observing their actions over time.

Our society is obsessed with being able to sort good from bad at a glance. That's not how it works.

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u/FreemanCalavera 9h ago

Best answer in the thread. Even wonderful people can have shitty days where they react out of line to something. That doesn’t make them bad people, it makes them human.

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u/RichWPX 7h ago

Sometimes that one day can cost someone for the rest of their life. It sucks but it's very true.

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u/rickygrimezz 12m ago

Indeed, that is a tough lesson to learn.

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u/TexWashington 11h ago

Deffo need solid sample size, for a more nuanced approach. However, how many times should one observe shitty behavior from an individual before taking caution? How many green flags make for a false sense of security?

When talking to strangers, all one has is their first impression. And a bad first impression is hard to overcome, and good first impressions make tragic betrayals.

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u/FLguy3 11h ago

Prettt much this. Takes a while to confirm someone is good. Often doesn't take that long to confirm they are not.

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u/nmezib 6h ago

"A man can build a thousand bridges in his lifetime, and be known as The Guy Who Builds Bridges. But as soon as he fucks one goat..."

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u/KDLGates 8h ago

My ex was married over 10 years before her husband threw her into walls and went to prison.

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u/NuclearMaterial 10h ago

A nuanced answer? On my Reddit?! Gtfo

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u/ReturnOfBane 9h ago

"Villains who twirl their mustaches are easy to spot. Those who clothe themselves in good deeds are well-camouflaged."

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u/wterrt 8h ago

yeah seems like every fucking week we get 2-3 of these "what's a subtle sign that..."

as if things work that way. there's no "simple trick" to knowing someone's heart. real manipulators are good at all the ones in these threads.

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u/National_Cod9546 10h ago

There are a bunch of single things a person can do to tell you they are a shitty person. But it takes a long string of not doing any of those before you can judge they might be a good person.

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u/HonestDisguise 9h ago

I think it’s also important to recognize that good people still do shitty things. What they do when challenged or confronted is a good indicator of the type of people they are. Otherwise it’s easy to always be waiting for the other shoe to drop.

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u/parachuge 7h ago

No, we can and should optimize our judgements of others. We just need to spend more time online reading about judgement shortcuts and optimizations.

This optimized judgement of others will allow us to have less challenging and complex interactions and we can then spend that time online further optimizing.

Eventually we should only need to spend like... a few minutes a day actually in relationship with others because those relationships will be frictionless and uplifting because we've gotten so good at judging and choosing perfect people. /s obvy

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u/Texuk1 9h ago

You know I actually think this is a major theme the the show “the bear”. I know it’s not unique to this show and most of literature is about challenging first impressions. But the way the show really unwraps layer after layer and your first impressions of people shift and change. Real life’s a lot more complicated but I think there is something there that we could all learn to do…

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u/neoKushan 8h ago

There's even more nuance to this: People aren't generally "good" or "bad", there are a lot of very flawed individuals out there who will make mistakes and fuck up. For me, the difference is whether or not they accept those mistakes and learn from them or try to blame them on someone else.

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u/Jaereth 7h ago

Not to mention growth. Even our prison system is supposedly based on rehabilitation.

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u/ogc_glizzyxx 6h ago

It never fails to amaze me how we tend to simplify a person along with their motivations, problems, insecurities and fears. Call it a red flag or a subtle tell, label them with whatever you experienced and done.

I've met so many good, interesting people, genuine souls and their stories and I refuse to believe it was all thanks to their flawless first impression.

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u/HumanDish6600 6h ago

Not to mention everyone has both good and bad in them. The only question is which side the balance lies on

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u/sutree1 6h ago

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

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u/For_teh_horde 6h ago edited 6h ago

We just want to be able to get the full picture from just the headlines. A shortcut or a trick to being able to get everything without putting in the effort

Especially with the way content is consumed, it is becoming harder and harder not to fall into this trap

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u/ValBravora048 3h ago

Excellent answer, I am so fing tired of the 6 second clips of psudeo-astrology that sounds clever but in practice is just dumb and/or mean

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u/hawkinsst7 2h ago

Our society is obsessed with being able to sort good from bad at a glance. That's not how it works.

I haven't heard this term used in a while, but I feel like this is the logical progression of "virtue signaling", in that, much like most of social media, it sets unrealistic expectations for society.

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u/thunderlightlybaby 2h ago

100%

Need to know what their baseline is to truly tell.

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u/olivia_c_22 8h ago

Exactly. One awkward moment tells you little; watch whether the same small hurt keeps happening after you’ve brought it up. The pattern is the tell.

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u/mini-hypersphere 7h ago

As true as that may be, and generalizations are not always true, patterns do emerge. And it is assumed those patterns are what the OP were referring to.

Your answer is akin to being in front of a lion and saying "the only way to test if it is a lion is to do DNA testing. our society is obsessed with labeling danger at a glance. that is not how it works"

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u/obliviious 4h ago

Very true, but some people reveal themselves very quickly and without shame.

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u/AgnosticPeterpan 3h ago

I was gonna write this. Looking for shortcuts and telltale signs instead of taking the time to know is not a good sign in itself.

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u/heimsins_konungr 2h ago

A few things can make it immediately obvious that the effort of getting to know them isn't worth it.

Like seeing someone wearing a MAGA hat.

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u/say592 40m ago

Everyone has short attention spans. We gotta know whether someone is good or evil (nuance doesn't exist, it's one or another) in the first 30 seconds of meeting them, otherwise we might as well error on the side of caution and attribute the absolute most amount of malice to them.

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u/DomLite 7m ago

While you're not wrong, if someone spouts off some kind of racist slur in front of me, that's all I need to know that they are, in fact, a bad person.

Nobody is perfect, and we're all learning and growing every day if we're worth our salt, but there are certain single actions that I can and will judge your entire character on. If you later realize this moral failing of yours and work to better yourself, that's great, but you'll forgive me I choose not to stick around and see if the white supremacist decides to turn over a new leaf before I judge them.

There are plenty of other things aside from racism too, mind you. This is merely an example. I'd drop someone like a sack of bricks for several reasons and be entirely justified in doing so. Certain things you simply don't do if you're a good person in any way, and no amount of growth later down the line is going to make you a good person now, so I choose not to associate.

So no, someone being a little rude to a server isn't an instant indicator of being a bad person (as I said, nobody is perfect and we all have bad days), but if someone casually reveals their racism or bigotry in front of me, they are a bad person, and I can tell at a glance. That is how it works. The difference is in the severity, and I don't need to observe a person over time to know that their comfortable use of hate speech means they're not a good person.

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u/possibly_oblivious 10h ago

found the bad man