How to Tell if You’re Dating the Kris Humphries of Your Life
When Kim Kardashian married Kris Humphries after six months of dating and a 90-day engagement, people judged her pretty hard. Kim and Kris were clearly rushing into things, not to mention the fact that they didn’t seem to have anything in common or enjoy each other’s company.
Then she divorced Kris after 72 days, and it looked like Kimmy’s career was officially dunzo. Thankfully, she soon started dating Kanye West and the rest is A-list power couple history.
But Kim really dodged a bullet when she dropped Kris Humphries. Not only was Kris just mean, he also wanted her to move to a freaking farm in the midwest, can you imagine? Plus, pretty much no one in her inner circle seemed to like him. Kris Humphries was clearly toxic for Kim from the jump — and somehow, she seemed to be the only person who didn’t realize that.
Now, their relationship is in the news again because Kim has just confessed that she knew they were doomed on their honeymoon.
But the rest of us were wondering: girl, how did it take that long for you to see it?!
It’s easy to scoff at the Kim-Kris situation and feel confident that it could never happen to you. But the truth is, this could happen to anyone: you start dating someone totally wrong for you and everyone else is high-key concerned, but you continue to coast along in a clearly doomed relationship.
So how can you tell if you’re with the wrong guy and everyone knows it but you? There’s no foolproof way, but here are a few warning signs to help you avoid a Kris Humphries situation.
READ ALSO: 10 Dating Red Flags Guys Hope You’ll Ignore
1. You started dating him on the rebound
When Kim Kardashian and her beau before Kris, Reggie Bush, were dating, they seemed like the real deal. It was pretty shocking when they broke up for good.
Word on the street was that Reggie dumped Kim because he didn’t want to marry a motivated and career-focused woman. Which, LOL, AWESOME.
Meanwhile, Kim was feeling pressure to settle down because Kourtney Kardashian had just had a baby and Khloé Kardashian had recently married Lamar Odom.
Kim basically confirmed this on “Watch What Happens Live” over the weekend (more on that in a sec). She felt pressure to settle down as her sisters progressed to married and/or mom life. So when the Reggie relationship didn’t work out, it’s not a huge surprise Kim rushed into something new instead of embracing singledom.
But here’s the thing about rebound relationships: they’re not supposed to last. Bouncing from one long-term boyfriend to the next is generally not a recipe for a long-lasting situation, if that’s what you’re looking for. People aren’t themselves when they’re mourning the loss of a relationship (Miley’s “Wrecking Ball” aftermath, anyone?) so of course the partners they pick will reflect their slightly warped post-breakup worldview.
READ ALSO: Miley Cyrus Says “Wrecking Ball” Gives Her Nightmares
So if you started seeing your dude as a way to cope with getting dumped (hey, we all do it), that’s fine. But please keep it at fuck-buddy status until you’ve fully recovered from your last breakup, no matter how fast he might want to become exclusive.
If it’s too late and you’ve gotten wifed up by someone who was supposed to be a rebound, you might wanna bail — or at least put on the brakes until you’re positive you’re ready for a serious relationship.
2. He’s totally not your type
Listen, the idea of having a type can be bull shit. Sometimes, we all need to get over ourselves and like who we like.
But if you’re dating someone who’s a total 180 from your last few boos, there’s a chance you’re overcompensating for past failed relationships instead of loving him for him.
Take Kim and Kris for example. Kris is an athlete, which has historically been her type. But he’s also a dweeb. He’s not cool, he doesn’t have a good sense of humor or any style to speak of, his personality sucks, and his appearances on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” proved that unlike Reggie Bush or Kanye, his “sense of humor” consists of acting like a dick toward his loved ones.
And again, Kris Humphries was desperate for Kim to renounce her fame and become a midwestern stay-at-home mom. That sounds like Kim’s worst nightmare — but she ignored this red flag and sailed forth.
The bottom line is: sure, sometimes opposites attract. But if you’re dating someone with completely different values from you whose personality clashes with yours, WTF are you doing? Get outta there!
Here’s a good litmus test: ask yourself if you’d be friends with the guy if you weren’t dating. Be honest! If you realize you probs wouldn’t enjoy his company without sex and cuddling and extra boyfriend stuff, it’s probably not meant to be.
READ ALSO: 14 Dating Red Flags We’ve All Ignored
3. Part of you wants a BF because all your friends have one
This is the hardest thing to admit, but sometimes, you might be tempted to settle down with someone just because everyone else is doing it or you don’t want to be alone. Even if your friends are nowhere near marriage, it really sucks when you’re the only member of your clique without a boyfriend.
This makes it really easy to settle for someone subpar — and Kim realizes that.
“At the time… I just thought, ‘Holy shit, I’m 30 years old, I better get this together, I better get married,'” she told Andy Cohen. “I think a lot of girls do go through that, where they freak out and think they’re getting old and they have to figure it out and all their friends are having kids. So it was more of that situation.”
You don’t have to be in your 30s for this phenomenon to happen. A lot of people cling to mediocre relationships because they don’t want to get left out of group dates or be the only single friend.
Similarly, people might stay with someone crappy because other parts of their life are rocky, or they’re going through some sort of major lifestyle shift.
Think of girls who refuse to dump their shitty high school boyfriends freshman year of college, or people who try to stretch their college relationships into the real world after graduation when they don’t even live in the same city as their boo anymore. Sometimes, you cling to a relationship for security because everything else is up in the air or no one else you know is single and available to thot with you.
Well, this is a recipe for disaster. You should only date someone because you genuinely love who they are as a person, not because you’re scared of showing up to a party alone or having nothing to do on a Friday night.
If you have any suspicion that your BF is more of a Kris than a Kanye, make like Kim get out of there even if you think it’s “too late.” Girlfriend dissolved an entire marriage after realizing Kris was wrong for her — you can’t stay with your turkey of a boyfriend just because he’s met your parents or his birthday’s coming up. Life is too short to date someone for the wrong reasons.