11 Signs She’s Not As Chill As You Think

1. She asks you to take your shoes off when you walk into her apartment.

She may not impose many rules onto her houseguests, but of the few she does, removing one’s shoes takes priority. She’s always been faintly aware of what this request implies. She’s never considered her staunch refusal to offer so much as a “hello” before demanding her guests take off their shoes to be becoming. And she’s aware that this must stand in stark opposition to her very chill disposition. But then, perhaps that’s just the point: perhaps it’s her (re: my) subconscious’ way of urging these guests to lower all standards and expectations of her, lest they want to leave profoundly disappointed.

2. She’s requested to follow or be friends with most of your friends and family on social media.

There have been four, maybe five, dates and already the texts and calls are flooding in. “Yo dude. Is this the chick you’ve been seeing?” Brosef Fratty McFrat texts you, with a screenshot of her friend request. OK, that’s harmless enough — sweet even. But then things start to take a turn for the weird. Your younger sister calls you to ask who this random older girl is who’s started following her on Instagram and stamping all of her selfies with the prayer sign emoji. (And this, despite the fact that she knows your sister still thinks the tooth fairy is real.) And then, the kicker: when you open up her computer to check your email, you’re immediately confronted with the Google search: “Seymour Phillips, twitter.” As if your grandfather actually has a twitter? And if he did, what did she possibly expect to glean from it?

3. She wakes up at 5:30 every morning to make a 6am Physique57 class.

She had always just seemed to be the sort of girl who was physically blessed at birth; whose beauty is painfully natural, sickeningly effortless. She hardly ever wears makeup and, yeah okay she’s half-Colombian, but that still doesn’t explain the unyielding, radiant tan during the dead of winter. And then one day you stumble on her DIY Headboard blog and, nestled between “How To Sandpaper Your Baltic Birch Plywood To Perfection” and “A Quick Lesson In Using Digested Raspberries To Coat Your Plywood In A Soft Crimson,” you see it. Surely only a diligent sleuth like you could have found it, but — you did — you found it nonetheless. A barely detectable reference to her 6am Physique57 morning routine buried in the paragraph-long tutorial on homemade organic glue. Busted, babes.

4. She cringes when you use her toothbrush.

“Where are you taking me?” you ask as she leads you on an unfamiliar route to her home. “Oh this is how I always get hom–oh! Would you look at that! Duane Reade! May as well pop in to buy you a toothbrush…” But no, you say, you’re totally cool with using hers again. And as her pace starts to quicken in what any reasonable human would interpret as her trying to lose you, you assure yourself that — no, this must all be in your head. Ditto to the scavenger hunt you were pretty much forced into after you got back to her place and she passed out cold. And the suspicion you had after finally, two hours later, finding her toothbrush in an expired can of dates? That, too, was all in your head…

5. She’s curiously rigorous when it comes to plans.

Before, her chillness seemed unmistakable. Was she in the mood for chilly cheesesteaks? Of course she was. McDonalds? You bet. Popeyes? Uhhh DOI, and for desert she even challenged you to a cinnamon apple pie eating contest. So why, then, has she started browsing OpenTable “just for fun”? Why is she asking if you’re free for dinner — “just the two of us” — three weeks in advance? Why, when you agreed, did she send you a Google calendar invite? And why oh why did she send you a reminder email the night before? The answer, in fact, is actually quite simple. Your lady friend? Not as chill as you think.

6. She posts all of her Instagrams with at least 20 hashtags.

Her favorite shirt is emblazoned with the words “free spirit.” Does it get any clearer than that? You’ve seen her do it so you know it’s true; she really does just mosey on into work whenever the mood strikes, even if it is three in the afternoon. At first, her chillness was so genuine, so potent, it was almost intimidating. And who knew the hasty decision to follow her on Instagram would change all of that? “Who knew she even had an Instagram?” you thought to yourself when a friend directed your attention to it. But she does, and when you took a quick peep, there it was: a sea of hashtags, so thick, so overwhelming, they eclipsed the actual photos.

Perhaps this could have been been forgiven — could have been overlooked — if not for her dogged insistence to hashtag herself in the third person.

7. She “really just likes running half marathons.”

An indisputable red flag, the “I just really like running half marathons” trick might fool some, but not for long — and especially not after you take a moment to break it down. Is it the training she enjoys? The weakening of the knees and ankles? The premature arthritis? Oh I know: it must be the blisters, coupled with the general unceasing sensation of wading through mud.

No, your girl enjoys running half marathons about as much as Bradley Cooper enjoyed being a prominent character in The Hangover Part III.

8. She needlessly sends back drinks.

Sending back a steak that looks much too rare? Smart. Tasting a bottle of wine and actually turning it down? Cute. But if the girl can’t handle swapping the soy in her morning latte for whole milk on one very rare and busy hour for the minimum wage Starbucks employees — and if she doesn’t suffer from diabetes — then, plain and simple, she’s not as chill as you think.

9. She wears reading glasses with no prescription.

Her “geekiness” was what initially caught your eye. It was what drew you in and inspired you to let your inner nerd out. Now, six weeks in, you play Dungeons & Dragons heedlessly out in the open and would continue to do so today if you hadn’t left your glasses at home. So you reach for her black, thick-rimmed ones, hoping they’ll serve as an adequate temporary replacement. Yet when you try them on and realize they don’t have a prescription, your heart sinks. The bae, it occurs to you, is chill no mas. You had a feeling it was too good to be true anyway.

10. Her Google search history is treacherously inconsistent with the girl you thought you knew.

The point isn’t why you were looking through her Google search history (that’s for another time, re: signs he’s not as chill as you think), but what you found in said search history. The hours she spent Google imaging wedding rings, in particular, is perilously at odds with the bohemian flower child you thought you knew. As is the bookmarked URL that links to your father’s net worth.

It leaves you wondering: Was her kimono collection a figment of your imagination? Her pre-chewed food drive a hoax? And the homemade hemp milk; how does one explain that?

11. She’s a frequent user of the “just doing me” caption.

“Do you all you want,” is your motto. And — don’t be silly! — of course it’s not her decision to do her that irks you, but rather her decision to announce that she’s doing her to all of humanity. For, if you’re not wrong, does this not negate the legitimacy of it all?

And then there’s the additional, minor fact that you know very well a photo of her knitting a sweater for the neighborhood stray cat is not, as it happens, an accurate portrayal of “her doing her.” When she’s being her most authentic self, she’s usually just drafting up bitter and overtly defensive responses to the comments on her articles.