A frequent mistake people make when dating is ignoring incompatibilities (not necessarily red flags) because they see possibilities.
I’ve done this. I’m not proud of that moment, but I hadn’t been in the dating game for a while, and I met someone with whom I had chemistry. He was funny, smart, and a filmmaker. He’d lived in Europe and had some life experience—he was older than I normally date but still younger than me. We had some similar experiences with family and life. He was kind of the sweet spot of what I was looking for, and in the end, I gave him some time and attention I might not have otherwise.
He’s not a bad guy, but he had some issues that, if I’d been in my 20s, I would have tried to fix. But I’m not in my 20s anymore (thank god), and he’s a grown-ass man, so I moved on (after we breadcrumbed each other for a while because I’m not perfect).
It’s totally okay to be a little twitterpated when you first meet someone. It’s part of the process. But being able to step back from that with a critical eye and see how much you might be ignoring because of the possibilities is a good skill to develop.