It can be difficult to screen a Girl, or a Guy, for red flags. Apart from the physical indicators, which are obvious. You have to wait for them to show their personality.

I admit I'm not the best at actually doing this, so part of the reason I'm writing these down here is to formalise them for myself and to make myself do it more often. But screening is important, just like chicks do it to you, you should do it to other people.

To start it's important to understand what your screening for, what your looking for may vary but I am looking for personality issues that might indicate that someone would be a problem in the future.

Take this with a grain of salt as if you ditch someone you will never have a chance to see what could have been, but the main questions/topics I bring up or stories I tell are along these lines:

Cat or Dog?: Whether it's a cat or dog doesn't really matter, what matters is how they relate to the most common animals humans keep as pets. What would be a red flag to me would be answers like:

I love Breed X

A Cat or Dog is a companion, not everyone likes them, and ironically, hating cats or dogs isn't a red flag, but liking a particular breed as a whole, shows me that the person sees a companion animal as a thing. An object to be used, generally they'd see a "Chihuahua" as something of an accessory for them in the same way "I love Ray Ban's" I'd hope to see someone say "I love Breed X because I grew up with Max who was a great pet"

I don't like X because of person Y

Doesn't really matter what animal or who the person was. If a person doesn't like an animal because "an ex boyfriend has a Rottweiler so now I don't like Rottweilers" I don't want to know them. Your taking your own frustrations out on an entire breed of animal.

My best friend is such an idiot: Everyone will bitch and gossip at some point about you behind your back, what I am concerned about is people doing it maliciously with the intent to damage. I normally predicate this by telling a story about "my best friend" and then laughing about "how it's funny that we all have a best friend who has that really annoying habit" or something similar and leave a space for them to tell a similar story. There's really only 1 thing that I screen for and that is:

Anything beyond a casual joke about a friend

I shit you not I once had a coworker tell me his best friend was cheating on his girlfriend. Why the fuck would you think telling a stranger that would be a good idea? Needless to say I made sure to watch what I said about him. Ideally I'd want to see someone reply with a funny anecdote about their friend or just agree without saying anything.

Playing with the phone too much: The classic "Chick on the phone" but can also happen with Dudes as well. If someone is engrossed with their I ask a variant of "Who are you waiting to hear from?" and act like they are waiting for something important.

Never once have I had anyone say "My Dad's in hospital and I'm waiting to see how he is" but it tends to go 3 ways:

I'm just talking to a friend and they put the phone down and leave it down

 

Sorry I'm being rude

These two are fine, these show they although they aren't completely engaged, they have the social acumen to realise they are being rude

Just a friend and continue playing with the phone

They may be bored with the context of the interaction which can be fine depending on what it is, but if they continue to do it after you have made light of it, they are either rude or socially dense.

I saw a Guy/Girl hit a Guy/Girl If I'm talking to a chick I'll bring up a story about seeing a Guy get hit by his Girlfriend across the street or something similar. If it's a Dude I'll add that the Guy then pushed the Girl away and walked off. I'm basically screening for psycho/whiteknight and answers along these lines:

(Girl) Good he probably deserved it, I did that to X once.

Most chicks will laugh at the idea of a Girl hitting a Guy, but someone who has actually done it and brings it up on a moments notice is bad news.

(Guy) body language

What they say doesn't really matter, but if I see them have a physical reaction, squirm in their seat, get visibly angry, flushed neck, merely over the story of a guy pushing a girl away who was attack him. White knight through and through. He probably owns a katana.

Talk about the bystander effect

This ties in pretty well with the above one, but most people won't know what it is, and some will. What I look for is

unprompted stories about how they intervened or "I always stand up"

To me this is a very strong indicator of how moral a person views themselves, and how much of a busybody they are. Never underestimate someone who thinks they have a god given right to sniff out your mistakes or "make things right" These people can be HR bitches, White knights in the street, head of HOA who record you etc.

If they are willing to tell you a story of how they stuck their nose in, unprompted, then they are bad news.

A worst case scenario would be a Guy who proudly proclaims that he would jump forward out of a crowd to save someone if it was the right thing to do, and shows a visceral reaction in the previous story about a Guy pushing a Woman.

Getting up and leaving mid sentence would be a safe bet with these people.

How many drinks does it take to get you to dance?

The number doesn't matter. What this does is gets them talking about how alcohol effects them. I look for 2 red flags, both on the extremes:

Nothing, I'm always on the dance floor (Girls)

Basic Bitch attention whore through and through, will make drama to get attention. Your probably already picturing this chick in your mind.

Mate I gotta be smashed to dance (Guy)

Basic Bitch dude. This to me signifies weakness of character. To do something like dancing they have to drink to excess before they will consider it. This also is an admittance that when they drink, they become different people. This means that they repress certain parts of their personality for various reasons. I don't want to be around Dudes that repress their personality, because it's going to come out, like a rubber band snapping. Whether it's as them bitching behind your back because they resent you, road raging at a red light or hanging themselves when their 40, they are just weak beta men.

I am always more then keen to get better at reading people and I can't be the only one to do this.

But it's important to have an abundance mentality when dealing with people, if your going to spend time with someone, choose them wisely.

Do what works best for you, without coming across like it's a job interview, because it's weird and you'll just get lied too. Let people tell stories about themselves unprompted.

To do this I recommend working backwards. Start by asking yourself, what personality traits do you wish to avoid? Then ask yourself how can you get a person to reveal if they have those traits? Then craft questions/stories to do that.