21 Signs You’re Dating a Product Manager

Find out before you move forward

For me, it was hard to tell when I was dating a product manager. Just kidding I’m not that desperate. But you might be. And if you are, here are the signs to look for.

You might be dating a product manager if….

1. When trying to convince you to go out with him, he mentions the success rate of his other dates.
2. He tells you what time to meet but shows up 20 minutes after that.
3. When the table wobbles at dinner, he gets the engineer at the next table to fix it, but still takes credit for it.
4. He refers to your dates as ‘1 on 1 time’.
5. He always asks if he can ask a question before he asks a question.
6. Instead of asking the waiter how the chicken is, he says, “What’s your poultry story?”
7. He argues with you using bullet points in a Powerpoint presentation.
8. He spends so long stack ranking different movie options that you miss the movie.
9. Picking a sexual position involves extensive A/B testing.
10. He likes his pillow talk in a 15-minute standup format.
11. He refers to your life dreams as a “list of asks”.
12. When you want to try something new, he mentions a conversation he had with his CEO about innovation.
13. When you travel, your itinerary is called an action plan.
14. His idea of engaging with you has nothing to do with an actual engagement.
15. He wants to review all the documentation from your previous relationships.
16. He uses other women’s advances as leverage to get more laptop time.
17. He stalks your ex-boyfriends and calls it ‘competitor research,’ then proceeds to do the exact same things they did.
18. He says he values your opinion, but still completely ignores you.
19. He refers to you as Girlfriend 3.0.
20. You know he’s in love when he looks at you the way he looks at his phone.
21. After you break up, he requests a relationship postmortem.

*These signs apply to female product managers as well.

Sarah Cooper is a writer, comedian and creator of TheCooperReview.com. Her first book, 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings comes out October 4th.