She seems like the perfect girl. Always dressed impeccably, has manicured nails, a perfect social media profile, and lipstick that never smudges. Perfection personified. Till you figure out that it takes a lot of money to maintain this perfection and she did not, in fact, wake up like this. You’ve got yourself a material girl, living in a material world. In other words, a high-maintenance girl.
Who you thought to be an uptown girl turned out to be an uptight girl, and slowly but surely, you’ll begin to see that it takes a humungous amount of effort to woo her and take your relationship forward. Dating a high-maintenance girl might not seem like a big deal initially but take our word for it, it will turn out to be an exacting and expensive affair in the long run.
If you are someone who lives a low-maintenance life, adjusting with a high-maintenance girlfriend can be tough. It might be better for you to avoid a high-maintenance woman. If you’re already dating one, at the very least, you need to understand the high-maintenance meaning and use this knowledge to navigate your relationship in a manner that doesn’t take a toll on you.
If you think you’ve got a case of a high-maintenance woman in your life, knowing the signs of one can help you ascertain it. Doing that is more important than you think since you’ll then be able to figure out what your next steps need to be. First things first, let’s take a look at what the “high maintenance” definition entails.
What Is A High Maintenance Woman And A Low Maintenance Woman?
A high-maintenance woman is one who has greater demands of love, affection, and material possessions than most other people. The “high maintenance” definition signifies that it takes a lot of work to keep up with her since her needs and wants are significantly higher than that of an ordinary person.
Though it doesn’t only equate with someone who only desires more material posessions, that is usually the most common sign. For example, a high-maintenance girlfriend is likely to have a very expensive lifestyle and expects you to keep up with her and also give her material gifts that are in line with her expensive taste.
A high-maintenance girl, meaning, someone who holds themselves in very high regard, can be a bit difficult to deal with. That’s because the answer to, “What does high maintenance mean?” doesn’t only tell us that it’s someone who wants a lot of gifts, but also someone who may be needier in terms of affection and emotional intimacy.
As a result, a high-maintenance person may need you to remind them multiple times that you actually do care for them, that you love them, and that they can trust you. All in all, if anyone were to ask you to define a high-maintenance relationship, it’s one that’s going to take a lot more effort than usual to keep afloat.
That being said, there’s nothing very wrong with being a high-maintenance woman. It’s just the way she’s used to living. What matters is whether you can afford this lifestyle. If you think you have the means to and you love this girl, your relationship should be seamless. However, if you are constantly struggling to make ends meet because of this high-maintenance girl, you may want to let go.
Jay Merlon, a banking executive said, “If my girlfriend decides to join the gym, she would buy $500 gym clothes first. Then within a month, she could lose interest and decide to start cycling instead and then invest in buying an expensive cycle and cycling gear with it. She is fickle but wants the best and because of my banking job I manage to keep up with her whims.”
On the contrary, having a low-maintenance girlfriend is probably way easier because of the sheer fact that she hardly has any expectations in the relationship. She is not a fashionista, nor does she love the high life. On weekends, she is okay with Netflix and chill, and maybe a nice dining out experience is fine once a month.
She is careful about money, may even be focused on savings, and finds solace in the little joys of life. You don’t need to go out of the way to impress her or worry about the definition of high maintenance with her. She is independent as well. She could have a career of her own and might like to pay for her own purchases instead of expecting you to fetch out your credit card always.
Being with a low-maintenance woman is easier in many ways. But if your high-maintenance woman is understanding and respects and accepts your differences, there’s nothing wrong with being in a relationship with them. But if she chooses to criticize and boss you around, her priorities are wrong.
Now that we’ve answered questions like, “What is high maintenance?” and “What does it mean to be high maintenance?” Perhaps you’re naturally curious about what makes someone like that. Let’s take a look the kind of behavior that makes a person worthy of this tag.
Related Reading: 23 Signs Of An Unhealthy Relationship
What Makes A Woman High Maintenance?
Are you dating a high-maintenance girl? Or is your partner just someone who sets the bar of standards in life and relationships high? If she’s a high-maintenance girl, you will begin to notice that she’s more a taker than a giver in the relationship.
The standards she sets for relationship expectations are for you alone. She plays by different rules altogether. These lop-sided and exceptionally high standards are what define a high-maintenance girl, and can often damage a relationship. Before we get to the high-maintenance woman signs, let’s take a look at what makes a woman high maintenance:
- Sense of urgency: A high-maintenance personality is characterized by an unrelenting sense of urgency. She’s high maintenance if she wants everything done yesterday and will continue to breathe down your neck until you swing into action to address her needs, which could vary from getting her ice cream to fixing a clogged drain
- Sense of entitlement: You cannot define a high-maintenance girl without exploring her sense of entitlement. She believes that she deserves more than others, and this belief is what drives her behavior. Fuelled by a massive ego, she thinks she is better than others, and therefore, should be treated as such
- Not Self-sufficient: You’d imagine that someone who thinks so highly of themselves would be self-sufficient and independent. However, a high-maintenance girl is anything but. From needing someone to pass her the remote that may be well within her hand’s reach to expecting her dry cleaning to be picked up, a high-maintenance girlfriend will display an unhealthy tendency to be dependent on her partner because getting others to do things for her makes her feel important
- Cannot let go: She’s high maintenance if she cannot let go of the real or perceived wrongs of the past. She replays the account of your mistakes and shortcomings over and over again, almost like a broken record, because it serves as a justification for her actions and fuels her sense of entitlement
- Attention, please: The very high maintenance meaning is that the person wants to be the center of attention, no matter what the setting or circumstances. In a relationship, it means that your high-maintenance girl will have a classic “me, myself and I” approach, and your needs and expectations will become subservient to hers. She must be the center of your universe for the relationship to survive
- Drama galore: If you have a high-maintenance girlfriend, you can count on there to be a constant feature in your relationship – endless drama. She will have meltdowns when things don’t go her way and even the slightest inconvenience turns into a crisis. You, of course, are expected to be the supportive partner who sticks by her through it all without a blip
- A closed mind: A high-maintenance personality is resentful of feedback. They don’t like being told what to do and are not receptive to constructive criticism and suggestions. You know she’s high maintenance if your “honey, I think we need to stop ordering in so often” suggestion is met with “don’t tell me what to do”
A high-maintenance girlfriend can cause a lot of stress in your relationship, especially when you’re not even sure of what you’re dealing with. Let’s take an in-depth look at what the signs of such a person are so that you know what you’ve got on your hands.
13 Signs She Is A High Maintenance Girl
So, you already know the high maintenance meaning. A high-maintenance girl is someone who has high standards with respect to almost everything. She not only has high expectations with respect to material things but also with respect to her need for love and attention.
Being high maintenance can be related to anything, it can be materialistic, emotional, or otherwise. A high-maintenance girl is rarely ever satisfied with anything. If you feel like you have to constantly prove to your girlfriend that you love her and that you are worthy of her love, you’ve got yourself a high-maintenance girlfriend. Add to that the gifts for a high-maintenance girl that you will have to keep buying. But how do you know that your partner is a high-maintenance woman? Here are 10 signs she is a high-maintenance girlfriend:
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1. A high-maintenance girl is self-obsessed
All that your girlfriend cares about is her appearance and what others think about her. She has attention-seeking tendencies. Her obsession with her personal image will become evident to you after a point. She will always strive to achieve her idea of perfection.
That she is a high-maintenance girl shows in the way she conducts herself. Though this might seem harmless at first, it will become intolerable when you realize this is all she cares about. Her inability to prioritize your needs to make you even slightly happy is one of the red flags of a materialistic girl.
She is always impeccably turned out with hair never out of place. That does need a lot of salon visits, blow-dry, expensive make-up, and oh yes, she likes her wardrobe to be expensive. This fixation with material things and judging others (including you) by the standards she has set for herself is the hallmark of a high-maintenance girlfriend.
2. A high-maintenance woman criticizes your dressing style
Girls who are high maintenance are conscious of their looks and their image in front of others. While you are dating her, you are a part of her image too. Therefore, she will want you to match up to her level to impress others. Jake, who couldn’t stop gushing over how he landed himself a diva of a girlfriend, soon began to realize she’s high maintenance.
“Within a couple of months of dating, my high-maintenance girlfriend was sending my credit card bills through the roof because she decided that nothing in my wardrobe was good enough. From shirts to shoes and even my socks, she pushed me to replace them all with high-end premium stuff. Keeping the relationship going was costing me an arm and a leg, so I politely told her that I wanted to end the relationship,” he adds.
The best way to keep her pleased is by becoming more invested in your appearance. Get a wardrobe upgrade, and order yourself some new shirts, trousers, and shoes. Invest in a premium fragrance. Groom yourself regularly. Only when your turnout is as prim and proper as hers will she be truly happy with you.
After all, she wants to flaunt you in front of her friends and will want you to dress according to her idealistic standards when you are meeting her friends. She will make you feel like a trophy boyfriend in front of her friends.
Related Reading: How To Date A Girl Out Of Your League
3. You feel like her errand boy
She has the habit of bossing everyone including you. She makes you do her chores like pick up the dry cleaning, pick up her clothes from the store, feed the dog, etc. Asking for favors once in a while is normal but if she makes you do her chores almost every day, you’re not her boyfriend but her personal assistant.
You know she is showing high maintenance woman signs when she expects you to pick up her laundry, pick her up from the spa, spend time with her at the gym and fix her sink on your off day. She wouldn’t do the same things for you if you asked her to, be sure of that. For a high-maintenance woman doing things for her guy is too lowly. So in that case she’s nothing less than a selfish girlfriend.
It is tendencies like these that make keeping a relationship with a high-maintenance girl harder and harder. You will burn out sooner or later, and at that point, dealing with a breakup will begin to seem like a more pleasant alternative than trying to keep the relationship afloat.
4. A high-maintenance girl takes ages to get ready
She is never on time at any event. Imagine telling her to meet you at 7:00 p.m., and when you call her at 7, she’s still not done styling her hair. It takes her hours to get herself all prim and proper. If this is not a sign of a high-maintenance girlfriend, then what is?
When it comes to getting ready let us tell you what is a high-maintenance woman like. If she is going out for a party with you or even a date, she would start talking about what she would wear a week in advance. She could even take you shopping because she has “no new clothes” in her closet and can’t be found dead in repeat attire.
Then, on D-Day, even if she starts decking up two hours in advance she would never be on time. Her last-minute touches on her make-up could take hours. One of the classic high-maintenance woman signs is that this pattern isn’t just reserved for special events. It’s second nature to her, and she will invariably end up being late whether you’ve got a date night planned or you’re going to the movies.
However, it’s important to circle back to, “What does high maintenance mean in a relationship?” when considering this point as a possible sign. If she takes a little longer than she should to get ready occasionally, it isn’t necessarily the definition of high maintenance. However, if she’s always getting significantly late, causing you stress, criticizing your (inexpensive) clothes while also expecting you to never be upset for leaving at ten while you were invited at seven, you may have something to worry about.
5. It’s not easy to please a high-maintenance girl
You have planned a perfect date for her. But when she comes for the date, instead of being happy she starts complaining about everything. She won’t acknowledge the effort that you put into planning the date for her. Instead, she will point out every possible flaw with your plan.
A high-maintenance girl likes her own suggestions and plans best. Therefore, your innovative, out-of-the-box ideas might not impress her. She might put on a happy face for your sake but you’ll be able to tell she’s not as pleased as she should be. You know emotionally she is a high-maintenance woman because it really takes a lot of effort to impress her. Small gestures don’t really matter to her, only grand ones do. It’s not easy to make her a happy woman.
6. A high-maintenance woman is controlling
A relationship involves two people making decisions together. In your case, she is somehow always the one telling you what to do. She chooses the high-end bar that you should be seen in with your friends, or tells you to hang out at an upmarket club and gets upset if you have friends who do not fit her bill of “successful people”.
She can be controlling and manipulative to suit her purpose. It is essential for her to make everything fit her idealistic view. You are no exception. She wants you to behave in a way she approves of and therefore ends up being controlling of your every action.
Ramon, a tech professional and a quintessential nerd who couldn’t be bothered about how he looked or dressed, ended up with a high-maintenance girl. “I felt that she had unreasonable standards on how she expected me to behave. However, my suspicions that she’s high maintenance were confirmed when she once told me, “You don’t laugh right.”
“It was after that that I started looking into what does high maintenance mean in a relationship. She started criticizing everything I was doing, started name-calling me in the relationship. and demanded that I appear like her perfect boytoy so she can flaunt me around. Since that made me feel like she was attacking my personality, I didn’t feel comfortable being with her.”
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7. She tells you what to buy her
Men may be confused about what to buy their girlfriend and sometimes end up buying the worst of gifts. This is why sometimes girlfriends give hints or slip-in suggestions about something they would want. Giving subtle hints is harmless, but imagine your girlfriend giving you a list of things to buy her.
Buying gifts for a high-maintenance woman is a tough job. Oftentimes, this list is filled with fancy things that you can barely afford (and she probably knows that already). If you’ve fallen in love and want to stay in a relationship with her, her high-maintenance ways notwithstanding, you have to up your gifting game. Think outside the box, shop in the premium aisle.
Exquisite jewelry, fancy handbags, gorgeous shoes, flattering dresses – your high-maintenance girl has a taste for finer things in life. Those are the kind of gifts you should be looking for if you want to keep her happy. If you were to define high maintenance, you’ll find the answer in the most expensive stores.
8. She wants you to be her personal chauffeur
Another one of the typical high-maintenance woman signs is that she expects you to be at her beck and call. You’re always picking up and dropping her everywhere. As cute as it might sound, it’s not possible to pick her up and drop her off every time you meet her.
It becomes tiresome and expensive especially when you both live quite far from each other. But she isn’t willing to understand the situation. When you talk to her about it, she emotionally manipulates you and you have no other choice but to give in.
Even if she owns a car and can drive herself she would want you to do the dropping and picking. Why? That’s the kick your high-maintenance woman gets when she knows you are at her beck and call.
9. Materialistic things make a high-maintenance girl happy
Your high-maintenance girlfriend loves you when you buy her expensive gifts! Nothing makes her as happy as fancy shiny things with huge price tags. It doesn’t matter if you end up being in debt. The way to her heart is through your credit card.
Feelings, emotions, and love don’t matter much to her as much as materialistic things do. Sometimes you may even feel that you need to keep buying her expensive things to earn her love. Ask yourself, is she with you because she loves you or because of the gifts you buy her?
Whenever you find yourself at a loss for what to get her next or which gifts to pamper her with, just play it safe by getting her a high-value gift card. That way, she’ll see that you’re spending a bomb on her and be able to buy whatever she fancies. Win-win!
Related Reading: 14 Signs A Girl Is Leading You On And Toying With Your Heart
10. Forget offering to split the bill, she always makes you pay
She is used to a lavish lifestyle and wants you to live that way too. To make things worse, a high-maintenance girl makes you pay for all these expensive dates. If not all the time, she makes you pay most of the time. It doesn’t matter who is earning more here, it should be the responsibility of both the partners to share the cost or to take turns to pay.
If she’s making you pay all the time, it is because she is used to other people paying for her and she likes that privilege. If you see these red flags in your girlfriend then you’re dating a high-maintenance girl.
11. A high-maintenance person can be clingy
Since the answer to, “What is high maintenance?” tells us that it’s someone who has higher demands than the average joe, those demands could very well end up being in the emotional department as well. A high-maintenance woman can expect you to be available to talk to them all the time, and need a lot of attention and love from you.
It can get to the point where they act extremely clingy in the relationship, which can eventually end up sabotaging it. If your partner keeps asking you if you love them and if they can trust you every three hours, you might have some thinking to do.
12. She thinks she’s always in charge
What does it mean to be high maintenance? It means you assume that you’re always in charge in your relationship and that you’re both going to do things only the way you want to do them. A high-maintenance girl, meaning, someone who expects you to do things her way can appear extremely bossy and snobbish.
13. A high-maintenance woman uses people
Not only do you see her using you as a chauffeur, an ATM, or an endless pit of attention, but you’ll also see her often using other people for her personal gain. For example, if she has a friend who can get her a discount at a store, she’s going to shamelessly ask for discounts every chance she gets, even if it harms the friend.
The high maintenance definition doesn’t necessarily point this out, but such people usually don’t have too many friends because of this very reason.
Now that you know, “What does high maintenance mean?” remember what the true meaning of a relationship is and how it feels to be acknowledged by your partner and taking decisions together. Dating a high-maintenance woman is fine as long as she understands the finer aspects of your relationship, and if you both still have an underlying layer of mutual understanding and trust. As long as you feel like you’re in a relationship that brings you joy and makes you a better person, you’re good to go!
10 Reasons He Suddenly Stopped Chasing You – Even When You Wanted Him To
High Maintenance equals high expenses, a wise man once said ,Reekay Valez, ” don’t ever give your girlfriend wife money”, think about that Gents, .
In my opinion, even IF a man has bank, is that the kind of worthwhile investment to make?
Is being used a good feeling? Let’s all reconsider OUR motives .
Peace
High maintenance women are a total waste of humanity altogether since they’re very greedy, selfish, spoiled, picky, narcissists, and very money hungry too.
Such a great read. A young man would benefit from this information. Non-Bias and informative for both sides.