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Most men know being needy is not attractive, but there are still plenty of needy guys who know how to get exactly what they want by being sly. A man doesn’t need to give you an ultimatum to marry him or break up with him to be rushing you. Whether you realize it or not, a man can be manipulating you into feeling like you owe him something, or you are obligated to him in some way, long before it’s appropriate to make you feel those things. Women are generally empathetic and sympathetic, which are traits that men who want to rush things prey on. But no relationship can be properly evaluated, or grow in an organic way if it’s rushed. If you constantly find yourself in situations where you realize, “I have a serious boyfriend, and I don’t know how that happened” you might be missing the subtle signs that a man is rushing you. Learn to recognize them, and you can set up boundaries. Sometimes, you’ll just have to leave the guy.

He locks you into future plans

When it’s not even established how you feel about each other, he tries to lock you into future plans for a concert that’s in two months or a weekend getaway. You have to give him an answer now before tickets sell out or get too expensive.

He invites friends without telling you

You meet him for a date and it turns out he invited his friends there, too. He knows subconsciously you’ll feel more obligated to him if his friends know about you. You don’t want him to have to tell his friends you dumped him.

He calls you when he’s blue

You have barely been seeing each other for a few weeks when he calls you having a breakdown, or needing consolation over something upsetting. That’s something he should call a good friend about—calling someone he’s been on a few dates with about that is a way of roping her into feeling emotionally invested.

He does a favor you didn’t ask for

Whether it’s fix something in your apartment, negotiate a better price with your phone company or wash your car, you didn’t ask him to do it. But now you feel like you have to keep seeing him because he did it, and that was his plan all along.

He tells you he isn’t seeing anyone else

There’s no reason for him to tell you this other than to make you feel guilty if you’re seeing anybody else. A man who respects you and doesn’t rush you doesn’t tell you you’re the only woman he’s seeing—he doesn’t lean on that kind of pressure to get you to date him.

Or buys you inappropriate presents

Men are not oblivious to the fact that purchasing an expensive present for you makes you feel obligated to them. It’s the reason they do it. You’ll see—when you dump them they’ll say, “After I got you that nice gift, this is the way you treat me?”

Making a change for you

He loses a bunch of weight because fitness is important to you, or quits his job because you suggested he didn’t seem happy there. He knows it will be very difficult for you to leave him if he made a huge change to please you.

Making you feel bad for not seeing him

Men who want to rush the relationship will say things like, “It doesn’t seem like you want to see me” when you do something totally normal like hang out with girlfriends on a Friday instead of accepting their date invitation. They’re manipulating your pity.