It has happened with frequency.

You meet a guy on a dating app.

He is fun to talk to and there is good chemistry.

You go out on dates with him and get along swimmingly.

A few months into an exclusive relationship with the guy, you realize that he is depressed.

You are constantly having to lift him up emotionally and his dearth of self-esteem takes center stage.

At first, you deny that this is a major issue.

Surely, he is just having a bad day.

But each consequent week gets worse until you realize that it has been months of dating and he hasn’t gotten out of this emotional hump.

He is consistently sad and depressed.

He rarely wants to go out with you, much preferring to stay home.

He doesn’t want to have sex with you as frequently as he once did, constantly giving excuses about being tired.

He doesn’t want to meet your friends or those close to you, constantly stating that he is sick or under the weather.

You do everything you can to get him to get out of this emotional funk, but you realize that the harder you work at it, the worse it gets.

Finally, you conclude that you can’t save the situation.

He is depressed and clearly hid it from you until he no longer could.

You are fed up with attracting and dating men like this on dating apps.

You want to avoid attracting these men.

Be aware that, as a woman, you are going to attract all sorts of men on dating apps.

It is inevitable that some of these men are hiding some form of depression or full-on depression.

Your best bet to avoid men like this is to focus on what to look for.

Look at his social life.

How many people are in his life and how close is he to them?

A strong sign of a guy who is hiding emotional issues, including depression, is when he has few close relationships.

He doesn’t have a healthy number of friends or family members in his life that he communicates with on a regular basis.

He lives an isolated lifestyle without much emotional support from friends and family.

It is widely known that human beings in general are social creatures and require emotional support from others to maintain a healthy level of happiness and self-worth.

The people who have the highest odds of getting depressed or being depressed are those who have few people close to them.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you must assume that a guy who is naturally an introvert is hiding depression.

Introverts have a tendency to spend more time alone but it doesn’t mean they are hiding depression.

A good way to tell whether he is a natural introvert as opposed to someone who is hiding depression is when he has interests and hobbies that he is passionate about and engages in.

Although introverts don’t have too many close relationships, they do have interests they are passionate about.

This is where they direct a lot of their mental and emotional energy to.

Meaning, they have an outlet for their emotions, which greatly reduces the odds they are hiding depression.

This is when you know that the guy is merely introverted, not depressed.

When he has no close relationships nor passionate interests, he is a prime candidate for depression.

He has no mental or emotional outlets.

His emotions are cooped up inside of him with no positive outlet, which causes him to become increasingly closed off, opening the door to depression.