Relationship Red Flags

For today's post, I've decided to include a speech I did in Toastmasters about 1 1/2 years ago... I also used an excerpt from it and entered a speech contest with it... and got 2nd place. The 1st place guy rocked, he won at the club, the area, the division and then the district (all of Alberta and Saskatchewan).

It seems ironic for me to be giving advice about this stuff, but I'm better at telling people what they should do than taking my own advice!!!

Anyways, here it is:

Relationship Red Flags

I’ve decided that the whole purpose of my life might just be to serve as a warning to others… And what a battlefield of doomed relationships it has been! Perhaps when it comes to relationships, we can all serve as warnings to each other…. and since tragedy in retrospect is comedy, this should be fun! Between my friends, and myself there are some very entertaining stories about men, dating and relationships… not unlike that show ‘Sex and the City’. I promise it will be the G-rated version, and for the purposes of this speech some of the names have been changed to protect the guilty. It is from these stories that I have pinpointed some relationship red flags; warning signs that you should run in the other direction, FAST. These are the billboard-type signs, the neon signs that flash ‘RUN’! Perhaps if you were looking away, or chose to ignore them you might pass them by, but nonetheless they are larger than life.

Let’s start at the start. Dating is fun isn’t it? Seinfeld said, “Dating is pressure and tension. What is a date really, but a job interview that lasts all night?” I agree, but I can almost guarantee that there is no chance I’ll be smooching ANYONE at the end of a job interview. So just relax, enjoy the date, but be a savvy interviewer as well. On a first date there are a few telltale signs that this guy is no catch, throw him back in the water! At the start, you need to use your head before your heart. A female philosopher once said; “I think, therefore I’m single”… Though I also know a guy who said “I didn’t think, that’s why I was single for a very long time”.

Keep in mind that me giving dating tips is kind of like Brad Pitt giving marriage advice. With that said, my first tip on being a savvy dater is...

Be afraid, be very afraid of… BAD MANNERS. If he show’s himself to be a real classy guy from the start, when he’s supposed to be trying to impress you, then where do you have to go from there? Probably DOWN. My friend Sara went out with a guy who was a real treat. He was the poster boy for class. For instance, they’d go out to dine at a fancy restaurant and he’d wait for the server to come by and ask what the BIGGEST portion on the menu was, then he'd ask if it was on sale, and he'd order the biggest thing... just because it was big, not because he wanted it. He’d also talk about inappropriate subjects in a very loud voice, so that everyone could hear. And finally, to top it all off, he put his rib bones in the wine glass! I’m not quite sure how he didn’t know that this was totally uncool.

Another friend of mine, Julie, went out with a guy who bragged on and on about how rich he is, then didn’t offer to pay for dinner! He went so far as to even ask to split the bill down the middle and then he didn't even tip the waitress, so she had to leave the WHOLE TIP… She thought he was mildly cute and interesting until then, but there was no second date. Unfortunately though, sometimes a girl takes mildly cute and interesting and turns it into Prince Charming on his white horse… already fantasizing what their wedding day will be like and what they’ll call their first child, and this is just the first date! Beware! For women, fantasies of wedding bells can block out almost any billboard warning sign! He’s cute, he seems interesting, but not so interesting as your life will become if you keep going out with him! You don’t need THAT kind of interesting!

And my last point about bad manners is about everyday consideration… how he conducts himself. Does he open doors for you? Does he say excuse me? (These types of things.) Mind you, sometimes excuse me doesn’t excuse EVERYTHING. I once went out with a guy who had gas on our first couple of dates and he didn’t try to hide it at all… I was mortified! But, I grew up with brothers and thought maybe guys were just like that. Well, the point is that they shouldn’t be like that on the 1^st couple of dates! He either has severe bowel problems or doesn’t care what you think of him, and either one is difficult to live with!

Just think what it would be like on a date if BOTH people didn’t care what the other thought of them. We’d just act like we were eating at home alone in front of the TV: shovelling food in our mouths, dropping some down our shirts (oops, oh well), licking the bowl, picking food out of our mouths with our fingers… I think we can agree that this would be a total dating disaster. We need to care what the other person thinks of us!

Also, don’t date a guy who has bad manners because you think he has “potential”. I think Einstein wasn’t too far off when he said, "Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed." Say no to bad manners from the start and avoid writing that SOS letter to Dr. Phil later.

The next warning sign is similar to bad manners, but I’m expanding it to BAD BOYS. Bad boys are BAD, and that’s not good! Believe a guy when he tells you he’s a bad apple right from the start. Quite often he’ll come right out and tell you he’s a jerk. He’ll say, “I’m bad at relationships” or “I cheated on my ex”… believe him, and then leave him! When he gets up to go to the washroom, RUN! Run NOW! Or… run later… if the food is really good. Use your judgement on that.

Sometimes the words “I’m a jerk” aren’t spoken out loud, but they’re there. My friend Kate went out with a guy who she knew through work. She’d see him around, working outside… quite often with his shirt off. Yes, he was what one would call ‘a total hottie’. However, he had the word PAIN tattooed in large bold letters across his back. If that isn’t a blinking billboard warning sign, I don’t know what is! But she found this kind of intriguing. I don’t know, maybe she was thinking, “He’s hot AND he’s in pain… Maybe I can help him out with that”. Obviously she had delusions of being David Copperfield. She can’t make his pain disappear! He doesn’t need her, he needs a doctor, or a shrink! Maybe she didn’t see that billboard as a sign because she was temporarily blinded by his perfect pec’s. It turns out that tattoos are permanent and his pain is too. Somehow she finally escaped from that Alcatraz.

Sometimes I don’t even know WHAT is redeeming about my friends’ relationships. It’s a strange phenomenon but my friends always call me to COMPLAIN about their boyfriends. It gives me a pretty one-sided opinion. Of course every time they do, my response is always “GET OUT NOW” tactfully disguised in different ways. Basically if he’s so bad, break up with him! Now keep in mind that some guys purposely treat you bad so that YOU break up with HIM. I think there’s a gene missing on the male chromosome, and it’s the break up initiation gene. I think it’s supposed to be somewhere close to the gene that confers resistance to foot in mouth disease. One of my friends has a boyfriend who probably isn’t a jerk, just a bit of a dope about women. He’s says things like, “You have the most beautiful blue eyes I have ever seen”… which is lovely, except that and she’s got brown eyes! He also told her that he likes that she’s got flaws… because his ex-girlfriends were ‘too perfect’. This isn’t really what I’d consider a billboard sign, but perhaps a “rough road ahead” type of sign.

Anyways, like I said, believe a guy when he admits to his jerkiness. Or just watch what he does. If a guy can’t stop looking at yours or other women’s body parts, this is a very bad sign. If you want to know what a guy is looking for, watch where he is looking! If he’s looking AT booty then he’s looking FOR booty! If he can’t look in your eyes when you talk to him, then you know he’s not interested in looking in your heart (even though he may be looking in that general area). When it comes to jerks, it doesn’t matter how great he is (in any way) when he’s not being a jerk to you! If he cheats, lies, does drugs, or is always stumbling home at all hours after boys’ nights out, then he should stumble his way to being single! If you like bad boys, I just feel bad FOR you.

Ok, so what if he seems nice and all, but he’s got excuses… For instance, he says he’s going to call and doesn’t, he’s too busy, or he stands you up? Have you ever considered that he’s just not that into you? There’s a new book called ‘He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys’ by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo. Unfortunately, guys are too terrified to directly tell a woman, “You’re not the one.” In the book they explain that if a guy says he’s too busy to make you a priority, then he’s just not that into you. Too busy means that he’s touring with the Rolling Stones, he’s the president of the United States, an astronaut or on another planet! Next time he calls, you’re too busy! Bill Rancic from the Apprentice said that a woman can tell when a guy is really into her and that the oldest excuse in the book is “I'm too busy.” “No one is busier than I am,” he says. “And when I'm really into a girl, I'm willing to put 'The Donald' on hold to take her call.” I guess that means that he’s also willing to hear the words “Bill, you’re fired”.

If I had bought this book a long time ago, I would have saved myself a world of pain! All those nagging questions in those conversations with my friends would be answered… You know the powwows we have trying to figure guys out… “I wonder what he meant when he said this,” “Maybe his cell phone really DID fall into the toilet.” I had a crush on this one guy for 3 years, 3 YEARS. He was SO smooooth, which by the way is another warning sign. I’d see him out and say, “how’s your day going?” And he’d reply, “Much better now that I’m talking to you”. And then he wouldn’t ask for my number. When he finally did get my number, he never used it! I guess that’s why he didn’t want my number in the first place! So if a guy says ALL THE RIGHT THINGS, beware. It means he’s had a lot of practice! The next time you feel the need to figure him out, go buy the book and because he’s probably just not that into you.

The next huge warning sign… He has a fiancé. Wait! This isn’t as obvious as you may think! This one time I really liked a guy at work, and he was always hitting on me. Yay! Then I found out, from SOMEONE ELSE, that he had a fiancé. I told him in no uncertain terms, “You can’t date both of us and I won’t be #2”. You may think that was smart of me. Good on ya Mich! I’ll never be the other woman, no way. But guess what, he broke up with her to date me, which was fine and we dated… but then SHE became the other woman! That’s not the way it was supposed to work! Listen up girls: If he will do it WITH you, he’ll do it TO you. If he’s got a fiancé and he’s hitting on you, then he is a dog and he should leave you alone!

And finally, and this is just my personal theory… You should really wonder about him if he doesn’t like cats. Cats are fantastic, kind of like women. They are unique, smart, independent… and any guy who hates cats frankly needs too much control and approval. He should get a dog and leave you alone! I was dating a guy once who I had no idea didn’t like cats. Then one day, after we were living together, I overheard him on the phone to someone, “Yeah she’s pretty cool, except she has cats, and you know how much I hate cats”. If I would have gotten out then, I would have saved myself 2 YEARS of head-butting with a guy who’s attitude was “it’s my way or the highway”! This guy acts like he wants an independent woman, but I think what he really wanted was a career woman. He ended up marrying a chiropractor and not working a day since. Last I heard they were calling it quits. Too bad she married him all I have to say. Perhaps she didn’t know that he doesn’t like cats.

So remember, chances are if it annoys you when you’re dating, it will annoy you when you have to spend day and night and day and night, year after year after year with it. If he has bad manners at the start, just wait a while… and it will get WORSE! Imagine the bad boy covered in tattoos taking your kid to parent teacher interviews. Get out before you fall for this guy! Don’t let his perfect body block that billboard! Some women say, “But when he’s not drunk or mean or cheating, he’s such a nice guy.” Pardon? Get out before emotions start to poison your brain and you stop thinking rationally. And never go out with a guy because you think he has “potential”. Like a house that needs a lot of work (a money pit) I’d call him a SANITY PIT. And I don’t care if you’ve “invested all this time in him”. The only thing worse than that, is investing MORE time in this dud!

Hopefully tonight our lives have not been in vain and have served as a warning sign to you. Please, if you ever encounter any of these relationship red flags, my advice (of course) is to “GET OUT NOW!!!” and save your sanity for a great guy.