PonderEthereal

Sometimes, I find myself wanting to ask someone “Oh, you think you made a bad choice in partners, huh? What ever gave it away? The fact that they can’t hold down a job or the fact that they are addicted to every substance known to man?” And although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend running a background check, there is something to be said for doing some ground work and really figuring out who this person is before you agree to anything beyond a few trysts. Here are a few things that should be HUGE warning flags in a budding romance.

• Messed up credit report - every body messes up. But by messed up credit, I mean, has a few major dings or a regular occurance of minor dings - so much so that they can’t get a car on their own (if income weren’t an issue). And I guess it kinda depends upon age here. If zie is younger than 25, this is minus 1 point. From 25 to 30, minus 2 points. 30 to 40, minus 3 points. Things fall off your credit report after 7 years. The first round of stupidity usually happens from 18-25. That should be gone by 30ish. If it’s still happening after that, you have to question zir ability to deal with money and make responsible choices.
• Bad driving record - speeding a couple miles over - I get it. But zir license is revoked? C’mon. That has to be proven in court in order for that to happen and it’s not just one tiny infraction that does that. DUI? Eh. DUI a while back, learned zir lesson, doesnt drive like a maniac any more. I get it. DUI and still drives like a nut job and goes on and on about how wronged zie were? At some point, one has to take responsibility for themselves, yeah?
• Ex wife/husband/gf/bf/fiance/thang that there are lingering issues with - Two people that are on casual friendly terms after a relationship is a good thing. People who are still in that push and pull pattern after the relationship is over and are still regularly pissing each other off? HUGE RED FLAG.
• You’ve had 5 dates and you’ve already seen them drunk or high more than once - everybody gets tipsy here or there on the right kind of date now and again (muahahah). I dated this guy once though who always had a half a bottle of SOMETHING (different every time) in his truck. Hello, warning flag.

Any one of these should be enough warning that there is other stuff lurking (because, let’ face it - most of us can identify with at least ONE of these at some point in our lives and if you think about that time of your life, weren’t there other issues?). Two of them should be turn and go the other direction material. All of them and you should be committed. Really. You aren’t going to be able to fix them. In fact : NEWSFLASH - they don’t want to be fixed.

And, if you find yourself in everything on that list? Well… you are probably either single (most probable) or are in one relationship in a long series of relationships. And? You probably find that your life just never goes right and you always get the short end of the stick. And really, you don’t. That’s just what you think because it’s a good excuse.