RED FLAGS IN RELATIONSHIPS

Love is blind, deaf, dumb and stupid, folks say. If one believes in those first glistering days of meeting that special someone that she/he will recognize the signs that say 'RUN', one is sadly mistaken.

Everyone enters prospect love situations playing a role, even we ourselves. We polish off our brightest smiles, wear our most flattering outfits and put our cell phones on 'vibrate' without being asked for those first starlit meetings. Is this heaven? we ask ourselves, giving no thought to the possibility that we just might be confronting the other extreme. Immune to cautionary comments of best friends and our own instincts, we put ourselves out there, raw, real, and unprotected.

Recently a friend reported that she had met Mr. Right. We were excited for her, and arranged to meet her and her beau for dinner at a restaurant, but they failed to appear for any number of events we planned. Exactly what was up, we wanted to know. Her answer sent our eyes rolling around in our heads.

He can't meet with you, she said. He's a CIA operative. One of you might blow his cover.

Naturally the rest of us tore up the chat-lines. What was she, fourteen? We became even more suspicious when she announced she she'd lent him the money. she was saving for our cruise, and she was fearful of putting us in danger. Finally, we lost track of her altogether.

She turned up pregnant and abandoned. He was no agent, but a married man with a police record for bilking women. Now that she's not under his spell, she figures she got off easier than the numbers of women who are fatally victimized by 'undercover lovers'.

Here are some red flags that would set any bull raging:

1. Drop anyone who for any reason doesn't want to meet your Mama or best buds.

2. If she/he disappears for unexplained periods of time, that's your cue to fade, too.

3. If you find yourself hustling your inebriated love into a taxi, forget i; she/he can't stay sober long enough to get through a date?

4. Borrowing the occasional ten-spot is one thing. Five or six hundred to help a poor sick mom is something else again. If you can't resist the impulse to become the bank, at least get your loved one to sign a promissory note, so that Judge Judy doesn't laugh you out of court when your 'borrower' reneges.

5. Look out for low-profile jobs with some sexy but furtive agencies. There are all kinds of reasons why this will not work for you.

6. Find someone else if he/she verbally or physically abuses you; you deserve better.

7. Stalked or spied on? No. No, no. Contact authorities. This is more than a red flag; it is a disaster itching to hurt you.

Nobody's perfect, and you will ultimately find flaws in whomever you meet. Use sensibility in forming new relationships, however, and the flaws will be something you can work out together, rather than the stuff of titanic oversights in the glare of blinding love.

Learn more about this author, Sandra Lowen.
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