Red Flags

So, it seems that I am always dating people with red flags. Let's start in high school, digressing back to nine years ago, when I met my first boyfriend who made out with a cheerleader in front of me at church camp just four months into our relationship. Devastated I called home crying from a pay phone, was picked up early from camp, and consoled heavily by all members of my family. Two days later the boyfriend showed up on my front door step, flowers in hand (pink carnations mind you) and my brother slammed the door in his face. 3 Red Flags

Flash forward five years, I'm graduating from college, where I dated a blond haired, hazel eyed soccer player who wore hippie style headbands, played guitar, and was born and raised in Austin, Texas where they breed southern boys who stand at 6'2 and philosophize to anyone who will listen. We were on and off, our relationship was constantly in the spotlight. He was confused about what he wanted and I was a romantic, always looking for the best in him. He broke my heart at least four times in four years and when my family came for graduation, he showed up to my grad party at a bar, hand-in-hand with his new girlfriend. Not only did they arrive together, but they stood directly next to me at the bar, large enough to hold a few hundred. Naturally, my brother staged a confrontation, saving me again from my overly-passive self; no black eyes were had that night, but there were plenty of tears. At least 20 Red Flags.

Sure there were other boys in there, one in particular when I lived in Australia who was crazy and amazing and dangerous, in a safe sort of way. Nine tattoos in total he had, convincing me to get my first and he remains to this day the only person I was truly passionate about. I hear from him often, I think of him sometimes. He was the only one I ever fought with, I wanted to slap him sometimes, but that's the best kind of love isn't it? When you want to slap someone but you don't? And now, when we talk and he says "Why did we never get back together," I think of the laundry list of things I could say but instead I just admire the memories because we were in another country and I was another person and now I smile and think huh: applause worthy he was. 6-10 Red Flags.

So here I am in graduate school, in Boston, on the other side of the country from my brothers, assumingly an adult, assumingly wise after dating for the past nine years of my life and where do I end up? Here, in a different city, dating the same guys.

Okay, okay, to be fair every guy is different, but I seem to be attracted to the same ones. If you are any kind of artist, no matter the form, if you play or have played semi-serious soccer, if you've written at least one song that's for or about me, if you wear a headband or bandanna of any kind and if you pose at least three red flags in the first three months of dating: congratulations, maybe this blog is about you. So, I'll match your red flags and give you my white ones; I surrender.

Top 10 Red Flags (may vary depending on the person)

1. You feel mildly to moderately embarrassed to introduce them to family and friends
2. Their friends think you're too good for them
3. They only call after 11pm
4. You met them at the Tam (or another super shady bar)
5. The Britney Spears song "Womanizer" reminds you of them
6. They tell you they aren't really into labels
7. They have MAJOR ex-relationship baggage
8. You have a suspicious feeling that you may have just been a 'back to back'
9. Their mood swings are giving you whiplash (and they are not Edward Cullen)
10. Your friends are all urging you to re-read "He's Just Not That Into You," but you already own and have possibly highlighted in the book.