Red Flags

They are not just for football games in grade school gym class, or for summer camp simulated war games.

You know the ones I'm talking about.  The little things about a person  you're involved with, or who you're maybe going to get involved with.  The little things that should be huge warnings ringing RED ALERT! RED ALERT! DANGER, WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!

Except if you're anything like me, you probably blow them off for a while, talking yourself out of being concerned about them, because you're semi-desperate to not be lonely anymore because half the people you graduated high school with are married or engaged to be married or are on their second kid already, and you're alone and have done nothing with your life.

Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I have decided to share with you some of the Red Flags I have experienced.  Maybe yours are different.  Or maybe you've noticed some of these things in your own pseudoromance, and you should think about being concerned.

Red Flags

• When you're in bed together, and he creates a pillow barrier between the two of you before going to sleep.
• When you no longer shower together.
• When some creeper at the bar is making you uncomfortable, and he doesn't seem to give a shit, even though he notices what's going on.
• When he gives you a detailed combat log any time a girl hits on him while you're not around.
• When he doesn't mind hanging out with your friends, but doesn't seem too keen to hang out together with his own friends.
• When you're meeting friends of his for the first time, and he either doesn't go out of his way to introduce you, or he doesn't introduce you as his girlfriend (provided you technically are his girlfriend).
• When he won't talk to you, even though something major is clearly bothering him.
• When he doesn't hold your hand anymore, and walks slightly ahead of you instead of by your side.
• When that party you were under the impression was a guys' night thing was actually a huge house party, and you just weren't invited.
• When his texts no longer "sound" like him. Yes, it sounds neurotic, but yes it is for a reason when this happens.
• When he's supposed to visit, but gets lost when he's almost there and gets so frustrated that he almost just turns around and goes back home instead of coming to see you.
• When he has a court-ordered breathalyzer installed in his car.
• When he doesn't have a car.
• When he doesn't have a job or other viable source of income.
•  When he stops offering books to lend you.
• When the only places you really go together are his place and Your Bar.
• When he accuses you of flirting with every other guy in the bar because he saw you talking to a male friend once.
• When he treats you like you're his cousin or sister or something when you go out in public together.
• When he doesn't acknowledge the mix CD you made him.
• When he no longer uses his little terms of endearment for you, or he sounds like he's forcing himself to use them.
• When you have a pregnancy scare, and he accuses you of fucking other guys because he refuses to believe it would have/could have been his.
• When he tries to sneak an entry into what has already been declared as strictly Exit Only.

That's about it for now, since I can't think of any more off the top of my head.  I'm sure there are others, but they might come up in future anecdotes I share about my pseudoromantic misadventures (of which there are a great many).