• Edit: I was told that I should put that this was 4 years ago at the top.

This guy was a good friend of someone that I was good friends with. They had known each other for over a decade and I had known my friend for a decade. So when this friend of a friend wanted to take me out I said yes.

He took me on a nice date to a winery where we listened to live jazz, drank some very nice wine and had hors d'oeuvres. He paid with a $100 bill. He was dressed gross and lazy but I overlooked that. (Not a red flag for abuse or is it? Because it says a lot about somebody's character but barf anyway. Never again)

Then we went downtown, walked around, went to a little impromptu theater show and had some more drinks and food and we even ran into some of his friends whom he introduced me to and they were nice people.

Anyway our dating sort of continued like that. We went and did nice things and met his nice friends who were really lovely people. I guess I must have ignored the red flags because he was such a close friend of my friend. By the way, don't do this. Just because your friend thinks someone is wonderful doesn't mean they are, or that they are for you. This has gotten me in trouble three other times not including this time. Literally every time it was a disaster. Always independently vet someone without allowing other people's influence to sway you.

So here is the list of red flags:

  • He literally snapped at me like I was a misbehaving dog, twice. snapped at me to scare me out of what I was doing and caused me to freeze. Just because I said or did something that was extremely minor but it wasn't the way he wanted it done. (this one alone should have been an automatic dump for the first time)

  • He said Hillary was a criminal and what she did, which of course turned out to be lies (the emails), was just as bad if not worse than Trump, who rapes women and little girls.

  • He didn't think that voting or which person ended up being the president could or would ever have any sort of effect on his life whatsoever. Beyond this being extremely ignorant it also shows a level of privilege as a straight white man that I find just astounding. Who becomes president easily affects Supreme Court appointees which could remove one of my most essential human rights: abortion. (This is maybe more of a yellow flag?)

  • Yelled at me and practically got me to grovel because I opened a bottle of wine in a manner that he didn't approve of.

  • Said sexual things about me in front of his friends.

  • Commented in front of his friends the first night I met some of them about how he wouldn't go down on me if I didn't shave my pubic hair. We hadn't even had sex yet or done anything. (this is so utterly disrespectful I wish I could go back in time and slap some sense into myself)

  • Put on a show for us one night and it turned out to be an extremely misogynistic comic, and you know how bad most of them are. He was worse. Why would you play abusive and insulting entertainment for your date when you're trying to look your best? Answer is because he liked it, he was utterly clueless and also had no respect for me. Oh and he was a misogynistic piece of shit.

  • Told me he would never raise another kid or pay child support and that if I got pregnant he'd move to Mexico so he wouldn't have to pay. Also said this in an extremely nasty, angry tone. Vile.

  • Refused to give me any pleasure or even foreplay in our attempts at sex. And I call it that because he also had ED and would come after one minute. But he refused to treat this or talk about it at all. This is such a deal breaker.

  • When I told him about having been raped (don't do this) he tried to find out where the man worked and what his name was. The only reason he would need to know that is either to go beat the guy up or to go ask the guy if it's really true because "fAlSe rApE aCcUsAtIoNs". 🤢🤮

  • He didn't take care of his dog or spend time with his dog, he would just leave it alone at home all day.

  • He told me about his 35+ year old male friend who was a convicted sex offender for raping a 15 year old girl. He was convinced his friend's story was true that the girl made it up because he refused to touch her when she propositioned him. And somehow he got a child rape charge because she grabbed his hand and put it on her breast. But of course this happened alone at night at his tent on a camping trip, he was a friend of her family. Anyway I've been through the legal system and my rapist confessed twice and and they wouldn't even charge him with a misdemeanor which was basically groping. So that's a big fat fucking lie! He referred to this raped 15 year old girl as a slt and a whre who was "pretending to be more innocent than she was" and "she wasn't a virgin". This is like 26 different red flags all together. (I'm almost to the vomiting in my mouth writing this out to think that I dated this person for 2 more weeks after this)

  • Raised his voice at me, got verbally aggressive and cut me off when I tried to talk about women's oppression. Yelled something like don't "Talk to me about that bullshit! Men have hard lives too. It's just as bad for both."

  • When my young friend who lived across the country was being stalked and followed by a man on the college campus where she lived and it triggered my rape trauma, he didn't give a fuck and he refused to even speak to me about it let alone comfort me at all. Which triggered me even more and I actually had to go out and sit in my car and call someone else that I could talk to.

  • The second time we met his friends, first time for about half of them, he got wasted. At the bar getting another drink he put his hand up my dress and groped me in front of an entire bar full of people that was well lit and everyone could see. He was so drunk he partially lifted up the back of my dress and flashed my ass to people. I asked him repeatedly to stop and tried to get his hand off of me and he wouldn't let go or back off. He was laughing. He did this right in front of the bartender who looked at me with this look like oh my god you poor woman.

That last one was final. I got away from him that night, blocked him and deleted him. I feel sick just writing this. And as a side note, this is why you don't date when you're dealing with rape trauma and PTSD. It totally corrupts your ability to make appropriate choices about your safety.

I decided to write this just to give people here an idea of a variety of red flags, but also as a little bit of catharsis since all of these things keep popping into my mind and making me feel ridiculous.

This was almost 4 years ago now.

Second edit: I found the list of the shitty things he did. I only remembered half and a bunch of stuff isn't even on this list. Yikes!

Not much sympathy for my pain

Not much interest in my life

No interest in seeing my home mom or cat. Nothing

He asks me questions then blames me "wanting to talk" for him not sleeping.

Doesn't sympathize well

Dismissive of male sexual violence

Lying is just as bad as rape. "Crime is crime"

Doesnt care if he's hurting me during sex

Never gives me an orgasm and doesn't care

Rubs my clit for 30 seconds and stops, like that's all he's willing to give me

Totally screwing me on the foreplay

Then he puts it on me "not telling him what I want" like I should have to explain basic concepts of foreplay to him

Tells me he can't do anything to make me cum because of his bad back but can still have sex until HE cums

I am NOT happy

I don't like the tone in which he speaks to me, it's harsh and rude like I'm wasting his time or I'm stupid

Talks to his mom the same way

He's not good for my heart, mental health or sexual and pelvic health

Thinks flashing lights on campus will stop rape when rape is almost all boyfriends and friends and behind closed doors

His solution to male violence is get a gun despite the fact it's mostly friends and lovers and 50% of the time the gun is taken away and used against the woman. Women are far more likely to die when a gun is involved even if it's hers