Warning Signals for The So-called Nice Dudes

Flipping through the latest issue of a man’s fashion magazine, I was immediately interested in an article about the types of bad women that guys could fall into. Semi-consciously or most of the time unassumingly, we men fell into their traps. And furthermore, the funny thing is that if you just try to swap the words: girl, women, or female and exchange them into your: dude, guy, twink, partner, boyfriend, ex, fling or what have you, not only comparable, but the list actually makes a lot of sense! I felt empowered now that this article suddenly enables me to kinda read people’s insides on whether or not they are gonna be bad for my future. I’m sure you’ll have an eye opener too. Now, omitting only several categories that were specifically gender-based, hereby I present you…

Red Flags

No matter how gorgeous she is, if your woman fits into one of these categories, don’t jeopardize your happiness and well-being, leave immediately.

by John Schweisthal, Jr.

It is probably not a stretch to assume that nearly every guy has made mistakes with women at some point. We’ve been conned, duped and dazed by physical attraction. As men, we make fools of ourselves by kissing the feet of females who treat us like dirt. We’ve wasted countless hours and spent small fortunes in chasing after women who lied to us and used us, and turned out to be rotten. But do we learn from our experiences? Very often the answer to that is NO. With each new relationship, we think it’s going to be different. We think if we just try harder, or do one little thing differently, the result will change. If you keep pursuing the same kind of woman, you’ll just get your heart broken over and over again. Keep a watchful eye out for the following list of women, and you’ll be one step closer to curing yourself of habitual bad dating.

The Gold Digger
She’s out for your money. Pure and simple. This type of woman is the ultimate high maintenance. She expects a man to finance her entire life just because she’s biologically female. To her, a man should pay for drinks, trips, flowers and jewelry, while see feels absolutely no guilt or compulsion to reciprocate. She may be nothing more than a whitewashed harlot. The gold-digger thinks her flower between her thighs is plated with 24 karat gold and is worth a million dollars. She is greed personified, and since she has no concept of someone else’s feelings, her only interest is getting what she wants. Don’t be fooled, some apparently very sweet girls are the greediest of them all.

The Romantic
This type of woman lives in a fantasy world of feminine movies and romance novels. Every night she goes home alone to spend hours flipping through her bridal magazines, imagining that, at any moment, prince charming will ride up on his white horse, sweep her off her feet and offer her a problem-free existence for the rest of her life. The romantic women of the world have been coddled by parents and family, told they are “princesses” and have absolutely no idea that real life consist of paying bills and daily stress. This type of woman will expect to be taken care of, quite possibly as exciting as a corpse in bed, and will, almost overnight, turn into a shrieking nag. Run!

The Elusive
This woman is a close cousin of the romantic, but with a dark side. She is usually one of the walking wounded, someone has been hurt in the past relationships and thus subconsciously avoids or sabotages new relationships in the present. Your association with her may be one of utter frustration, as first she might show great interest in you, but very quickly runs away and then repeats that cycle over and over again. Miss Elusive is the queen of mixed messages. She will flirt with you and date you, but you’ll never pass “friend” status. What you will get us a million excuses for her unavailability, all calculated to deceive herself that she just doesn’t have time for a relationship. Save yourself some heartache and don’t get involved with her.

The Insecure
This woman seems great at the start because she’s very kind, accommodating and treats a man well. But her insecurities don’t take long to surface. Pretty soon she’s calling you 10 times a day, asking “where the relationship is going” or because she “just wants to hear your voice”. She needs constant reassurance that she’s attractive and worries incessantly about her make-up, hair, and the alignment of her clothes. She’s clingy, needy, and compulsively agonizes that you’re going to leave her at any moment for “someone better”. This kind of thing can turn really creepy, really fast.

The Malicious
These women are the sulkers, pouters and ball-buster of the female planet. They are very unpleasant people who treat their fellow humans poorly, care only about themselves and aren’t concerned at all if they hurt you or anybody else. Most malicious women fit into several other categories mentioned, and are usually good-looking and well-dressed. They can easily be identified by the scowls on their faces as they imperiously strut through life.

The Self-Centered
A close relative to the malicious women, this type is entirely focused on herself. A self centered woman needs to be the constant center of attention no matter what she does or where she goes. She is selfish, self-indulgent, self-serving narcissist who was raised as “daddy’s little girl”, and expects the same from you. Unless you enjoy the company of spoiled brats, it is advised to stay far, far away.

The Desperate
Whether it’s her biological clock ticking or she’s the last among her circle of girlfriends to trap a man, a desperate woman wants to get married. Not next year, next month, but now. She doesn’t care who the guy is or what he does, as long as he has a penis and she can drag him to the altar. Gentlemen, watch out for this one.

The Manipulative
She’s a scheming little piece of work who’s an expert at conning men. She will tell you exactly what you want to hear until you’re hooked deep into the relationship (or worse, marriage) and then the truth comes out. Overnight, your sweet little cupcake turns into a demanding, greedy mercenary who will browbeat you into submission if she doesn’t get her way.

The Tease
Usually you can spot a tease a mile away because she flirts with a lot of guys and flaunts her sexuality at every opportunity. Sometimes she sponges off older men; sometimes she’s a ball-buster who enjoys getting men sexually excited and then walking away; and sometimes she just basks in her sexual power by attracting men like bees to honey. No matter how she operates, you can’t trust her because she craves male attention and if somebody better comes along, she’ll dump you in a heartbeat.

The Controller
She is subtly nasty one who will wind up directing every aspect of your life if you’re not careful. She will take control of every phase of your life, what to wear, where to go, who to talk to, what friends you can have, what you can eat, basically everything. And if you try to stand up for yourself, she will deny you sex or cry, scream, pout, or use any other deceptive female tactic until you give in and succumb to her demands.

Be Warned
These are some of the worst women, and should be avoided. Obviously, there are some great women out there who share only a tiny bit of these negative qualities. But it’s always best to be on the lookout for the women listed above. There are thousands of fish in the sea; it’s only a matter of time until you find the right one for you. Now that you know better, if you hook up with one of these women, you have only yourself to blame.

(End of Article)

The Whiner
If I may just add another bad category, I would definitely put the whiners in here as well. The whiners are the ones who blame anything bad that happened to them to someone else. And they will credit everything good to themselves. Samples of bad things could be their wrong upbringing, their spouses, the previous injustices that they’ve experienced, their educations, their conditions in general, their offices, and so on without trying to seek for the core problems or trying to change anything drastic from within. The whiners don’t push the grateful buttons fast enough, well it seemed that nothing would ever be satisfactory for them. Either they get exactly what they wanted, or they will everlastingly whine. Early signs of a whiner may involve someone who seems to complain a lot since nothing pleases them. And that really annoys the hell of some people.

How do you score?
Was it that bad? Well, let me be honest now. I suck at reading people. From this list alone I felt the utter need to visit a psychotherapist. I need some type of help as I seemed to fall into the same trap over and over again. Once I dated a Ms. Elusive, only to frustrate myself with his mixed-signals at the end. And as if having a Ms. Controller as my maternal guidance was not enough, I even dared to date one a while back, resulting in defeats as in loosing the battle of Waterloo. And the most amazing thing happened when then I realized that in my past there was someone who was not only a Ms. Insecure, but at the same time he was also a Ms. Desperate, a Ms. Self-Centered, and a Ms. Controller and to a certain extend he was even a Ms. Gold-Digger and Ms. Manipulative. Woohoo. Talking about a great combination.

So who are you?
I have a bit of a Ms. Control issue within me; I don’t like taking orders from people just like that, especially if it doesn’t sound logical and practical for me to perform. Sometimes I am also known as Ms. Desperate (hence the I-will-date-anyone in a rushed manner, resulting in breakups faster than Elizabeth Taylor in throwing wedding receptions). But most of the time I'd be Ms. Romantic. Yes, and still waiting for my knight in shining armor to sweep me off mah-feet. Along the way I could be a Ms. Elusive, to the people I didn't feel like dating (but still enjoy the sex part). And furthermore, close friends had file complaints that I could be such a baby Ms. Whiner, esp. during my single periods of hell. Bad me, now I am truly sorry for the inconvenience caused.

At the end, having a bit of the negative "qualities" are ok, since we are just mere mortals. But let’s just get real, too much of them are not sexy at all. And for those of you who think that you can get away with anything, maybe it’s not too late do some introspection. You don’t want these nice dudes to leave you sooner or later. And for once don’t blame others. Sometimes, you were the one who'd create the pain, the hassles, and ultimately the asphyxiations in your past relationships because of those negative vibes you were generating. We definitely need more gentlemen (and gentlewomen), who actually give a damn about those really nice guys too.

The eternally damned,






Prof. Utonium

The written piece "Red Flags" was done by John Schweisthal, Jr.
Published in the Dating Section of DaMan Magazine Issue March 2008.
Opening photograph courtesy of Corbis © 2008
Closing photograph courtesy of DaMan © 2008