I knew which red flags to watch for, the questions to ask. I’d seen my friends, coworkers, colleagues get ghosted, cheated on, bored in their relationships, and rudely awakened when partners turned out to be married or have gambling problems or be chronically unemployed. I saw casual hookups turn into miserably complicated half relationships. I had standards and a life, and I wasn’t about to let some man destroy it like it was merely the paper banner he was meant to crash through as he entered the field.
