Stellllaaaa!!!!!

Some women have bad judgment in men. We all do at one point or another. Certainly I have. But, like most women, after fifteen-odd years of experience, I have learned a few things, or at least I hope. And those of us who have do try to warn our friends when we see those warning signs. We try to impart wisdom, those who can see further down the road, pointing out potential pitfalls that we have fallen into ourselves. I mean, I know I come off cynical as shit sometimes, but really, I'm not. It's just my sense of humor. Really, I think that there are so many great guys out there, and once you have the ability to weed out the duds, life gets a lot easier. I think most women want this for their friends. They try to help when they can, even in the most unusual places - like ladies bathrooms, the location of many, many Girl, you have got to wake up! type conversations.

One of the most unusual and recent places I have seen this sense of sisterhood was while reading the Rants and Raves section of Boston Craigslist. This woman posted a rant about her boyfriend. Apparently she was having some minor female issues and had seen a gynecologist in order to rectify the situation. Her boyfriend went crazy when he found out the doctor was male. He said that having a male gynecologist examine her was "cheating" and it turned into a giant argument. This woman actually tried rationalizing with this guy by using the argument that women go to gynecologists when their female parts are not in their most attractive and ideal condition and that surely after looking at them all day, the doctor would not be having lascivious thoughts as her boyfriend accused. But the boyfriend kept up his rant, so much so that she cancelled her regularly scheduled exam in order to maintain the harmony because she "loves him so much." Apparently in this young woman's application of Order Theory, dysfunctional love > potential cervical cancer. Am I crazy? she asked the Boston Craigslisters.

Oh you silly, silly girl. Asking Am I crazy? on Boston R and R is like Matt Lauer asking Tom Cruise about the reasonableness of taking anti-depressants for postpartum depression. Imagine Dennis Leary as a sexually frustrated and disgruntled techie with too much time on his hands and you'll kind of get a sense of the typical voice of Boston R and R. I mean, don't get me wrong, most of the time it is funny as hell, but a place where the word assclown is used on a regular basis is typically not a place that is conducive to actual advice and help.

But, what do you know? Gyno-Girl's post struck a chord with the slightly older female crowd reading that day; they rallied to her aid, warning signs flashing in their eyes. A collective groan went out from these chicks. Dump him! was the general consensus. What was interesting is how much further down the road these women could see into her relationship than Gyno-Girl herself. Run away, fast, Gyno-Girl, they said, it will only get worse from here. Just like your smelly vagina indicates a non-ideal situation, so does your boyfriend's reaction one post bluntly put it. That type of irrational jealousy and controlling behavior will lead to more irrational jealousy and controlling behavior, believe us, said the posters. We know. He'll accuse you of wanting to sleep with his friends. He'll watch your expression like a hawk as a cute boy walks by. He'll get pissed that the cashier is staring at your ass. The Boston Craigslist women had this guy pinned and foreseeable future of their relationship predicted, all based on a one paragraph post.

Gyno-Girl posted an update saying she was giving her boyfriend the cold shoulder, not speaking to him and not returning his many groveling phone calls, because he had upset her so and just wished he could change. OMG, he just sent me another email saying he loves me. Why do I do this to myself??? she lamented, reveling in the melodrama. This statement perhaps meant to garner sympathy just incensed the Boston CL women who had dealt with plenty of men like this in their day and were oh-so over it. One poster summed it up with a thick tone of disgust, Ugh! Next thing you know, he'll start crying... Gyno-Girl's boyfriend had been further classified. Not only was he a jealous, controlling, irrational fuckwad, he was also part of the subclass Drama Dude.

Any woman past the age of 25 knows a Drama Dude. Continually captured on screen, from the animalistic and violent, Stellllllaaaaaa!!!, to the emo-before-emo-existed tortured soul of Nicholas Cage pitching a tent on the Valley Girl's front lawn, to John Cusack's sweet and romantic version holding that boom box overhead, we've all been there; we've all dated That Guy. And while it's a huge ego-boost for like the first fifteen minutes - How great must I be, how incomparable my beauty, how magical my pussy, to deserve a reaction like this?!! - these guys are a real pain in the ass when you come down to it, or so say the women of Boston CL.

Controlling Drama Dudes usually follow up the crying with flowers, inevitably the ubiquitous dozen red roses. This not only screams a big I'm sorry! but also marks their territory, especially when it is sent to work. Because of this, many women I know cringe at the sight of the flower delivery guy. It's Pavlovian. The guy in the dog house thinks, I'll send flowers. Women like flowers. But the flowers serve as a glaring-red, baby's breath dotted, week-long reminder of the argument, doomed to slowly wilt and die just like the relationship. If it's not flowers, it's something else. My friend Sara has a stuffed teddy bear that she calls the Sorry I Fucked Up Bear. Probably the grandest example of this behavior is the now infamous Kobe diamond. I mean, when you get to the Sorry I Fucked Up Bling, you know the relationship is doomed.

The Controlling Drama Dude is only one of the types of guys we women try to make sure our friends steer clear of. It's amazing how good our radar is when it comes to our friends but not for ourselves. Some of the funniest moments are based in trying to get a girlfriend to wake up and smell the rat.

He got a lesbian pregnant? ... That's not a very good lesbian.

Are you positive there was no tape in the video camera?

Your date just attempted to shank me with his spoon when I went for the last dinner roll. I think I figured out why he's unwilling to explain where he's been for the past three years.

So, tell me again why you can only see him for a half hour on Wednesdays at three in the afternoon?

Cheating guys are always good for a few laughs, unless of course it's you they are cheating on. But even then, hindsight can be hilarious. I remember being like 20 years old and finding out my boyfriend was cheating. His friends told me because they liked me better. I knew the girl's name, everything. I had irrefutable evidence from multiple sources. He denied it all with a completely straight face. Instead of dumping him and walking away, I in my own Drama Queen phase felt it imperative that after dumping him I get my mix tapes back immediately.

At midnight. On a Saturday night. Yeah, mix tapes are that important, OK? Don't question the logic of a devastated twenty year old.

They acted like they weren't in the apartment even thought my two friends (yeah, you always need two friends as Charlie's Angels-type backup to get the mix tapes at midnight) and I could hear them inside. So after a while - ok 45 minutes - we finally decided to stop trying to jimmy the lock with my library card and head home sans cassettes. But before we could get in the car, around the corner he comes with a giant look of pleasant surprise plastered on his face and hugs all around.

Oh hi!! What a surprise! What are you doing here? I just walked home form Brian's house. We went to a hockey game together.

Besides the fact that I bumped into Brian earlier and he told me he going out of town for the weekend with his girlfriend, the fact that my ex had toasty warm face and hands despite allegedly walking two miles in ten degree weather in February in Massachusetts, led me to suspect he was lying - just a little bit. Hilariously, he stuck to his story. Even after the girl he cheated on me with peeked out of his bedroom window to survey the scene. This caused the backup Angels to shout disparaging remarks in her general direction and pound on the window. I will never forget the image of Tina and Sandy angrily pointing to this girl's pissed-off face in the window and my ex actually saying, What? I don't see anything.

Now that's commitment.

That officially ended my Drama Queen phase. I mean, how can you top that?

But some of us don't get that much evidence. Some of us need our friends to sniff out clues. It's an unwritten law of sisterhood: we will try to see the signs you cannot in your new-love, testosterone-induced haze.

You know, I know he says he's a cop and all, but don't cops have good dental insurance?