Singled Out: Lesbian Red Flags

My friend Amanda called an emergency coffeemeeting last week because her girlfriend of four years suddenly changed her Facebook status from "in a relationship" to "single." "What do you think it means?" she asked quite discombobulated.

While some would argue that Amanda shouldn't necessarily jump the gun in thinking that this marks the official inauguration - effective now - of the breakup phase, I personally prefer to cut the bullshit and save my friend the unnecessary headache of trying to read between the invisible lines. I mean c'mon do I really have to spell it out? The impromptu status change means exactly what it reads: girlfriend thinks of herself as single, which in plain English and most foreign languages too, translates into "it's over."  And if Amanda did not get the memo yet, she will very soon.

What is it about our human nature that almost universally, when in a relationship, transforms us into the world's biggest imbeciles and singled-handedly impairs our ability to see what is clear to see to the rest of the world but us?

Call it fear, denial, naivety or ignorance the fact of the matter is that we all magically refuse to admit what the reality truly is when our partner royally fucks up. The irony is that they never do a good job at hiding the truth. They're all messy and brilliantly disorganized, and usually leave a shit-load of signs, signals, clues and evidences behind all pointing toward the same direction: nowhere - as in "the relationship is going absofuckinglutely nowhere."  But of course, in our delusional interpretation of the facts, we immediately rush to sugarcoat their actions to justify their screwing up.

And here's little based on a true story sample to illustrate my point:
The "in a relationship" brain concludes: "Aww, she forgot our anniversary because she has too much on her mind and is overworked," while the "I am single" mind lucidly thinks: "Noooo she's not tired she's just a BITCH!"

The main difference between gut feeling intuition and over-dramatized reaction is called stupidity.  Granted, there's a very thin line between emotional amplification and common sense reasoning but that line is always delineated in flashy red. Hellooo, RED FLAG!
Can you see the matador provoking the bull by waving a red cape at it? So Ok in all actuality the bull is color blind but last time I checked I surely wasn't!  

Perhaps I'm just obstinately stubborn or it's just easier to catch these so-called red flags when there're being waved at someone else than I, like at my friends for instance.

I remember with fondness the time when one of my exes told me in the morning of my birthday that my gift had been custom-made and was currently on its merry postal way to my mailbox.
"It's green," she said with her bubbly tone.
Hmm, green? That should have been my first warning considering that I am absolutely not the nature type; I don't partake in agricultural or gardening activities nor do I observe 4/20 - an inconvenient truth widely known among my entourage, said ex-girlfriend included. As far as I'm concerned the only green I take is cash - I'm just saying!  

If you must know, it's been five years since the alleged package has been on its interminable voyage to my mail box. Not only have I not changed address but even if it had been shipped via boat or sent from China by rickshaw, it would have surely found its way to my door by now.  Clearly, in this particular case, it wasn't even a matter of seeing red but rather seeing green - as in "I had been recycled." Speaking of which, she even failed to produce a birthday card and I know Hallmark has a litany of recycled paper greeting cards to choose from.

As impressive as my IMDB (Imposed Mode of Defiance & Battle) profile is, I have to say that nevertheless I am not wearing the crown in the buffoon department. That illustrious royal privilege has been bestowed upon my three Stooges: Michelle, Kristina and Kim.

Seriously what these three went through is beyond despicable yet hysterically comical. But I'm not going to lie; bottom line we're all pathetically lamentable for willingly choosing to look the other way when reality really hits us in the face. Honestly it'd be faster to just hand them the baton and let them hit us directly - if anything we would rid ourselves of the element of surprise.

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(continued)

Michelle was sitting at a bar with her then girlfriend when the shit should have hit the fan. While reaching in her pocket to buy another round of drinks, when Michelle's girlfriend pulled up the cash, simultaneously, out flew on the counter a bag of coke.
Without a hint of hesitation, Michelle's partner nonchalantly belched out: "It's not mine" - RED FLAG!

Meanwhile, for Kristina the scenario, although similar in nature, had to do with a slightly different beast also known as Tiffany. What I want to know is when Tiffany's mother had a heart to heart conversation with my friend what part of "my daughter is a crack addict, run for the hill NOW," didn't Kristina understand? Obviously she should have known better than convince herself she was THE ONE who could save crack-head from her addiction.

Should the tagline read dumb or dumber? Or perhaps, like in Kim's case, dumped or dump-her?
What happened to Kim is unarguably one of those "even Ray Charles would have seen this one coming" situations.

Some recent years ago, Kim and her girlfriend du jour checked into a hotel conveniently located within proximity of the hospital where my friend was scheduled to undergo some massive ear surgery. The day the surgery was slated to be performed, and only an hour shy from going under the knife, Kim was somehow talked into checking in the hospital by herself.  

"You don't really need me there? You're just going to fill out some paper work and then you'll be under for a little while," convincingly argued Kim's partner.
Girlfriend obviously had better things to do than take Kim's hand and be THERE for her for moral and emotional support like any normal loving girlfriend would do.

No, instead she opted to stay in the hotel suite, ordered room service a go-go -- champagne and caviar included -- placed a few long distance calls and indulged in a mini marathon of pay-per-view movies. The grand total for this grandiose pampering bonanza screeched in at a couple thousand dollars. And what did Kim -- post-surgery -- do in retaliation? Well of course, hand the hotel receptionist her magic plastic and have her girlfriend's entire expense extravaganza charged on it.

They'll have wonderful excuses no doubt, but what's ours? Considering that we're all smart, successful business entrepreneurs, why then do we let our integrity be so easily compromised without imposing our non-negotiables?
We see the tell tale signs of disaster - the ones that tell us it's time to quit and quit as fast as possible -- and yet we plunge forward anyway. Is it love or lust?  How about "get lost?"

Red flags are nothing less than bold warnings our partner is not into the relationship - and that neither do we have any business in it. Whether out comes the vial of white, the black or the green card, the chromatic color out of the mix that consistently jumps out from the final canvass is always the bloody same: RED as in RUN for the EXIT DOOR.





Mona Elyafi is the founder/CEO of ILDK Media - a boutique entertainment public relations agency specializing in personal publicity, special events, media relations & corporate/brand communications.  www.ILDKMedia.com

Missed the last Singled Out? Read it here.