Dishonest? Bully? Let Him Go!

Recently an acquaintance of mine suggested a match for me. On paper he seemed great!

Yippee!

She gave him my phone number and not two minutes later, he called me!

We had a nice long conversation and he was very enthusiastic about flying to Florida to meet me in the near future.

However, because I am now hyper -alert to “red flags”, I replayed the conversation over in my mind a few times and decided that this man is a Red Flag Man.

Here is what tipped me off:

We discussed our child hoods and the anti-Semitism we  had both suffered at the hands of the neighborhood bullies.

He told me that as a kid, he always proudly wore his kippah on the subways to school each day, despite the fact that the other kids would taunt and threaten him.  That sounded brave to me, but on the other hand, he also related that he would regularly get into fist fights, and brawls with the bullies, and had several times gotten his nose and bones broken.

He mentioned he would have liked to come to see me sooner, but was dealing with his lawyers, who he “always had around”, helping him with his current two court cases.

We discussed our work, and he described his work MO. What he does, he explained to me, is seek out houses to “make money off of”. To do this, he targets run down, distressed and under- priced houses which he rents with an option to buy. He then overstays his lease, but does not go through with his option to buy the house. The owner is forced to take him to court in an effort to evict him. He then accuses the owner of not disclosing some flaw in the house, and a settlement is made.

He mentioned in passing that he always leaves himself an “out”.

This information was interspersed with his description of himself as a charitable, religious and likable fellow who loves to vacation at top notch luxury resorts.  He is a man who keeps himself physically fit and who has a good sense of humor. He is a successful entrepreneur who seeks a connection with a loving partner.

In short, here is a guy who in part, sounded perfect for me, however, I am not interested in a person who engages in what I consider to be dishonest business practices. I also picked up on his confrontational style and, considering all the above, decided to pass on this guy.

In truth, in took some years of training to be able to pull apart the various strands of this conversation and to isolate and separate the “Red Flags” from the nicer elements of this person.

My upcoming book, Red Flag Man is intended o educate all women on how to instantly spot and avoid the heartache and disappointment they inflict.