Keeper vs. Creeper

Sometimes when you meet someone new, it is difficult to know if they could be "the one" or not. In high school finding out whether or not someone was "weird" or "regular" was easy - you had grown up with them and/or knew other people who knew them. But now that we're older dating people is much more difficult. There's no real way to know if someone has skeletons in their closet. Well, everyone has skeletons in their closet, but the question is are they skeletons you can live with? In life and love, how can we know when someone's a Keeper or a Creeper?

Life is too short to date someone for weeks, months, years even just to find out that they are very much a creeper and you should have left them go a long time ago. Being a creeper is not exactly the same as being incompatible. Two perfectly normal people can not be "the one" for each other and that's fine. I'm talking about when someone has some type of neurotic or unusual behavior that makes you want to run like a the girls in the horror films.

It's difficult though. Because when you first meet someone you only see the good in them. You're attracted to them. You like them. You want them to be "the one" either for now or for always. But either way, you will not notice the red flags at this point. So you go on a first date or you just "hang out" and you're getting to know each other. He or she says or does some really off the wall stuff. You give them a side-eye but you're still tryna make it work. You spend the entire date putting things in two different boxes - "I can live with that" and "I can change that". (You can't really change anything about anyone but you tell yourself that for now) But when you get home and talk it over with your friends, you have to decide if he's a keeper or a creeper.

The natural thing to do is to attempt to make everyone a keeper off the bat. You romanticize the date and remember to point out all of the good signs. But what about the bad signs? Is it fair to ignore those? What if that one kinda creepy thing he said was a window into his (or her) true character??? What if the little things you ignored actually turn out to be bigger in the future? How will we ever know?

We can try to weigh the pros and cons all day at the beginning of a new relationship, but at the end of the day I guess we'll never know if someone's a Keeper or a Creeper. I guess the best you can do is try to keep your mind open and your eyes open too. Be positive, but not naiive. Be compassionate, but also be cautious. Take time to get to know the person, but also take time to assess the situation. But most importantly, just pay attention!

How to know if he's a Keeper

1. He opens the doors for you
2. He pays for the meal
3. You share the same values
4. There's a natural ease and flow
5. He texts or calls to make sure you got home safely
6. He's nice to the waitor/waitress
7. He looks at you and really listens when you talk
8. Your friends like him
9. He makes you feel special
10. He's thoughtful