HOW TO SPOT A JERK BEFORE HE DOES ANY REAL HARM

Ladies, and this article is for you women, because no matter our free-thinking the society in which we live, let's face it, most of your real jerks are men. Not that women aren't a lot of other things that there are some ugly terms for. It's just that...well, you know.

Which sex is best known for making a date for Saturday night for dinner at 7:00 p.m. At 7:00 p.m. your waiting and looking out the window because you know this guy. At 8:00 p.m. he hasn't so much as text messaged. At 9:30 p.m. he has the nerve to saunter up to your door acting as though that was the agreed upon time. He seems to have totally forgotten about dinner. Now he has a couple of Rocky Balboa videos about hard guys he wants to bore you with on a no-expense date. And, girl, you let that bad boy in the door!

Want another example? Okay. Your sister is getting married (for the first and only time) and it's a really big deal in the family. You hesitated to ask your regular boyfriend to be your date at the wedding on account of what a big day it is for your sister and all your relatives being there and what a capital J jerk he is. Then you realized if you didn't bring him everyone would make a thing of it and ask a lot of nosey questions and treat you like a relationship failure again. So you're stuck with him. You have begged him not to be late picking him up and threatened to never have sex with him again in this lifetime if he lets you down. The wedding is at 2:00 p.m. It's now 1:40 p.m. The church is close. Lo and behold, he pulls up and he is almost presentable if you overlook his wrinkled shirt, filthy fingernails and unpolished shoes. You're almost grateful.

But the real test comes at the reception. You haven't even said hello to a single person yet, and he's walking toward you with a whole tray of drinks he got some bartender to give him. Open bar means everything to this booze hound. By the time the happy couple get to their reception he has pulled out his shirt waistband, and taken off his clip-on tie and his shoes. His face is already bright red and he is slurring. He proceeds to spend the entire evening, what he sees of it, drinking himself into a totally drunken stupor and passes out with his nose in his mashed potatoes at the table. A kind uncle of yours offers to drive him home.

Last call? Or will you be around for further humiliation? Yes, you didn't know he was a jerk when you let him pick you up at the local bar, but what's you're excuse for continuing to let him wreck your life? Do you hold on to him because he proposed three weeks after he met you? Here's a tip: Jerks have shallow emotions. That's how he was able to overwhelm you with all those fantastic true love commitments two weeks after meeting you when he couldn't possibly have known anything about who you really were. It just doesn't add up. Healthy, normal people need a long process to invest in a relationship because there is a lot at stake. But don't worry. It is because he is so shallow that he will be able to easily detach from you as fast as he committed, despite all the suicide threats when you try to dump him. And you must dump him for your own health and happiness, because no matter what he has tried to convince you, he doesn't really love you more than any other man ever will and also you will find a better man in the future. You will not spend the rest of your life alone, so you can let go of this dead dog now.