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Reflecting on her recent breakup, area woman Kelly Shields was pleased to find that she was able to reframe everything her ex-boyfriend ever did into a glaring red flag in hindsight.
“Remember how Josh would never pet strangers’ dogs?” Shields vented to a friend, suddenly and conveniently realizing that everything her former boyfriend ever did should have been interpreted as a signal to break up. “That’s fucked up. He’s obviously lacking any sort of emotional intelligence. I can’t believe I didn’t come to my senses so much earlier.”
“He kept the receipt for a pair of pants one time,” Shields complained to anyone who would listen, shaking her head as she came to her senses in a sudden, well-timed moment of clarity. “Like, talk about commitment issues. I should’ve seen this breakup coming from a mile away. Huge red flag. Honestly, I dodged a bullet.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me he was bad the moment he went Christmas shopping with my mom?” Shields sighed, cursing her past self for being so naive. “He was clearly using her to manipulate me! This whole time, the universe was basically screaming ‘Hey idiot, break up with him!’ with these signs, but I was turning a blind eye to it all.”
At press time, Shields was recasting brazen red flags in her current love interest as endearing personality traits.
