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Previous Post: General Red Flags
I wanted to help out other women by providing the most concentrated, distilled information from How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved by Sandra L. Brown. Although I still fully recommend reading this book in its entirety, I wanted to make this information more accessible.
To conclude this series of posts, I am including this questionnaire from Chapter 12 for determining your risk of dating a dangerous man in order to protect yourself.
Give yourself two points for each “yes” answer, and zero points for each “no ” answer:
-I have dated more than one dangerous man.
-I have dated more than three dangerous men.**
-I have dated five or more dangerous men.**
-I have broken up with and then gone back to a dangerous man.
-A dangerous man I’ve dated would qualify as violent.**
-A dangerous man I’ve dated would qualify as an addict.
-A dangerous man I’ve dated would qualify as mentally ill.
-A dangerous man I’ve dated would qualify for any combination of violent, addicted, and mentally ill.**
-I have a pattern of ignoring my red flags.
-Ignoring my red flags has put me at risk with dangerous men.**
-I don’t even know what my red flags are.
-Friends and family are upset over the types of men I pick.
-I have dated emotionally unavailable men more than once.
-I don’t know what healthy relationship patterns are.
-I fluctuate between men who are emotionally un available, have hidden lives, or are violent, and men who are permanent clingers or parental seekers.
-I don’t fluctuate in the type of man I date; I keep picking the same type of dangerous man, even though it hasn’t worked in the past.
-I grew up being taught to trust people unconditionally and to ignore my own feelings and intuition.
Note that answering yes to any question marked with "**" indicates high risk, regardless of point score.
0-8 Points: Lower Risk
10-18 points: Moderate Risk
20+ Points: High Risk
If you are in the moderate or high risk category, the book recommends that you use the How to Spot a Dangerous Man Workbook, also by Sandra L. Brown.
The issue with this is, once again, we are putting the responsibility and blame on the woman. It is not a woman's fault if she's dated a dangerous man, or multiple dangerous men because there are far more dangerous males out here than good ones. Dangerous males out number good men 10 to 1.
So the odds are stacked against us, no matter how much awareness we may have.
Thank you for posting this series! I will buy the book. It's clearly full of excellent content!
A follow-up regarding my own experience: The very first time I filled out this questionnaire for myself, I scored only 2 points, with the only point I answered "yes" to being "I grew up being taught to trust people unconditionally and to ignore my own feelings and intuition."
Although I didn't know this at the time, in retrospect, I would say that "I don't know what healthy relationship patterns" also applied to me at the time, and is currently in a gray area - although I have a much clearer idea of what I'm actively looking for, instead of just what I want to avoid, I have not experienced a healthy relationship first-hand, as my only relationship was not healthy with me briefly dating a man with emotionally predatory tendencies.
However, being in the lower-risk category simply means lower risk, not no risk at all. As mentioned in an earlier post, I read this book before entering my first and only relationship, and was in the lower-risk category at the time. Despite the fact that I was and still am a very cautious person when it comes to dating, I ignored my red flags and dated a dangerous man, even though it was extremely brief. My score on this questionnaire has increased, as I would now evaluate the statement "A dangerous man I’ve dated would qualify as mentally ill" to be true.
Please be aware of your risk factors, even if your overall risk score is on the lower end.