Who You Should not to date

Being in a dating relationship with someone of the opposite sex is exciting and fun. Some people find it even more thrilling to date someone they shouldn’t. However, with escalating thrills come accompanying risks and possibly tragic outcomes. Here are some of the people you should probably avoid dating:

1. Avoid your close friend’s ex.
While there are success stories about those who dated a friend’s ex-husband or boyfriend, negative stories abound as well. Sometimes your friend may still have emotional ties to an ex, or may feel the cutting edge of comparison if you succeed where she failed. The ex may try to play one against the other or to come between you, damaging the friendship. For reasons like these, it may be better and safer to avoid the ex-partner of a good friend. If you find yourself seriously attracted to a friend’s ex, at least find out why they broke up and reflect on how your relationship could end up the same way, or how you might avoid that outcome.

2. Stay away from your boss.
It’s been successfully done, yet dating a boss or other employment-related authority figure can bring about serious consequences. For example, some supervisors try to trade sex for favors at work. Others may allow the course of the relationship to influence their assessment of your job performance, although the two should remain strictly separate.

Even if you earn a promotion or a raise, if others know you are dating, you may be accused of playing up to the boss or the supervisor might be blamed for showing partiality, even if such claims are false. If you really want to date your boss, try to do so clandestinely and maintain a separate romantic connection that does not carry over to the workplace.

3. Never date a married person.
This is sure to be a lose-lose situation for everyone concerned. While you may love the thrill of eating forbidden fruit, when the excitement dies down, all you’ll have left is someone else’s unfaithful ex-spouse. You know the old saying: unfaithful to one, unfaithful to all. In addition, consider the lives that will be damaged or broken because of infidelity: the spouse, the children, the extended family, and even church or social connections. If all else fails, remember the Golden Rule: do to others as you would have done to you. Snaring someone else’s spouse may lead to someone taking yours.

4. You can’t marry a priest.
That is, you can’t marry a Roman Catholic priest. Some women enjoy the challenge of luring a priest away from God—the ultimate success! But others simply fall for someone who is caring and empathetic as well as unavailable. If you find yourself attracted to a man of the cloth, especially one that is forbidden to marry or who is married already, stay away. Ask to see another priest for confession or other spiritual matters instead, or move to another parish. Even if your priest succumbs to temptation and has an affair, the guilt may destroy any chance of happiness. Or if he leaves the Church to marry you, he may not be as exciting as a husband as he was as a priest.

5. Beware of the wacko.
Single people sometimes wander into the wrong kind of relationship, perhaps from loneliness or occasionally from error. If you discover that the person you’re seeing has a penchant for lying, for fetishes, or for deception, say a hurried good-bye and run as fast as you can in the opposite direction. Lurid attractions generally lead to sordid outcomes.

Use caution and prudence in choosing someone to date. Making a wrong decision could bring about unhappy consequences for all concerned.