Red Flags and how We Ignore Them

TW: Emotionally abusive relationship, gaslighting.I’m not sure where to post this but this might be a good place. A couple years ago I was in an awful, emotionally abusive and manipulative relationship. There were a few red flags he presented me himself when we first started speaking like the fact he knew stuff about me I never told him by spending hours stalking my online profiles before we met (including ones I hadn’t used for years), telling me things I wanted to hear but also putting me down in subtle ways, pushing his own sexual kinks on me and making me feel if I didn’t fulfill them I wouldn’t be as good as past women he’s been with.The two most concerning red flags came from other women. The first was a couple weeks into us dating. I stopped into a local diner to pick up some food to go near where he had regular gigs. He came in with me and left while I waited for the food to have a smoke. While I was waiting the waitress came up to me and told me he was a scary guy. She’s seen him in there with other women and I should take care of myself. At the time I thanked her, tipped her, and left. I barely processed what she said since I had been drinking that night paired with the “new relationship” high. I thought she must have been mistaken. He had already prepared me to ignore any stories about him by telling me how his ex before me was a “lunatic” and they acted out in public since SHE was over dramatic.A month or so later we were at his regular bar and by that time I had become a frequent flyer there (yes I had a drinking problem. I am now 2 years sober). A girl came up to me there while he was out for a smoke and told me I shouldn’t go home with him that’s he’s dangerous. I thanked her for letting me know but assured her I knew him. She came up to me again with him there and told me the same thing. He told me he was sure she was hitting on me and started to shift blame on me for entertaining her “flirting”. She caught me one more time on the way out of the bathroom to say she was worried about me leaving with him. He saw we were speaking and stormed off so I ran after him. He was upset that I was talking to her and accused me of wanting to sleepvwith her and said he didn’t want to stand there and watch that happen.Looking back I feel ashamed I didn’t listen to other women who clearly knew something I didn’t. I never found out if he had done something to that girl in the past for her to get so adamant something was wrong with him, if she just had good intuition, or if maybe he was right? So this is a shout out to those of us who look out for each other! I learned my lesson and will never ignore a warning like that again. Stay safe out there everyone.