Dork Matter

I'm just out of a bad relationship and ready to start dating. I recently met a guy I liked at the mall. There was definitely a physical attraction, and we had a lot in common, but not an hour after we met, he sent me a text that said, "Miss you already." That set off red flags for me. Sweet or creepy? I'm on the fence.

--Want To Be Charitable

He's looking forward to watching you sleep -- from the third-floor apartment across the way, with a set of high-powered binoculars. Then again, it's possible that socially, he's kind of a mouth-breather. Socially clueless guys will sometimes dig around in the "Chicks Love This Stuff" bin, pull out some romantic-sounding line and lay it on a woman, hoping it'll stick. They don't get that prematurely expressed affection can creep women out. Sure, his "Miss you already" -- or one of its cousins, "I loved you before I even knew you!" -- sounds like a sweet sentiment. But using it before real feeling has time to develop can suggest that one's underlying motivation is not "Can't wait to take you to Paris" but maybe "Can't wait to keep you in a crate under my bed." That's probably where your intuition is taking you. Intuitions -- gut feelings -- are judgments we arrive at without conscious reasoning. But they don't come out of nowhere. Your brain compares input from your current environment with prior situations (from your past and your evolutionary past), looking for patterns that suggest danger is afoot. The thing is, these alerts are often wrong. But that actually isn't a bad thing. Evolutionary psychologists Martie Haselton and David Buss find that we seem to have evolved to make the less costly error -- like your erring on the side of red-flagging a guy because it's less costly for you to end up home alone on a Saturday night than to end up crated or dead. Should you override your weirdo-dar? It can feel unfair to write somebody off on the basis of one yicky remark. But if you're going to take a risk, it should be an informed risk, meaning that you use information about past behavior (which you're rather short on) to predict the likelihood a situation will go south. You also factor in your ability to deal if it does. Like if he turns stalker, will you be all "Not gonna make it through the armed guards and the moat around my house" or "My neighbors in 4B would cheerfully buzz in Charles Manson"? On the other side of informed risk is "cross my fingers and hope it turns out okay," which, given the level of information you have, is pretty much where you are now. However, the reality is, sometimes throwing caution to the wind makes sense, like if the guy in question seems to be the last man on earth or your last shot before eternal spinsterhood. If this is the case, it would probably be prudent to pair your high hopes with a bedside Taser, on the off chance Mr. Right turns out to be Mr. Right Outside In Your Bushes.