Touch of evil

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

I’ve been going out with a guy for about three months. After we’d been together for about a week, I noticed a tattoo of a swastika on the back of his left shoulder. When I asked him about it, he said it happened one night when he was drunk and that his friends told him that they were tattooing a lion or something and he didn’t find out what it was until after it was done.

Just a few days ago, I was over at his house when he was taking a shower. I happened to notice that a shirt had fallen of a hanger in his closet and when I went in to pick it up, I noticed a rolled up poster with a photograph of Hitler on it. Also, I’ve met some of his friends, and a few of them have Confederate flags or bumper stickers on their vehicles.

When I mentioned this to him, he says they’re just his friends and he doesn’t necessarily agree with them on everything. I haven’t confronted him about the Hitler poster. Do you think I should?

— Puzzled

Dear Puzzled,

I don’t believe it’s necessary to confront him about the poster. You have compiled enough evidence, though, to convince Dr. Lovemonkey that if you don’t break it off with this guy immediately, he’ll have you racing down to the dry cleaners to get his sheets for the next Klan rally.

He was probably being honest when he told you that he doesn’t always agree with his friends who display the Confederate regalia. His Nazi veneration, however, is a step beyond. The common denominator between the antebellum South and the Third Reich is, of course, white supremacy.

Any decent person who "accidentally" had a swastika tattooed on their shoulder would be desperate to have it removed as soon as possible (undoubtedly covering it with a bandage until removal was feasible). Also, there’s no logical reason to explain why someone with a swastika tattoo on his shoulder would keep a Hitler poster in his closet unless that person is a fan of evil. I suspect that if you cased out the closet a bit more thoroughly, you would find his jackboots as well.

Unless you like living dangerously or harbor racist attitudes of your own, break it off immediately with this person.

Dear Dr. Lovemonkey,

My boyfriend and I broke up after almost two years together last year because he became interested in another woman. I’m 20 years old and she was 18. He was only with her for a few months when he reentered my life. He told me he was sorry, he was wrong, and that he’d broken up with this other woman. He said he’d made a rash decision and wanted to try to work things out with me again.

Anyway, in less than a month, he joined the Navy and he asked me to wait for him to return home. I was totally willing to do that, but then I ran into the other woman and she told me they hadn’t broken up and that he had asked her to wait for him, too. What should I do?

— Torn Up

Dear Torn Up,

This guy isn’t interested in having an exclusive committed relationship. If you ask him about "monogamy," he’ll tell you it’s a board game in which you buy real estate. You’re young and this is one of those life experiences that you can learn from. While it’s undoubtedly painful, it’s also obvious that this guy is playing you and the other woman. Even though you’ve invested quite a bit of time, this guy can’t be trusted and trying to hold on will only bring more heartbreak.