Police officers, because of the nature of their business are creatures of habit, and their routines are sometimes quite obvious. Here’s how to tell if the person you’re currently spending time with is, or once was, a cop.

1. Your new love interest takes you to the most exclusive restaurant in town, and when the host leads the two of you to a nice table in the center of the room your date declines and requests the minuscule table beside the wall next to the kitchen doors. It’s a horrible out-of-the-way table where the rumps of servers constantly bump and thump against the seat backs of diners’ chairs as they hustle to and from the kitchen. Yet, your dinner companion seems extremely pleased at the opportunity to sit facing the front of the room and other exits and entrances, with their back planted firmly against the greasy wall as their eyes constantly dart back and forth and up and down, scanning the room and other diners for who knows what.

2. You’re in a bar and you catch your date eyeing every female who passes, paying especially close attention to the areas around two specific areas of their bodies—torso and ankles. What a creep, right? Well, he knows no shame because he’s doing the same to other guys. Is your new man an over-sexed bisexual? Of course not. He’s a cop who’s merely looking for concealed weapons, and once he’s decided there are no immediate threats he’ll turn his attention to your arsenal of concealed attributes.

3. If you and your date arrive at the party and she stands to the side of the front entryway while simulataneously producing a huge Maglite from her purse, which she promptly uses to deliver a few loud, hard knocks to door, well, you might be dating a cop.

4. If the person you’re out with unbuckles their seatbelt 30 seconds before stopping the car, you might be dating a cop.

5. During the end-of-evening embrace you feel the slight touch of your date’s hands at the mid point between your shoulder blades. Odd, but no real problem, right? Then you notice the touch moving downward, slowly tracing the length of your spine, stopping at your waist. Still no problem. Kind of sexy, actually. And you were definitely surprised when you felt the hand gently and slowly slide into that area where your legs meet. After all, you’ve been dating for a while now and the next level has been on your mind. However, when she slipped on a pair of latex gloves and then squatted down to cup both hands around first one leg and then other, running those hands down each leg … Yeah, you’re dating a cop.

6. If your date rides with the car window down, even when it’s 20 degrees outside, and reads aloud the license plates of passing cars—“Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, Seven, Four Eight.” Yep, you’re definitely dating a cop.

7. Your new guy intimidates people. For example, he often takes shortcuts through the most dangerous sections of town. While passing through at 5 mph you notice that as soon as your beau makes eye contact with two very shady characters hanging out on the sidewalk (and your sweetie definitely makes a point to make eye contact) they each look down, or away, before backing into the darkness of door frames and alleyways. Yes, you’re dating a cop.

8. When meeting your friends and family, your date stands a bit sideways with his dominant hand positioned at his waist, near his pocket (you later learn that the dominant hand is the gun hand). Fortunately, there’s no shootout, but your friends avoid the two of you for the rest of the night, and quite possibly for as long as you’re with this kooky badge-wearer.

9. Your parents, after meeting your special friend for the first time, say, “Please come back to see us.” If the response of your lover is, “10-4,” you might be dating a cop.

10. If your new girlfriend addresses all of her close friends by their last names names—Smith, Jenkins, Williams, etc.—, you might be dating a cop. “Smith, come over here and meet my new boyfriend, Jones.”

Bonus:

If you show up unannounced at the home of your new boyfriend and find him mowing the lawn while wearing shorts, a gun on his side, and a bulletproof vest beneath a crisp new police academy t-shirt, well, you’re dating a rookie.

You know, the best part of dating a fledgling cop is that you can order him to do things—an unlimited number of push ups, shine shoes, clean something, run as far as you tell him to, etc., and he will.

Bonus #2:

If you find loose bullets in the bottom of her kitchen “junk drawer,” you might be dating a cop.

Bonus #3:

If your annual family vacation is a whirlwind tour of the Cleveland Police Museum, Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum, New York City Police Museum, and the Los Angeles Police Museum, well, take some comfort in knowing that mandatory retirement of police officers is usually somewhere around the age 55. Only thirty years to go. Thirty looooong years.

Bonus #4:

If the hair you find on your significant other’s clothes belongs to a bloodhound and not the hunky guy at the gym, well …

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