Sometimes, a truly horrible dating story arises. One for the record books. One that is blogged and tweeted and Facebooked and shared over drinks and water cooler trips and exchanges with total strangers who all agree that the man in question is the pits. Yeah that's right, I said "the pits."

Guys like this were the topic of much conversation during my brother's wedding reception. What?! It's only a matter of time before the conversation turns from love to love gone wrong, right?

I'm of the mind that each relationship has a something to teach you. Sometimes that something happens to be so glaringly obvious that you should have seen it coming, but this is like getting your degree online, you just learn at your own pace on your own time. If that means you wear your pajamas for six days in a row and take your multiple choice test at 2:30 am while you're watching re-runs of Jackass, okay! You aren't being tested on your learning style.

But for some guys, it's not enough for them simply to be a lesson learned. The ones who are amazingly, unfathomably and truly an awful representation of the male species need to come with a warning label. Or, as my sister-in-law recommended in a way that will subtly be worked into my romantic-comedy movie plot, a consumer review to let interested party know what they're really buying.

I have a friend who reads reviews of toilet bowl cleaners before she makes a purchase, so why are we making important life choices without knowing the facts?! Would it even matter? I'd like to think my friends and I may have been swayed to choose a different option had we read some of the following reviews:

Don't let his beard fool you. This man is looking 40 right in the eye but clinging to his long-gone 20s so hard his knuckles are white. Do not accept the offer of a second date after he gets so drunk on your first one that he yells at a cab driver for no reason. The night will end with him BITING YOUR BUTT after you reject him and turn to make the mad-dash for your apartment door.

Or:

He is married. Seriously.

Or:

His mother still has portraits of his ex-girlfriend adorning the walls of her home, and they're not going anywhere.

And maybe it wouldn't have made a difference at all. We'd have fewer bruises on our tender little hearts, but fewer stories to tell. We can't vet every viable candidate because men aren't toilet bowl cleaner (weird, I know). What we can do is learn, grow and hope that the guys we've loved have done the same.

What would your Bad Boyfriend review say? Have you done anything that deserves a bad review?

by Nora McInerny