Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) looks on (jealously) as Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) talks to Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) in "The Twilight Saga: New Moon." (Kimberly French/© 2009 Summit Entertainment, LLC. All rights reserved.)

I’m probably not the best person to be giving advice on how to find a good boyfriend. I’m much better at spotting a bad boyfriend once somebody’s gotten hold of one. When it comes to heartthrobs who make tween girls swoon, Edward Cullen of “Twilight” fame is at the very top of my list of bad boyfriends … and his heart doesn’t even throb.

Whether a boyfriend is good or bad is a subjective call — it all depends on what his partner is looking for in a relationship. But a big strike against Edward, as Jonathan Strickland of TechStuff pointed out to me last week, is that he’s dead. He’s also about 100 years older than Bella is. But being an older vampire is part of his appeal, which is why the No. 1 reason why I think Edward Cullen is a bad boyfriend is that he shows warning signs of being an abuser.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has a list of warning signs that one’s partner is an abuser. And Edward fits enough of them that I wouldn’t want my kid (if I had one) to date him. Here are Edward’s warning signs, quoted from the HHS list (and full of spoilers). He:

• Monitors what you’re doing all the time: Edward reads minds, but he can’t read Bella’s. That doesn’t stop him from invading her privacy, though. He still keeps tabs on her by listening in on her friends and family. And if she goes to visit the Quileute werewolves, whose minds he also can’t read, he’s prone to waiting right on the edge of their turf until she returns. (Whoopsie — silly me for waiting four months between reading the books and writing this post. Edward can indeed read the werewolves’ thoughts. It’s Alice whose powers don’t work with werewolves, so when Bella goes to visit the Quileute pack, she vanishes from Alice’s future-dar and Edward starts lurking around the borders. That’s a pretty major component of one of the books’ endgame — my mistake.)
• Prevents or discourages you from seeing friends or family, or going to work or school: More than once, Edward tries to put Bella on house arrest, and he forbids her from seeing Jacob (and the rest of the Quileute pack).
• Destroys your property or things you care about: Edward disables Bella’s car to get her to do what he wants, and when he leaves her in “New Moon,” he hides all her mementos of him. He doesn’t destroy them, but Bella thinks they’re gone.
• Blames you for his or her violent outbursts: He’s on the edge with this one. While Edward isn’t physically violent with Bella — at least not intentionally — he does keep warning her that he’s a threat to her, largely because of the smell of her blood. It’s not Edward’s fault for being a vampire. It’s Bella’s for smelling so good.

Some of Edward’s creepier behaviors don’t make the HHS list, like sneaking into her room uninvited to watch her sleep or, just after meeting her, plotting how to kill a classroom full of people fast enough to save her for last. That way, she’ll still be warm.

And I’m sure there’s more. What does Edward do that creeps you out?

Read up on the “New Moon” love triangle:
How Vampires Work
How Werewolves Work
How Love Works