9 Lessons Learned From Lifetime's The Craigslist Killer

Last night, the Lifetime Network -- otherwise known as the guilty pleasure center of your cable package -- premiered The Craigslist Killer, its highly-publicized docudrama about the good-looking Boston medical student convicted of murdering masseuses he found on the Internet. Like any good TV movie, Killer included a romance, the poorly-acted betrayal of a pretty blonde who could not pick a clue up with a forklift, and the subtext that all men -- especially the good-looking ones you don't suspect -- are evil. Ahead, I sift through the discarded Kleenex and chocolate wrappers to uncover nine lessons learned from the film.

1. If the dreamy medical student you just met takes you TO THE CASINO on your first date, there is a chance that he has a gambling problem and will soon start robbing conservatively dressed masseuses to fund his addiction.

2. If your all-American boyfriend impresses your parents and proposes to you on a romantic horse-drawn carriage ride, there is a chance that he is hoarding bondage porn, a gun and 16 pairs of his victims' underwear underneath the bed you share.

3. If your too-good-to-be-true fiance tells you that he is studying forensics on his laptop, he could be scanning Craigslist for potential victims.

4. Billy Baldwin cannot pull off a convincing Boston accent to save his life -- or this Lifetime docudrama. (What he can pull off though is 1920's prohibition gangster.)

5. Any girl who falls for the old "let me show you where your thoracic is" pick-up line is either an idiot or the character in a made-for-television movie. Watch out!

6. If you are making a habit of holding up Craigslist masseuses at gunpoint in Boston hotels while wearing a baseball cap, maybe change it up. Switch that Boston baseball cap for a Cleveland one! Schedule a rendezvous with another kind of Internet escort -- maybe somewhere without surveillance cameras and make the date from a stranger's computer. But that's just me.

7. If your fiance -- who has been spending long nights away from home -- starts sweating profusely while watching news coverage about a local serial killer and acting paranoid when police begin monitoring your apartment building, be suspicious.

8. If you are trying to make a quick escape from the apartment building which you know is under police surveillance, do not carry suitcases out the front door and then let your unknowing girlfriend, a self-professed slow driver, get behind the wheel of your getaway car.

And finally....

9. If you find out that the man you planned to spend the rest of your life with has been advertising all "eight inches" of his most prized appendage on Craigslist and manifesting his hatred for women by killing masseuses and forcing himself on your classmates, do not give him back his engagement ring. Girlfriend, pawn that sh*t. And use the money to buy yourself a clue.