August 2013
Dear M,
I’ve been giving your offer of friendship a lot of thought over the past few weeks. Often times, I’m severely tempted to give in and make peace, but the further I stay away from you, the clearer my vision becomes. You still seem to think that the only reason I am mad is that you had a second lover. This could not be further from the truth. I’m furious because I’m starting to uncover the grooming process you used to mold me into your willing victim. I feel violated upon recognizing that you trained me like a monkey in your zoo to not ask questions of you. When I asked about A that first time, you told me she was a “bitch” and that she was trying to rope you into a relationship, thus implying that these were things I should never do, lest I be labeled in the same way as that “bitch.” You said it with such disdain, I never would have imagined that you ever harbored feelings of love for her. If I brought up any other women, you would repeatedly reprimand me with a reminder of how you had “no room for jealousy” in your life. When you left me the first time, you sent me a letter a month later, explaining that you left because I was trying to coerce you into being my boyfriend. When you came back to me later, this act was repeated when I started getting close to you again. You gave me the same sort of warning and began to disappear. Thus, a severe fear reaction was programmed, linking me talking about being in a relationship with you to you disappearing. I learned never to question my role in your life.
I’m terrified to even be your friend because even in the short run-ins that we’ve had accidentally, you’ve found time to lie to me. You told me you would come to a counseling session on Tuesday at 3PM when we both know you work at that time. It’s as if you will say whatever you think will shut me up and keep me from asking questions. It’s like the time when you said you’d hang out with me on New Year’s Eve and then pretended like you couldn’t remember ever saying that. You have a flawless memory when it comes to remembering things that I’ve said that you can later throw in my face, but you never seem to remember the promises you make. I start to doubt my own memories as you vehemently deny ever saying these things. This, my friend, is called gaslighting, and it’s an intentional psychological manipulation used to unsettle your victim.
On top of all this, you mock me about the things I’ve finally caught on to. You tell me you had felt something drawing you out when we ran into each other even though I know I think all of that is bullshit now. In the same sentence, you tell me how all your friends were going to be there and you were trying to get as much socializing done as possible before the start of the school year. It sounds like THAT was the pull that brought you there. It had nothing to do with me. You used these type of psychic connections to draw me in from day one. You knew I ate it up. I wanted more than anything to believe that I was somehow special to you. I’m beginning to understand what it means when you say you have a “special connection.” You tell me that I’m the only person in your life that you’ve had a connection with that has not come back to you. I have a theory about this. I feel that these people in your past, have all been like me, a source of narcissistic supply for you. It’s probably a group of girls that worship you, that are tortured that they can’t have you, and eat up every bit of attention you shower on them. They are people you can return to again and again, every time someone sees you for the con artist that you are and makes you feel “less than.” You claim that you never had this type of connection with A. Is that because she saw through your shit? Or is this something you just say to me, knowing it will calm my soul to believe that I was superior to her in some way in your mind. Every time you say something like this about her, you follow it up with “I hope you won’t say anything about this to her.” On the initial level, it makes me feel like you are telling me a secret, bringing me closer to you, but on second look, I realize that the main reason you don’t want me to talk to A is that she blows holes through all of your bullshit and allows me to see you more clearly than ever. She has already told me how you told her that you wanted her to be “the one,” words I never thought you’d even use. You argue that you never said these things, but much like I was susceptible to your claims of psychic connection, content to maintain a sexual relationship with you based on our “spiritual harmony” alone, she may have needed a more concrete promise to ensure a steady source of narcissistic supply, things like a committed relationship and an assurance that she alone was the most special girl in your life. You would reassure me of my specialness by saying you never had a connection with her and then turn around and reassure her of HER specialness by saying that you only introduced HER to your family and only called HER your girlfriend. You tried to make me feel better by talking down about her, and she said you would do the same of me.
And then you have the audacity to tell me that you’ve changed in 8 short months. You claim that this was the first time you have used deceit, but your stories from the past sound riddled with it. I am truly working to retrain my brain, erasing from it all the bullshit things you taught me to believe were healthy and desirable, like not speaking my feelings, not asking questions, being OK with an undefined sexual relationship…things I now realize have been responsible for a monumental emotional collapse. In just 10 months, you were able to damage me in ways that 8 months of counseling have barely begun to untangle. I have a hunch that you’ve been living this way for a long time, perhaps most of your life, and from the reading I’ve done, it’s unlikely for you to ever find healing, even with the help of a professional. Moreso, it is unlikely that you even desire to change. The claim that you are somehow a different person after 8 months is a disgusting lie, one that I can see through easily as you tell me how you have changed using the exact language and tone of voice that you have always used to lie to me. Here’s a little test to see how much you’ve changed: show this letter to the girls currently in your life: MK, MLS, JC, and whoever else you’ve tried to woo. If you really aren’t habitually doing this sort of bullshit, then it will just sound like your crazy ex is writing you hate mail. A and S seem to know what I’m talking about though, and I get the feeling that you know exactly how to BS the way into the hearts of girls in your occult group as most people in cults are pretty susceptible to brainwashing and psychological manipulation.
It pisses me off that you think I’m having such a violent reaction to A. As if the thought that you ever stuck your penis inside another girl would take me to the brink of a mental breakdown. Fuck you. Seriously. The bullshit that you have been doing to me for the last year and a half is really fucked up. I don’t think you are polyamorous, I think you are a Narcissist using a multitude of victims simultaneously to make you feel OK. THIS IS NOT THE SAME THING. In situations of polyamory, one must take into account the feelings of all their partners. It means acting with LOVE towards more than one person, not merely sticking your dick in them. You have proven that you are not actually able to love one person, let alone more than one simultaneously. You NEED people for your own self validation, but again, this is not the same thing as love. So fuck you and your offer of friendship, fuck our special connection, and fuck all the bullshit you have put me, A, and God knows who else through. Grow the fuck up and stop subjecting people to emotional abuse, because ultimately that is what you are doing. You are destroying people’s sense of self worth all in an effort to improve your own, and that is unethical and reprehensible.
***
This letter was written when I finally was able to see through M’s bullshit almost in real time. I had run into him at a local battle of the bands and he had approached me from behind, taking me completely off guard, as I was chatting up a new male friend. M spent a good portion of his evening talking with me as I cried my eyes out, still sucked in by his act. He was trying to be very gentle and sweet with me, luring me back into a “friendship” with him while his new lady friend, MK, sat across the bar, staring us down the entire evening. I was aware of her presence, but since M was completely ignoring her at the time to give me his full attention, I did not feel threatened by her. Any time I asked about her, he just repeated how he couldn’t be in a relationship with anyone. As of today, they are publicly in a relationship, and have been hanging out together since the day I found out about A and confronted him publicly, which was 8 months prior to this event.
As we were talking at the bar, I suggested he go see a counselor with me if he was truly interested in repairing our friendship. Without missing a beat, he said he was willing and able to do such a thing during a time which I knew he’d be at work. Part of me was skeptical of the ease with which he agreed to this. The more I think about this day, the more I believe that the content of our conversation was of little import. His main goals were to rope me back in to his fucked up game, and to make MK insanely jealous by ignoring her all evening while talking to me. In a conversation later in the week, he admitted that he had come with a friend who he ended up ignoring all night so the friend had left in anger. This does not sound like typical male behavior, so I can only assume it was the female that had left. I had played right into his game and was most likely instrumental in helping him emotionally manipulate that girl into the same jealous fucked up place I was in.
I was not able to see all this immediately, but within a week of no contact, all the charm, flattery, and pleading melted away to uncover the obvious manipulation taking place. Without hearing his pathetically patronizing “I’m so sorry” voice, I was able to listen to the actual words coming from him without buying into his emotional act. A completely different picture emerged. He was trying to placate me. He was using me to manipulate someone else. Furthermore, he was still lying to my face. I was so angry with myself for not seeing it sooner. He never attempted to contact me. He only waited for my calls because he “knew I needed space and wanted me to make the first move.” In reality, I don’t think he gave a shit if he heard from me one way or the other, but if I called and sounded plaintive, he knew I was ripe for manipulating. More often than not, I was still furious and I would start yelling at him over the phone, which did not give him any emotional advantage over me. He needed me to come to him in desperation.
The frustration of that evening still lingers over a year later. Just the other night I had a dream where I ran into MK and was desperately trying to warn her that she is with an emotionally abusive psychopath. She must not see it yet if she is still with him. After A and I blew such a hole in his game, he must be more thoroughly covering his tracks. I imagine that she still thinks he is something special even though she has a sense of fear that he could leave her at any moment. Perhaps he has whittled her down into accepting the open relationship he was trying to groom me into, flaunting in her face the fact that she alone isn’t enough for him, or perhaps he has her still believing she is his one and only even after saying for years that he could never be monogamous with anyone ever. In the dream, she defends him, telling me what a great boyfriend he is and how much he has changed since the scandal of A and I went down. I woke up so very angry that he is still out there causing harm to innocent people and that his victims stand by him and defend him. It makes me feel so powerless to know that even if I tried to help, nothing would come of it. So I blog and hope that somehow this message will get to those that need to hear it whether it be people that I know personally, or some random soul on the internet that finds these words by a fateful google search. My soul is still deeply scarred by the actions of this man and my anger still burns under a surface that has been relatively calm as of late.
