Dating Diaries: The Phantom Professional

If there were ever a dating profile that screamed, “I am a big douche bag” with flashing neon lights, this one was it.  It was his sheer cockiness that drew me in.  And it was not the attraction that normally draws you to someone, but rather the pure challenge of being able to knock this guy off his high horse.  He was a professional with a Master’s degree which made it all the more enticing.  Any other day of the week, I would have scoffed at this guy and thought “LOSER” – but I thought at the least I’d have some fun.

It ultimately got to the point of exchanging numbers.  Specifically referring to his profile about how he wants to meet someone as “good looking” as he was, I got bold one day and said, “So when are we going to meet to see who is better looking?”  So he then asked for my phone number.  I told him right up front my impression of him.

I gave this guy shit for days, trying to push his buttons.  One of my friends at work was reading through the conversation and laughing hysterically.  She said, “I love how you are just abusing this guy and he keeps coming back for more.”  He seemed to love it.

I found out what he did for work, and he had a very respectable job.  I was trying to inadvertently dig for little pieces of information to figure out who he really was.  This is usually VERY EASY for me as my career is centered on protecting people from identity theft scams.  So as far as finding out information, I know how to get it and where to look.  I see the best con artists out there on the Internet every day.  With that said, this guy was tough, and I couldn’t figure out who he was.

Now you must note, I told him what I do for a living, and we even had a whole conversation about it.  So if this guy was real, he would have known that if someone was going to call bullshit on him, it WOULD BE ME.  So as I am essentially defeated at this point and pissed at myself for failing to pinpoint his true identity, I come right out and ask him for his last name.  He gives it to me.

TIME TO CALL BULLSHIT ON YOU LOSER!

I put my highly advanced investigative skills to work and call the bastard right out.  You can’t beat this!!  It actually excites me to go on treasure hunts for information.  So I start the search.  I throw random questions at him, and I ultimately find a guy that fits most of what he has told me, including running for mayor of his town.  I get on Facebook, and this guy is NOT the guy I have been talking to.  Besides looking nothing like him, the real guy is happily married with two teenagers, unlike what the phantom has revealed about his own self.

LOSER PATROL UNLEASHED!

As you probably guessed, I never got a response.  I don’t think I need to even reveal the moral of the story here.  But for all you guys and gals out there who might need it spelled out for you:  DO YOUR HOMEWORK ON PEOPLE!  Some of you reading this are likely either saying I’m smart or I’m crazy.  Call it crazy if you’d like, but as a single mother, I can’t afford to put myself in situations that could put me or my family at risk.  So you are damned sure that I am going to make sure you are who you say you are.

 

Surviving a Narcissist: Three Months Later

To honor three months of NO CONTACT, I had the opportunity to do what most survivors of a narcissist have probably not done.  I celebrated with one of the women he cheated on me with a year ago.  We went to the same place to see the same band he took her to the very night I caught him.  How is THAT for irony?

Even after that cheating incident, I got caught back up in his whirlwind of lies.  He would insult her to me and made up lies about her.  I ultimately contacted her directly to ask questions, and she denied his vicious lies.  And as much as I continued to want to love this man, I NEVER doubted HER for one second.  I knew she was the only one that was going to tell me the truth.  For he had no history of being able to tell me the truth, and even continued to lie to me even when I presented him with undeniable proof.  She had no reason to lie.

It has been a slow process, but I am regaining my power and my sense of self.   In fact, a woman who I admire dearly stopped me today on the way out of work and said to me, “You seem truly happy” noting that for the last year, as she put it, I was there and smiling, but “not really there.”  Empty, hollow, indifferent, robotic, unfeeling.  THAT is what I had become after almost 18 months of being abused, lied to, cheated on, and manipulated by a narcissist.  I had completely shut down.  That is how you have to be.  It is the only way to cope, the only way to survive.  You simply fail to exist anymore.

This is why this past weekend was such a significant milestone for me.  Nothing good rarely ever comes out of such an experience.  But I was blessed to meet a wonderful woman who has supported me through this mess and became a great friend in the process.  It’s unfortunate it had to be under the conditions it was, but despite all the “crazy ex” drama he tried to throw on her about me, she was that much wiser than most and said, “YOU are the SICK FUCK, not her.”

The first NO CONTACT started in August after one of my closest friends tragically died at 35 leaving behind four children.  His reaction when I told him was so disgusting it is not even worth repeating here.  He shed not a single ounce of sympathy or support for me.  The day after her death, he never even called or texted me to ask how I was doing, and instead WENT ON A DATING SITE.  And if that is not bad enough, he had NO SHAME finally texting me a few days later to ask if I was going to bring him to the Journey concert.  YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS SHIT UP.

With NO CONTACT, they will try anything and everything to get your attention.  He even went so far as to send an email to this same girl he cheated on me with, six months after the original incident, verbally attacking her as he knew it would get back to me.

All said and done, I needed one more dropkick in the face from him and his new narcissistic supply to finally GET IT THROUGH MY HEAD.  Reconnecting with an old high school friend who had just left an abusive relationship, she said to me, “You are in an abusive relationship with a narcissist, and you need to get out NOW.”  She pointed me to a number of resources and sent me on my way.  I read until my eyes hurt that night.  Then I cried, and read more.  Each website I visited, each article I viewed, each victim’s experience I read – it was if I could have written it myself.  IT FINALLY ALL MADE SENSE.  He was a textbook narcissist sociopath.

But I REFUSE to play the victim card, and sit here and feel sorry for myself.  That is allowing them to have POWER OVER YOU.  I am NOT saying, however, that I still don’t have an occasional weak moment because I do.  This continues to be a struggle, but it gets easier every day.

I am finding ME again – my joy and happiness.  I want to help others, too, who may not be as fortunate as I am to have a solid support system.  I recently applied to be a mentor and volunteer for domestic violence victims.  I’m moving forward, and I can finally say I am starting to feel like myself again.  I’m smiling again – and it’s genuine, not forced.   I haven’t been able to say that in a very long time.

I am no fool though…and the charades still continue.  Two weeks ago, I got a series of vile text messages mocking me from an unknown number (likely Text Now or some other app).  It reeked of the narc.  Here is a brief snapshot of the filth.

The Secret Ingredients to Landing a Guy

Nearly four years of being single, with one malevolent narcissist in between, I found out today the secret ingredients to landing a great guy.  My male friend “D” sent me a stream of text messages earlier in a frenzy after finding out the girl he had been dating for the last few months has been seeing two other guys.  He was hurt and upset and furious, as any of us would be – male or female.  But he was particularly pissed because he had just shelled out money for $300 Bruins tickets that he was hoping to surprise her with.  That was his thanks.

Never screw with a woman scorned, they say.  Well, the same goes for men.  All of a sudden, the truth starts coming out about her.  She lives in a sober house.  “What were you thinking?” I say.  The skeletons just keep coming.  Is he insane?  This is the great girl that has stolen his heart.  He has everything going for him, and this is what he settles with.  He puts it perfectly in a text to me below.

And then it all clicked and I realized why I am still single.  Besides refusing to degrade myself by engaging in random hookups, I’m not a recovering drug addict or alcoholic and I actually have a job, an education and a car.

On my last date, I got stuffed with the dinner bill.  And when I dated the narcissist, he would remind me that he bought me and my kids an ice cream cone after I just shelled out $100 to take him and his four kids to dinner just days before.

Then he reminds me, as all my other male friends do when I bitch to them, “This is why all of us guys just bang them and move on to the next.”

So let me get this straight.  This homeless, unlicensed recovering addict has not just one, but THREE boyfriends, all fighting over her and buying her jewelry and NHL playoff tickets.  But, I can’t manage to find someone serious enough to go on a single date.

So what are the secret ingredients?  If you want to land a guy, or two or three, consider the following:

1.        Start snorting, shooting, smoking or swallowing illegal substances.
2.        Quit your job.
3.        Get a DUI so you lose your license.
4.        Spread easier than melted butter on bread.

Time to come up with a new strategy because being normal, decent, and employed makes you “undateable” these days.

Plenty of Fun with POF

Before social media, Facebook and dating sites, we had Tommy Grand and the show Cheaters.  I was a faithful viewer of the white trash TV show and loved to watch the look on the cheater’s face as he or she got caught on national television being a lying, deceptive scum bag.  Today, we have the power of the Internet to do what Tommy Grand did – and we can do it right from the comforts of the couch in our pajamas.

Between my line of work and my online dating experiences, I scare myself sometimes with what I can find online or the clever ideas I use to find out what I want when I can’t find it on the Internet.  I have a good friend who is a director of security at a large retailer and a certified “ethical hacker” who was confident he could find something on my ex-narcissist that I had not been able to.  Well, as he came back with information, I said, “Already knew that one” to which he replied, “You’re pretty good.” 

After my recent blog about the plethora of people who are engaged or married but still have an online dating profile, I got a private message from a friend on Facebook asking me to help her.  She thought a guy who she was dating was going on Plenty of Fish because she thought she saw the app open on his phone one day.  She wasn’t sure, but said he had been “acting different” and becoming distant so she thought he might be seeing other people.  Fake profile time, I told her.  I gave her permission to use my pictures (she lives an airplane ride away so he will never know) and told her to create a profile.  So let’s have some fun with this. 

The profile:  My name is Elizabeth, and I am a 33 year old special education teacher with one child.  I like camping, dancing and roller coasters, and I am “looking to meet someone who will constantly challenge me to be the best person I can be.”  BARF!!

So while my friend is off trying to catch a cheater, I thought I’d have some fun with my fake profile to offer yet another glimpse into the world of online dating.  First, a note to the guys who read this blog:  the competition is tough for you out there.  I am far from a supermodel, but in just 12 hours, my profile got 119 emails, 92 people checked that they wanted to Meet Me (a POF feature similar to the “wink” feature on Match that people use to flirt or let you know they’re interested), and 56 people added me as a Favorite.  This is exactly why I never lasted more than two weeks on POF when I did have a real profile.

I just checked the inbox last night and started reading profiles of people I will never meet and deleting some of the emails.  For every one I would delete, two more would come in.  The age range of potential dates from what I have looked at so far is HUGE – from 23 to 55 years old.  Obviously the best looking ones grab my attention first.  My plan is to be as silly and flirty as possible and just see where the conversations go. 

GUY TIP 1:  Be more original than just saying “hi”

Seriously, I got 119 emails in 12 hours!  You need to be more original. Write something witty, thoughtful, or fun to grab the girl’s attention.  Every other email I opened just said “hi” so I decided that for every email which only had that one word, I was going to respond with the word “low” to see how a guy would respond.  Here is an example of one conversation (LADIES, THIS GUY WAS SUPER CUTE).

I’m also having fun by bringing out my flirty side to see what it takes for a conversation to turn bad or inappropriate.  I posted on this topic last week in DEFENSE OF GUYS because sometimes girls ask for it and then complain when all men want is sex so I wanted to test the waters here.  Here is an example of one conversation below (A VERY CUTE ARMY CAPTAIN, LADIES).

Let me go sift through the POF rubble some more.  I hope to find something interesting to report back again here soon (and hopefully, it’s not a cheating boyfriend).

Playing it Forward: When Good Guys Go Bad

WARNING:  This blog is straight talk from the male point of view.  In fact, one of my male BFFs actually provided the name of the title because as he said, he is always “playing it forward and lining up the next one I can fuck.” 

Let me start by saying I have several very close male friends who tell me EVERYTHING.  If you have ever wanted to really understand TMI, then just listen to any conversation I have with my flock of male friends and you would get it.  They asked me to blog about THEM and their experiences so people can understand the male point of view.  This is the first in a series on the topic.  All names have been changed to protect the not-so innocent.

So my conversation today starts with Eric.  He is a 45 year old sales executive, a great father to two kids, and very handsome.  He looks much younger than his age. 

Eric lied about his age on his dating profile and was going on a date tonight.  He wanted to tell the girl his true age and didn’t know how to go about it so he texted me:  “I’m going on a date tonight and using you as a scapegoat about my age. I’m telling her you set up my POF profile and you set up the age because you said that I would be eliminated from searches if I put my real age.  So that way you’re the liar and I’m not so that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”  Ok…I tell him to just call me.

Age is not a big deal to me.  If I’m attracted to someone, then age doesn’t matter.  But I did come to realize that most guys under 35 cut their search off at 35.  And most guys over 45 start their search at 35 so most of the messages I received were from men over 50.  My confidence was starting to plummet as I didn’t understand why all I could get was a Grandpa so I trimmed a few years off my age and got much better results.  I did put a disclaimer in my profile about my real age at the end, however.  I actually found a lot of people lie about their age for the same reason as me, but hey, if you can, why not. 

So anyhow, back to Eric.  He called me on my way home from work tonight.  When I pick up the phone, he said, “I’m meeting this chic at Strega Steakhouse.  Is that expensive?”   I said, “Oh yeah, that’s a nice place” to which he responds, “Shit, I have a gold digger on my hands.  She better be hot.” 

We got into a conversation about why good guys go bad, and that’s when he told me I had to write this blog.  So why do they go bad?  He said to give a couple case examples from his experience of the last two girls he met online (now remember, this is the cold hard uncensored truth so if you can’t handle it, you might want to stop reading here).

Case 1:  36 year old single professional mother of two little girls.  First date: invites him to a friend’s party.  She gets completely wasted, and she asks him if he has any friends that would be willing to have a threesome because she is horny.  So he calls our mutual friend, Jay, who comes to her apartment.  You know what happens.  They send me a video clip of it in the morning (they do this often to piss me off).

Case 2:  33 year old single mom of one boy.  Works part-time in retail, lives with her parents.  Not a great catch, but as he said, she has a “not so great face, but a smoking body.”  First date: dinner then meet up with friends to see a live band.  Well one drink turns into another and then another.  Before he knows it, she is up on the dance floor making out passionately with one of his friends (including whipping his you know what out of his pants and stroking it with a hundred people around).  She then texted him the next day and called him a “fucking asshole” for letting his friend “molest” her on the dance floor. 

She claimed she had too much to drink and didn’t remember anything that happened and if he was any kind of man, he would have never let his friend treat her that way.  He was at my house when she was going off on him and it aggravated me so bad that she tried using the drunk card that I grabbed his phone and sent her a nasty message (as him and with his permission of course).  I basically told her she was a dirty slut and to grow up and take responsibility for her actions.  She ended up finding his friend that she was making out with on Facebook and having a one-night stand with him.

Wow, some real prizes, I say.  And I’m still single, WHY?  These same male friends tell me I’m still single because I am harsh and too quick to dismiss guys.  They say I need to put out more.  As Eric put it to me recently, “You need to find yourself a hot 28 year old.  I swear after you fuck the shit out of some young tiger, you are going to feel like king of the world.  Your confidence will go up and everything about you, the way you carry yourself, is different.  More guys will take notice then.  It’s just the way it is dude.”  (Note: they often refer to me as dude).

Ok, so let me get this straight.  They are encouraging me to become the same way as the girls they refer to as “hump and dumps.”  So maybe if I start banging guys in the back of my minivan on the first date, I might end up in a long-term relationship.  I need to re-think my approach I guess.  SERIOUSLY GUYS???

Part 2 of the debate coming soon…

Are You REALLY Single Like Your Online Profile Claims?

You’re on a dating site, but are you REALLY single?  Do you know how many people that are supposed to be in committed relationships actually have an online dating profile?  A LOT.

I am so disgusted today.  A good friend called me earlier, and she was completely mortified after finding out a guy she had started dating recently was still engaged to the mother of his child.  It made me so angry due to my own personal experience as well as for the thousands of men and women out there who are being had by someone they love and care about and don’t even know it.  What is WRONG with people?

My own personal experience was devastating when the person (I mean emotionally abusive narcissist) that I dated for over a year discarded me like yesterday’s trash without any rhyme or reason.  Just three weeks before the final discard, I had received a gift for Christmas which his young son was so excited to give to me.  He was so proud and told me that he had picked it out all by himself.  Inside was a beautiful card from the narc that read, “Thank you for being such a great person.  I’m so glad we met.  Merry Christmas, Sweetie.  XOXOXO”  Three weeks later, he sent me a picture of him out with his new woman and said, “Happy Birthday.” 

Wait, what happened?  Did I miss something?  No, you didn’t miss anything.  It’s simply just a true story to show how narcissists work.  They “start devaluing the partner while simultaneously idealizing ANOTHER potential partner.”  On New Year’s Eve, I got my “Happy New Year baby xoxo” and ten minutes later, he was on the other woman’s Facebook page commenting on pictures she had posted out with her sister, telling her how “yummy” and “stunning” she was. 

After the birthday incident, I reached out to the woman on Facebook to tell her what was going on, but at this point, it was too late.  She was already completely  enamored with him and had probably already slept with him.  He was probably telling her about me, his “crazy” ex, the whole time he was telling me how much he cared because the response I got from her when I sent her a message saying we were dating and I was just at his house: “You are a psycho.  I will call the cops and get a restraining order on you if you ever contact me again.”  It took something that drastic for me to finally wake up, realize I was dealing with the devil, and claw my way out of the abusive hell I was living. 

Now back to my friend.  She told me today that something about this guy wasn’t sitting right with her so she decided to go on and find his supposed “ex” on Facebook.  The woman had just posted a new profile picture recently and when she looked at the comments, she saw this guy had commented on the picture, “Looking beautiful as always.  I am so grateful that you are all mine.”  It was only TWO DAYS LATER that my friend had gone on her first date with him. 

My friend didn’t know what to do so she asked me if she should contact the woman on Facebook, and WITHOUT HESITATION, I said ABSOLUTELY YES!  So she did just that, and now we await the result.  I said to be prepared for drama, or in my case, I even got threatened to have the cops called on me. 

All I can think of is this poor woman out there who is engaged to this guy and thinks she is living an ideal life while her soon-to-be husband is on Tinder and dating other women.  DISGUSTING!

Girls AND guys:  I am 100% an advocate for stalking a person when something doesn’t seem right.  And I don’t mean stalking in the criminal sense.  I mean stalking in the sense of using Google, Facebook, and any other tools you have at your disposal to ensure someone is who they say they are.  And GOD FORBID you find out someone is in a relationship, or even worse they are engaged or married, PLEASE reach out and tell the person who is being cheated on.  They can choose to do what they want with the information.  BUT IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO.  In my case, I got threatened with a restraining order, but I have NO REGRETS.  I just hope the “other woman” in my case is smart enough to run away before she gets sucked into a tornado of lies and deceit and cheating and abuse.