A Letter to the Narcissist – No. 46

To the Mid Range Narc:

I recall meeting you on line , on a dating website six years ago. You didn’t attract me physically but your profile was written so beautifully. You eluded to Punch Drunk Love as one of your favorite films, which happened to have been one of mine. You cast the net by signaling that I was on your “favorite” list. I took the bait. It wasn’t long before we had a super hot sexual exchange on line.  It seemed as if you knew me better than I knew myself.  I put you off for a long time after that until I agreed to meet you in person.  When deciding upon a place , you suggested a cafe in my neighborhood because it was the same one where a famous marriage proposal in a film took place — I can’t recall the film anymore.  I thought that was very presumptive at the time. It seemed way too early to even make a joke like that. I ignored that  red flag.

Eventually we met. I gave you a second chance on a second date to make sure that I wasn’t dismissing you too soon.  You were so attentive and wanted to see me again so badly that I felt I should be more open minded.  I was troubled by your sobriety , your admission to having major food allergies that prevented you from eating almost anything at all. You made sure I knew that you scored extremely high on some intellectual test that made you superior to most, cerebrally. You lived far from me and drove a Harley. I was a single mother who was very social with lots of friends.  Safety was important.  Socializing and sharing meals were a part of my life that I didn’t want to give up. And the drinking issue was odd. I didn’t know any alcoholics and though you seemed very calm and didn’t dwell on it, it was foreign to me.  It wasn’t until later that I would learn that you lived with a room mate which shocked me at your age of 46 at that time but you had an excuse for that, too.  You just didn’t reveal that right away.  Another red flag. Your ex was obsessed with you on Facebook and kept liking all your posts and even posts of people that she didn’t know but  seen you had liked. Another red flag. I didn’t even feel comfortable being a Facebook friend of yours and once I did you used it as a weapon either in your silent treatments by blocking me or as a  way to let me know you were showing interest in others and make me jealous.  We only spent our time in your room having wild and passionate sexual rendez vous. I never met your friends.  Another red flag. We rarely went out and when we did it was a nightmare due to the food issues you had. You bombed with me text messages and links to songs. You never let up. I had to go to China on a business trip once we were  about 4 months in and while I was there I had space. I came back and broke up with you. Immediately you went crazy. Slept with someone else and told me about it. I was brain washed by then and kept going back to you only for matters to grow worse.  You didn’t tell me about your illegitimate grown son until a year later.  You kept dredging up old girlfriends and would give me silent treatments when I needed you the  most as I begged and pleaded for you to be with me.  You would disappear and say it was because you fell asleep. Your phone died. You lost your phone. You were watching a movie. You were obsessed with a video game.  You started drinking again. You tried to quit and blamed me. I  went to Alonon meetings to try to understand but that wasn’t enough for you. Finally after 5 years of the ongoing torture and passionate make up sex  you sent me photos of a girl 30 years younger than you and exclaimed she was your new girlfriend.  You also did things like lose a job every 6 months. You would grow out your beard and let your hygiene go so you would appear to look like a crazy man.   As you dove into that relationship which had been going on for a while you continued to write and either devalue me horribly , calling me horrible names or claim that you loved me so much and begged me to hang in and trust that you were going to end things with her once the time was right.  I began to lose my mind.  I finally wrote to your girlfriend and shared screen shots of your love-notes to try to make her leave you but you painted me as a crazy person and convinced her to stay every time.

There are way too many painful incidences to list in this letter.

You constantly blamed me for all of it.  It was true; I tried to leave on many occasions.  I knew something was off. Every time I left you , you would lash out at me.  When I came back,  you would go back to being a cold hearted person but say that  you were 100% committed.   You always said lots of things but never acted on any of it. I wasn’t allowed to speak of the women particularly the most recent.  The drama was too much for you and caused you to drink , you would say. We would never move forward if I kept bringing up the past you would insist.   The anger and hurt would build up inside me.

I do have some good memories.  The sex.  The sex and the sex.  You showed up to help me when I got too drunk at my company Christmas party.  You showed up when I got food poisoning at a friends house and couldn’ t make it home alone.  You showed up when I had a mouse.  You gave me beautiful jewelry.  You wrote poems. You made me feel sexy and beautiful.  But I now see how you manipulated me and I’ve learned that it was all fake.

You dismissed me without empathy when I called to say that my apartment  building had caught fire and was uninhabitable.  You were off with a new woman when there was a hurricane in our city and I was scared to be alone.  You crashed your bike and got arrested after leaving my house drunk.  You lied about women who would call you when we had just made love.  You used names for me like bitch, whore, skank, and slut constantly.

Still, to this day, I check my email box 100 times a day. I look to see if you’re re-posting my music.  I think about who you are with.  I wonder about the lies you are re-telling.  I politely answer your emails only to see you disappear once you get my reply because I know you’re just checking to see if I will answer you.

Last time I saw you you made me sick. I left the table and walked out.  I told you that I finally slept with someone for the first time since we met.  You were jealous and it made me happy to know that you were upset.   I graphically described it because I wanted to dig that knife deeply into you after all of the women I have shared you with over the course of the past 6 years.

And still.  Every day.  I check for you.