Internet Dating

He makes you laugh. Not just a giggle, but the kind of soul-shaking laugh that releases those good feeling endorphins. The words he says make your body feel like it’s floating. How does he know the
exact words you want to hear?? His words are healing, profound even. Finally, a man that knows how
to connect emotionally with a woman!

You have looked all your life for him. You’ve lived with frustration, depression, loneliness. But all that
is finally over…life is good. You knew if you waited long enough, he would appear. You’ve finally
found your Prince Charming.

It was worth waiting for. It was worth going through every profile on that dating site. Most profiles of
the men mention “living life to the fullest” and “working hard and playing hard.” Sports is always
mentioned. The profiles begin to run together, to sound the same. Then you spot one that is intriguing because of something special they say, something that sets them apart. It might say something about knowing how to treat a woman like a lady, or something dreamy like he wants to look into your eyes and see the love reflecting back toward him. And always, he is physically attractive.

You remember your first encounters with him. He was sweet and thoughtful. Respectful. He told you
that you are beautiful. More importantly, he made you FEEL beautiful. He said he was surprised by
how quickly he was falling in love with you. He even removed his profile from the dating site already;
said he has found what he has been looking for all his life. He is interested in you….he asks lots of
questions about you, your likes and dislikes, about your family and your schedule. He wants to know
every detail about you and your life…..what kind of work you do, if you live alone, have many close
friends… He may ask some questions that seem a little odd, such as “Do you let others influence you?”

He wants you to send him several pictures of yourself. He likes to be intimate; for example, he wants
to chat on Yahoo IM because the dating site chat engine “is too slow” or doesn’t feel intimate enough for the two of you. But he can never webcam or facetime, and you accept the excuses he gives you because of the way he makes you feel. He is thoughtful…he frequently texts you to find out how your day is going, or simply to say “thinking of you.”

He sends you songs from youtube that describe your unique love perfectly. The two of you make plans to go to a concert of that music artist/group. He makes many promises about the days that lay ahead of the two of you. He says others can’t understand the special love the two of you share. He dreams of being with you constantly. He says you touch his soul like no other woman ever has. YOU ARE SPECIAL TO HIM.

Finally you make plans to meet. Your anticipation is sky high. And then…. there’s an accident. Or a
sudden change of plans. He needs your help. The man who hasn’t left your thoughts for weeks is in
desperate need…. All he needs is a little extra money to get a different flight home to make it in time for your birthday. He was going to surprise you, but then an accident happened and he had to retain legal counsel and spent all the cash he had available. He will get more money of course, when he gets paid again and he promises to pay you back every penny, including interest. Every last cent. He wouldn’t ask, but he has no where else to turn to.

His parents are deceased. He has no siblings. His ex wife cheated on him (maybe even with his best friend), so he has been too jaded to make new friends or to let anyone else close. He is a private contractor and won’t get paid until the job is completed. Oh, but when he gets paid, the two of you will be set for life !! Everything he is doing, he is doing for the future of both of you. You deserve the best of everything, he says….he wants you to have the very best. So, he just needs a little cash—relatively speaking– to get through this crisis, and then at long last you will be together. Forever. It will all be worth it.

He will likely live in the United States, but be on a job out of the country at the moment…popular
locations include Dubai, Africa, London.

He has a mental illness called Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). You may not recognize the way
it is described at first, but if you are able to chip away some of the denial you are in, you will be able to see him with new eyes. NPD carries the following traits ( he only has to have 5 out of the 9 to qualify for this condition) :

*an exaggerated view of himself, his work, his importance, his looks ( he has an expectation
that you will accept what he tells you without question, even though one may think his
bragging could possibly be “a little over the top” or seem a little excessive )

*is consumed by ideas of extreme success/ power/ brilliance and/or ideal love
( no one else appreciates him fully for what he does, or others don’t recognize
what they have in him as an employee or a mate. Or, no one else can understand
the kind of special love the two of you have )

*Believes he is special and unique, and talks about frequently associating with others who are
extremely intelligent ( “name drops,” or, it takes special people to understand him )

*Requires excessive admiration ( his need is endless, and even though you bragged on him
yesterday, or have repeatedly expressed your undying love for him, today is a new
day and he needs it again )

*Feels he is entitled to have what he wants ( favorable treatment from others )

*Takes advantage of others to get what he wants (if you are still in denial about this one,
can you image treating a friend or coworker the way he has treated someone–
including you ??

*Lacks empathy ( he is unable to put himself in someone else’s shoes, or understand why
someone reacted the way they did even though it seems reasonable to you, given
the circumstances )

*Believe others are envious of him, and/or he is envious of others ( he can’t believe so-and-so
got the promotion instead of him )

*He is arrogant ( self-righteous or better-than-others attitude )

Those are the official 9 criterion to meet the diagnosis for NPD. Here are some other common traits.
He “teases” that you are the lucky one in your relationship to have him. Conversely, he may insist he
can’t live without you. What he can’t live without is the money you are sending him. I have been
reassured by many people– both men and women– that men without this mental illness do NOT ask
their women for money. It goes against everything they have been taught in society. It injures their
frail ego…. this is death to a man.

This predator makes his living off of people like you. The biggest lie you tell yourself is “he wouldn’t
do that to me,” “he’s not like that,” and even worse “He loves me, we’re in this together, we are a team, it’s me & him against the world.” This predator does not feel love like you and I do. His brain is not wired like your/my brain is wired. He does not feel feelings in the same way you and I feel feelings.

Rest assured, he can TALK like it, and convince you that he has deep feelings and loves you. But by
the very nature of this mental illness, he is unable to experience normal feelings and thoughts. It isn’t that he won’t….he can’t. He is unable, in an organic sense. His brain does not have the ability. I
understand that this concept is difficult to grasp. I understand that you think it could never happen to you. If you are reading this, you already suspect it is happening to you. I know these things because I was caught in the same poisonous trap you are caught in. I was under his spell. I put my life on hold for almost a year because he knew how to manipulate me. He knew that all I wanted was to be loved and accepted for who I am. Perhaps that is your “hook” or weak spot also.

Whatever your need is that has never been met, is what he uses. And he is masterful at this. You don’t even realize that you are being manipulated. You see, I am an educated woman. I am independent, caring, compassionate. I love other people. I love helping other people. I feel my feelings deeply. I can feel or greatly imagine what other people feel. I am a huge dog/ animal lover. And I am a practicing clinician…a psychotherapist. Yes, that’s right. I never would have believed that another person could pull the wool over my eyes like he did. I have been trained to observe others and to take notice of disparages between what people say and what they show me, either in body language (he of course has the advantage here if he is not in the States at this time—very convenient), or inflections in their voice or the way they respond. However, looking back on my experience, I can say nothing seemed to be out of place or be a “red flag” to me, initially. He had a perfectly believable answer for every question or concern I expressed. But as time went on, and he disappointed me over and over again by missing holidays or my birthday (oh by the way, he said he still has my birthday present…lol), I began to suspect he was not telling me the truth. Upon hiring M.J., he discovered that my special one was not who he said he was at all. He wasn’t where he said he was, and he wasn’t doing what he said he was doing. “Joseph” was sending texts and emails and songs to other women and he lives in an adjacent state to where I live !! By the way, did you ever wonder why you received so many “duplicate” texts messages?

I was extremely embarrassed and ashamed and I was afraid to tell anyone. I didn’t know how to get out of the spell he had me under. I began by doing massive research about online dating scams and NPD, and I strongly encourage you to do the same thing. You should investigate it for yourself. Look at a book by Sam Vaknin called Malignant Love. Visit a website called narcissismfree.com ….it’s one of the best I discovered.

The obvious question in your mind is how to recover from it. I can only tell you what worked for me.
You must determine your own path. I would kindly ask you to keep an open mind as I describe to you what I did to heal…. I became educated on the subjects mentioned above. I allowed myself to feel every feeling that came my way. Its an understatement to say I was deeply hurt…excruciating sadness that felt like daggers in my heart and soul, disbelief, shock, denial, anger. And I’d go through all those feelings over and over again. So much sadness and anger and confusion and disbelief.

Finally, I began to develop compassion and forgiveness for myself, with the help of a wonderful therapist who was an expert on this topic. I was finally able to cut off all contact with Joseph…that was the hardest part because he was my drug; he made life worth living for me. For some time, I wanted to regain the money I had lost…I had sent him about $50,000 total. Unbelievable, even to myself. But once I began to realize the depth of emotional damage I had incurred, I began to focus on the need to heal. And at this point, knowledge and support allowed me to reclaim my power. I began to have thoughts I never thought I could have for him…I wanted him to hurt so badly. I wanted him to suffer. I learned there was only one way to hurt him, and that was by cutting off his supply of the love I had been reflecting to him everyday and by not sending him anymore money, both equally important to him.

You will learn more about this as you research it. I cannot express the level of healing it gave me. I
understood why he needed to send me money but I never understood how cutting off the supply of
mirroring that he needed could be so healing to me. I never could have imagined the impact that action could have on my healing. I watched him suffer from my complete lack of response to his texts, phone calls, and emails. I was reminded of the childhood thing we all did of pouring salt on a snail and seeing it wither and die. Some of the words he said after I cut off all contact (I did not get a new phone number or block him immediately), were a shock to me. I began to see that the only thing that would make him suffer was no contact. None. It was one of the best things I ever did for myself.

Do I ever miss “Joseph?” That’s a trick question….. No, I don’t miss Joseph because Joseph is not his
real name. Joseph is a ghost. But yes, sometimes I miss the IMAGE IN MY MIND THAT I THOUGHT WAS JOSEPH. That image exists in only one place in the whole universe and beyond… in my mind. The predator that helped me build that image in my mind is like the Wizard of Oz. In that  story, the Wizard is able to do things for people that no one else can do….impart a new heart, hope,  healing, grant a wish. But the Wizard hid behind a curtain. He was a fake. It was not real. Every word  was a lie. It was a fictional story. And my Joseph is not real, except in my mind. And your “Joseph”  is not real either. And for all of us, I grieve.

Today I am able to love again. I am in a healthy relationship with a man who knows what love is and
how to connect emotionally with me. I laugh again. I look forward to tomorrow again.

In my private practice, I work with numerous women who are caught in unhealthy relationships. When I think it can educate or help heal one of my clients, I self-disclose some of my experiences. My hope for each of you is that you allow yourself the freedom to begin to research the things I have referred to and have enough courage to enter therapy to explore your options….

Stella Savage

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