As human beings, we all want love and companionship in our lives. It’s a basic human need, right up there with the needs for food, water and shelter. When we are lacking an intimate relationship, most of us try to fill the empty space. That leads to dating.
Here is what you need to know about dating and predators.
1. Evil exists.
What the evil is called—psychopath, sociopath, antisocial personality disorder, narcissist—really doesn’t matter. There are evil people out there, and they can be found in all segments of society—rich, poor, male, female, all races, all religions, all communities. They look like everyone else, but they are predators.
2. If you are dating, you are a target.
As an unattached person, you’re probably feeling a bit lonely—that’s why you’re looking for dates. This is natural and understandable. What you need to realize is that predators specialize in targeting lonely people. They know exactly how to find this vulnerability and exploit it by seeming to take the loneliness away. They shower you with attention, flatter you and promise you a lifetime of happiness—exactly what you’re looking for.
3. Meeting people on the Internet is extremely dangerous.
Yes, there are normal people on dating sites. But there are also predators, and communicating via the computer you do not have the tools you need to spot them. Most of the true meaning of conversation comes from nonverbal cues—voice, facial expression and body language. None of that is available in an e-mail. So what do you do? You fill in the missing pieces with your imagination, and the person becomes what you want him or her to be. You fall in love with a fantasy. For more information, see Internet Threat and Online Seduction on Lovefraud.com.
4. Predators are often charming.
If you meet someone who is glib, charismatic and has a quick answer to every question, be aware that these traits may indicate excellent social skills—or a psychopath. Pay close attention to what is actually being said. Are there gaps or inconsistencies? Is the person evasive? Does the person change plans or break promises—and always has an excuse? If you’re nodding your head, proceed with caution. For more information, see Key Symptoms on Lovefraud.com.
5. Watch for the pity play.
According to Martha Stout, author of The Sociopath Next Door, the best clue that you are dealing with a sociopath is an appeal to your sympathy. If you’re dealing with someone who tries to make you feel sorry for him or her, blaming other people or “the system” for his or her problems, consider it a warning that the person may be a sociopath. For more information, see The Pity Play on Lovefraud.com.
6. Predators are often great in bed.
Many people who were involved with sociopaths have told Lovefraud that the sex was amazing. Sociopaths are often skilled lovers for two reasons: First, with an excessive need for stimulation, they are hard-wired for sex. Second, they get a lot of practice, often with anyone who comes along. In reality, sociopaths want only two things: sex and power. They do not feel love.
7. Do not ignore red flags.
Maybe something seems wrong but you can’t put your finger on it. Perhaps there’s a nagging feeling in your gut. Pay attention. Do not let him or her explain away your doubts. Do not tell yourself he or she has gotten a raw deal and your love is the solution. To avoid becoming the victim of a predator, your instincts are your best defense.
Darwinsmom and Oxy, yes I can be supportive of my son without enabling. My son is NOT the sociopath of the two although I’ll be the first to admit that he does have some serious problems that I am fully aware of…mainly, alcohol abuse and the other being that he has very low self esteem which I believe is totally related to the fact that he had very high goals set for himself and then allowed girls and the alcohol to take control of his life. He started to finally wake up once he turned 30 and set new goals for himself and actually accomplished one of them which was to acquire a job that allowed him to use his intelligence. He even talked about the fact that he knew he had to cut back on his drinking in order to make it to work on time, be alert and focus on his tasks while he was there. I believe that he HAS cut back on his drinking but he really needs to stop altogether. Apparently, he exceeded his employer’s expectations because he was hired as a temp and 3 months later hired as a permanent employee, promoted into a higher position and received a nice pay increase all in the SAME day. And, all of this happened during the time when, according to her, that he was totally strung out on opiates AND alcohol. Another goal was that he wanted to meet a girl that had her head on straight and wanted to settle into family life. He expressed a strong desire to become someone that had something to offer a girl like this and openly stated that he knew he was never going to get a decent girl until he became a decent man. I felt he was FINALLY growing up! He pretty much lived from day to day throughout his late teens and 20s without giving the future any consideration. I fear that he may have been too eager to accomplish everything at once…he’s always been very impatient! I also fear that he expressed his desires to the WRONG girl because she talked a really good talk in the beginning but before he or the rest of the family got to observe how she WALKED, she was pregnant!
I’m still not sure if my son has actually developed a second substance abuse problem. All I know for SURE is that SHE has had a long time problem with pills and is definitely in treatment. He claims that he, too, is in treatment for the same and that the medication is also supposed to help with his cravings for alcohol. My husband, my son’s stepfather, firmly believes that my son does not have a pill problem as he has witnessed serious opiate addictions through two nephews which died as a direct result of the addictions. He says that my son just does not fit the profile but the girl certainly does. He also believes that my son is lying about being in treatment because he feels that if he’s as guilty as his girlfriend, then I can’t condemn her and NOT him if he is guilty of the same thing. My son tends to have the “fix-it” nature that I once had as well as a little too much empathy. I learned to proceed with caution with these things after my 8 year marriage to my ex spath.
I love my son unconditionally and he is fully aware of this. He knows that he’s always been able to count on me for emotional support NO MATTER WHAT. Another reason that I can’t understand why, if he needed help with getting treatment for an opiate addiction, that he was NOT approaching me himself. And, the fact that she has banned him from talking to my husband and me and taken great strides in attempt to prevent our communicating leads me to believe that he is not aware of all the things she has told us and/or she fears that I am going to tell him what I’ve learned about her history. I am his mother and she sees me as a threat because he has openly expressed to her in my presence that I am the “world’s greatest mom!” Oh, geez…for her, that meant someone easily taken advantage of while he based his statement on nurturing, strength, protecting, discipline, LOVE…all the things that normal mothers do instinctively.
And, yes, I had to accept years ago that my son was making his own choices and that I certainly couldn’t make him find a clearer sense of direction or stop drinking in excess and preferably not drink at all. However, my greatest fear is that he has fallen victim to a sociopath. I considered myself a fairly intelligent woman with a lot of life experience yet I feel victim to a sociopath that I believed to be the best husband in the world for 8 years…until he took his mask off…his didn’t even slip…he just removed it one day and proudly exposed himself to me when he had used me up emotionally and financially. My son’s situation just feels all too familiar to me.
Hey Tami,
I haven’t read your whole story, but the one thing that stood out was when you said your son can count on you for emotional support “no matter what”. Now, I’m no psychologist or genius, but the idea of giving someone emotional support to someone without boundaries or expectations sounds really dangerous to me.
I wouldn’t give emotional support/financial support to someone who did drugs, drank alcohol, lied, and allowed themselves to do otherwise wrong things. It’s not that I would stop loving them, only that I would have better expectations for them, and would want to surround myself with better things, as well.
I know that it has to be hard doing this with a child, but I have a firm belief that sometimes people have to hit “rock bottom” in their lives to really get better. Life (or God) has a great rehabilitation treatment program built into life, and I think when you let go of your control, distance yourself, and stop enabling someone, that rehab program kicks in 🙂 You just have to see outside of your own want to control and protect.
That’s not what I meant. I meant that I’ve always encouraged him to talk to me about ANYTHING from the time he was small. And, he has never failed to do that no matter how difficult or uncomfortable the topic might be for him or for me.I pretty much raised him alone. His father was sickly and died when he was 13 so I pretty much had to play the role of a mother and a father to him. I can see how my statement confused you.
Basically, I was trying to make the point that if my son had a drug problem and had expressed that he needed MY help to his girlfriend…he shouldn’t have had a problem in coming to me himself and asking for my help. He knows exactly how I would have handled it. Yes, I would have helped or even paid for his treatment but I wouldn’t have given HIM the money and he knows that. I would have paid the treatment center directly and made sure that he followed through. She kept telling me that he wanted me to help him but wouldn’t allow me to speak with him nor tell me anything about the treatment program. In a nutshell, she was asking me to “trust HER, shut up..don’t ask any questions and give me your money!” My son was NOT involved in asking for my help at all. Her father told me that she was doing what she had always done…after drug money for herself or possibly treatment money since her ob/gyn had discovered the drugs in her system. He ex-mother-in-law told me that she called them constantly asking for money claiming that their son was using drugs or doing this or that with the grocery money, etc. and that she really wanted drug money for herself. Actually, the ex-mother-in-law told me that I could pretty much assume that anything she told me that my son was doing was really what SHE was doing. This girl was only divorced from her son around 6 months before my son got involved with her. And, the girl’s own father told me the same thing as well as multiple other people.
Sorry to hear, Tami. And, thanks for explaining.
A cousin of mine was a victim of a guy (likely a narcissist) who used her for drug money. She came from a upper-middle class family, and had low self-esteem. My cousin also got involved in drugs, started stealing money from her parents, setting the boyfriend up to live in her father’s apartment when he was away for long periods, and just doing anything possible to continue the relationship with this guy.
Her parents also tried to set her up in rehab, but she only came back to town, and got back together with the guy. The rehab program was thousands of dollars, I’m sure. And, my cousin just continued on with drugs for a span of 10 years.
I hope you don’t let yourself get used for money or sympathy by people who are choosing actively to get in trouble. You should take care of yourself!
Nope, nobody’s getting my money! Not even my son! I don’t really think my son is even in love with this girl. He just knows that she’s pregnant, says the baby is his and feels that he needs to stand by her. The baby is due in early February. I think once it’s born and he sees the kind of the mother this gal is going to be, he’ll snap out of it. She used through 5 months of her pregnancy and dodged doctor’s appointments and ultrasounds the entire 5 months. She wouldn’t be in treatment right now if her doc hadn’t of found drugs in her system and told her what the consequences for HER would be if she didn’t get into treatment. The more I reflect about it, the more I don’t think my son realized the full extent of what was going on. He seemed totally shocked when they were getting evicted and really stressed about it. He didn’t ask me for money, though. He said he’d found another apartment and the landlord said she would work with him over the next two weeks while he got the deposit and first month’s rent together, And, he did this with his paychecks. Also, the gf was taking Paxil at the time when she first got pregnant…she was switched to Prozac because it’s supposed to be a little safer. I just recalled him telling me that she complained about the Prozac and told him she was just going to take her chances with the Paxil. He told me that he flushed the remaining Paxil that she had down the toilet because he knew she didn’t have any refills and her doc wouldn’t prescribe her any more while she was pregnant. I just smell a RAT…a big stinky one.
Prescription pills are such a nasty addiction. I’ve know people that have been addicted for years… It’s amazing how bad the problem really is… It’s also really scary when people mix them with other drugs.
Many people don’t know that mixing opiates and anti-depressants can kill you.
In many ways the drama and stress of having to survive short term creates a veil for the victim, I think, Tami. You end up being so focused on the drama, you lose sight of the big story.
Tami,
I think you need to go NC with both. Do it as an experiment. You will see that some amazing things reveal themselves. Meanwhile, read “the Mask of Sanity” by Hervey Cleckley. You will see parallels.
You see, spaths don’t actually want your money. They only want what you most value. And they don’t want to keep it. They want to stomp on it in front of your face, just to see you suffer.
Ask yourself, what do you most value? And then ask yourself, who has control of that? And then ask, what are they doing with that control?
When you find yourself on a seesaw of emotions because things go well and then badly. When your hopes are raised and dashed repeatedly. You need to ask yourself, WTF?
Then you need to disconnect from anyone who causes drama in your life and work on YOU and determine how YOU can become a better you. That’s the only person you have to love unconditionally, YOU.
Skylar, darwinsmom and purewater,
If my son chooses to stay with this girl, I think I will eventually have to go NC with both. Right now, it’s a little hard for me to just ignore my only child when he pops up on his computer at work just to say hello, ask me how I am or poke a playful joke at me. I know he is really struggling to maintain a relationship with me without having to deal with her wrath. At the same time, I am deeply annoyed that he has to sneak to talk to me and that he has allowed her to have as much control over his life as he has but I, too, was once snagged and under the control of an spath. I also struggle with what an exciting time this SHOULD be in our lives with the first grandchild on the way…even if I suspect that the baby isn’t his…only a DNA test would determine that for sure. I am also being pressured by other family members to GET MY SON AWAY from this girl. I know better than to even try. For now, as far as my son knows, I’m fine with her. After all, my husband and I are ONLY guilty of one thing and that is telling her in a very polite manner that we could not give her any more money. And, oh yes, I DID call her father to confirm whether or not HE was going to pay for my son’s treatment. I am my son’s next of kin and have every right to do that. So, yes, I am also guilty of catching her in a lie.
But, I know that I will NEVER be able to deal with this girl. There’s just NO way. This is certainly not the FIRST girlfriend that he’s had that I wasn’t impressed with but I could always tolerate them. They were just young girls trying to make a statement by struggling to be unique. My son married the girl that when he was 26 that he dated from the time he was 18. They have been divorced about two years now…separated for a year prior to the divorce. This is really his first serious relationship after the divorce and she has already done enough damage that she is way beyond my tolerance. She is also following just a little too closely behind my own experience with an spath and I KNOW she, too, is one. I have NO doubts. I was filled with rage for a very long time after my own experience. As a mother and a victim of a sociopath, I do NOT need to witness her stomping on my son or the baby that is supposedly my grandchild. I’m afraid that I could not contain my rage. I want to handle the situation properly instead of relying on how I, as a Tennessee farm girl, was taught to handle bullies when I was growing up.
There’s two things that have always brought out an anger in me that I cannot control and that’s if someone intentionally hurts my kid or my dog. I grow fangs and talons and sprout horns in a split second. Maybe I should go back to my therapist!
Actually, revisiting your therapist may be of great help for you. I’m sure it gets you all knot up, anxious and triggers past feelings and experiences of the ex-spath of yours.