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.
Excuse me…forgot that I was on the world-wide web. I should have said the country in which I reside which is the US!
tami:
Well, I just turned 48 so I am not young, but even so, I think even the older men crave that drama somehow. I think it makes people feel alive.
My husband and I are about to turn 52 and enjoy a nice, quiet, peaceful little life but other people’s drama is going to be the death of us! I’m not even sure if I can call what we are experiencing DRAMA, if feels more like INSANITY!
Tami,
Your situation with your disordered mom reminds me of mine…only child, and the P honing in on her possessions, just like she did on the aunt—drugging the aunt etc. my x DIL and the Trojan Horse did that too my egg donor, and the drugging (with prescribed medications) apparently continued up until the day they were arrested….the getting signature authority on her checking accounts, over her personal papers and so on….and actually the only thing that kept her ALIVE was that if she died before I did they along with my P son would have been cut out of the estate….so all they could steal was what she had, and they got a chunk of that, $24,000.
My egg donor doesn’t realize that she is in danger the minute they get me….and she continues to FEED THE TROLL,, my son Patrick.
As for my NON-psychopathic son, he is a follower, and he will allow his moral compass to be SPUN in exchange for attention and approval from who ever is leading him. He doesn’t have the loyalty to me that he should have, or the gratitude, and is easily led off down the track of “let’s all persecute mom who is a biatch.”
Now, when this plan blows up in their face and they go to jail/prison and what mom said turned out to be a prophecy, it is all remorse and repenting—for a while until he gets back on his financial feet again and feels “secure.” Of course he isn’t really secure, just has enough cash to buy some expensive toy, but then when his car breaks down or he needs something on that order, there is NO MONEY TO FIX IT. He never connects that to the fact that when he had thousands of dollars in savings, that he spent it on TOYS he could well have done without.
I used to have people come into the health clinic without any insurance for themselves or their kids, which they said “I can’t afford” but they had a $40,000 bass boat and a $50,000 pick up truck to pull it with, and a big RV camper to park at the lake as well. Of course they couldn’t afford insurance, they were paying every last dime every month on their TOYS and they used to get mad at us if we sent their bills to collection…..and no other physician or clinic in the 3-county area would take them as a patient because they hadn’t paid their bills there either.
Frankly, Tami, I think you mother is in danger of dying from a drug over dose or a fall as long as your son is in her will or there is something that the P woman wants…she won’t be satisfied with chests for long if she thinks there is money involved just “waiting for the old bat to die.” If something happens to your mother I sincerely suggest that YOU as her only child get an autopsy done and report the “motive” of the P woman to the police, citing the problems with the previous old lady that she took care of and the missing money out of the bank account. Since the P woman had authority to sign it wasn’t ILLEGAL but–BUT it shows her greed and intent.
If your mom has a stroke or whatever happens so that she is NOT COMPETENT**, YOU need to step in and get a power of attorney and put her into a care home so the P woman can’t see her or even get near her.
** The term “NOT COMPETENT” means that she is legally incompetent, which means that she is NOT oriented to time, place, person, doesn’t know the president, or governor etc. and it is actually pretty “far gone” before someone can be declared incompetent.
Just “lacking judgment” is not necessarily incompetent in the eyes of the law, and lack of good judgment in taking care of yourself for neglecting yourself is not enough.
One of the FIRST signs of senility though is that the person cannot distinguish sarcasm or tell an OBVIOUS lie….and they are easily led and sometimes very paranoid that people are trying to control them….unfortunately the people who ARE trying to control them usually convince them that the people who are trying to protect them are “bad.” And they fall for it hook line and sinker!
Coping, Sky and Star, are u around? I have my post about karma for you:
Different buddhist traditions will all approach it a bit differently; and Coping, like all people who identify as ‘Christians’ you can’t believe everything you hear a ‘Buddhist’ say.
I am going to use a lot of quotation marks to denote that the words I am using are relative, and that other words may be used in longer explanations.
Myunderstanding of Karma, from the perspective of studying in the Diamond Way Karma Kagyu Tibetan lineage is as follows:
What we ’are’ as unenlightened beings (most beings everywhere) is ’Buddha nature’ and karma. Buddha nature is our ’essence.’ It is considered to have no origination and has existed since beginningless time. We are accruing karma and carrying it forward, and it is propelling us forward over many lifetimes (reincarnation).
As sentient beings we ’think’ and ’do’ things. This is how we accrue karma. ’Karma’ simply defined is ’cause and effect’. We are constantly accruing karma ”“ through both ’negative’ and ’positive’ thoughts and actions ”“ it’s a never ending cycle (samsara) until we (through Buddhist study and meditation) chop away at the existent ’negative’ karma, create enough ’positive’ impressions in our minds* (our ’Buddha nature’/ essence) to stop creating ’negative’ karma; reach the different levels of realization and then enlightenment. At the time we reach enlightenment, we are no longer propelled from life to life by our karma, as we have burnt it all away and are no longer creating neg or pos karma; we choose, as Buddhas or Bodhisattvas to reincarnate to help all beings. (*BTW when Buddhists say mind, they point to their hearts.)
Secularly, we misuse the concept of karma: we think it means what we do today (and we are usually referring to the more negative things beings do) will have an effect tomorrow”in this lifetime. Thing is, accepting the tenets of reincarnation and Karma as understood in Buddhism means that actions we did lifetimes ago are playing out in our lives today. My lama laughed at the idea of a person with so little karma that they would be living out the effect of what they did in this lifetime.
What karma we accumulate depends on what our thoughts and actions are, and how we feel about them. For a clear, albeit extreme example: thinking about and planning to kill someone, killing someone and feeling happy about it is very bad karma; whereas accidently taking someone’s life and feeling great remorse about it still accrues the negative karma of taking a life, but it isn’t as severe. Oddly enough, planning to kill someone, etc. and having someone else do it doesn’t accrue as negative a karma. (Didn’t say I believe/ agree with all of this. Personally I think we learn more about life and our own responsibility on this planet by killing our own meat than buying something wrapped in plastic at the store.)
I will post this and please ask any questions you have.
The message from my root Lama, that made it’s way to me the other night is below. My question was ‘what is a spath.’ they clearly are here in human form, but what are they in Buddhist cosmology? Given that his main activity as a lama is as a ‘protector’, his #1 response response was to be expected. 🙂
1. Stay away, far away.
2. They are beings from a hell realm (this I suspected. Btw Buddhism has several complex horrible hells.)
3. ”and this one I LOVED, ’cause he SO knew what he was talking about: ’to deal with a spath you have to be like a bullfighter: you stand with your red cape, he rushes at you, you move the cape, he hits the wall!’ The Lama ROCKS!
One,
thank you for explaining Karma. I can see how the “impressions” would change how a person perceives the world. For example, spaths are pathological liars and they are also cowards. It feels to me that their lies create a feeling of fear within them, because most people don’t lie unless they have something to fear. I think each time they lie, they reinforce the idea that they need to lie and their paranoia increases. On the other hand I may be reading too much into that – I just can’t imagine lying so much and it not affecting me.
I love your Lama’s advice, it’s perfect: Stay away, they are in hell, and give them false information so they can beat their heads against a wall.
One ~
I found your explanation of Karma and Buddhism very interesting and thought provoking. “move the cape, he hits the wall.” That needs to be a slogan!!!!
Thank you for taking the time to explain.
Sky – you are right about what happens with the negativity.
i had always thought of anger coming from fear (protective) – well, in my life it did. but in buddhism anger is considered to be self arising and LEADING to fear. I have experience of that now with the PTSD (but really that was created by great fear too.)
In buddhism there are considered to be five disturbing emotions (anger, pride, jealousy, attachment (the one humans are most know for in general and ignorance) and 84,000 combinations of these five.
gotta go….
yah milo – this remark told me he really understands what a spath is – the old spath back move!
Hello Everyone,
Well, I went NC with my son for about a week and have certainly been NC with his junkie pregnant gf. Going NC with my son was very helpful and I plan to continue to do that. It has helped me get his mess off my mind and I’ve been able to focus on other aspects of my life that needed attention…including hosting two huge family holiday dinners over the weekend…one on Saturday and the other on Sunday. Whew! A lot of cleaning, decorating and prep work but well worth it.
However, I received a text from my son on Friday that he had sent from his work computer…the gf will not allow him to have a cell phone for fear that he will talk to me. In the text, he asked me if I could sign into my Google account so we could chat. I deleted the account a week before so I set up another one…thinking maybe, just maybe he had came to his senses. I shot him a quick IM telling him that I was leaving and would not be back for a couple of hours but we could chat then. I didn’t even wait on his response…just signed back out. I sent him an IM when I returned and asked him what he needed (he never contacts me unless he wants something any way). He asked me how I was and I answered “fine” and told him that I had been busy prepping for the family dinners. I then asked him how he was and did not get a reply. He later popped back up and informed me that he was really worried about ME. I told him the feeling was mutual but I was just fine and that he needed to focus on his own situation. He informed me that he had never known me to be “wound so tight” or “overly dramatic” before! I told him that I guessed that he was right because I had never been faced with having my son in a position where he had to sneak to talk to me, been told by a pregnant gf that I would never see my first grandchild because I refused to provide her with drug money, nor the worry about what damage may have been done to the baby, as well as my mother refusing to answer my calls due to his gf’s lies. I then, reminded him that it was also Christmas which our family has always set aside some time to spend together. This seemed to go right over his head.
He asked me why I just couldn’t be happy for him and told me that he was “stable” now. I told him I was very happy to hear that he was stable although I have NO clue as to what he was talking about. I told him that I needed to go to finish preparing for the dinners. He then called my husband to ask what was wrong with ME and to express how concerned he was about MY stability. My husband told him if he was so concerned that he needed to come down ALONE and talk to me in person and even told him that he would pay for his gas to get here and told him that he would leave in order to give us some time alone. My son said he would do that late Saturday afternoon after the first dinner was over. Needless to say, he was a no show…never heard a word from him and still haven’t heard from him. I will not contact him again…not even if he asks me to. I suppose that he would have enough sense to to inform me if he needed to talk to me due to an emergency situation that involved himself or my mother or stepfather. That’s the ONLY contact from him that I will respond to. I now realize that he only contacted me just to make sure that I WOULD talk to him…I am his ace in the hole…his backup plan for when things blow with the spath gf…and he was just feeling me out trying to make sure that I haven’t written him off. He is still the same scared little boy he has always been and is fully aware that he is in a situation WAY over his head and he’s been banned from mom to even seek advice from. He should have grown up years ago and I shouldn’t have protected him from the big bad wolves. However, he’s observed enough of my dealing with them, that he should have learned something so he’s on his own with this one. He never mentioned a word about the pregnant spath nor about the baby. Only that HE was stable. So, good for him! He MIGHT very well be stable but he is certainly in a very unstable situation.
My week started off well yesterday and I have plans for the remainder of the week and for the upcoming weekend. I’m back on track. I am now living my life for myself.