Two recent news items about life in today’s digital age caught my attention:
News item #1
Recent studies of more than 11,000 people revealed that one in six marriages are now between people who met through an online dating site — more than twice the number of people meeting at bars, at clubs and other social events combined
Additionally, the studies show that one in five new committed relationships, including marriages, are between people who met on an online dating site.
News item #2
Facbook fueling divorce, research claims
Divorce lawyers claim the explosion in the popularity of websites such as Facebook and Bebo is tempting to people to cheat on their partners.
Suspicious spouses have also used the websites to find evidence of flirting and even affairs, which have led to divorce.
One law firm, which specialises in divorce, claimed almost one in five petitions they processed cited Facebook.
Digital technology and the Internet have created a parallel form of life. We could call it Cyberlife.
Cyberlife is built on information—which may be enlightening, misleading, authentic or fabricated. Words on a screen may be true, false, or subject to interpretation. Images and videos may depict actual occurrences—or they may be staged, cropped, edited or Photoshopped.
In Cyberlife, information available instantaneously. Information that was once inaccessible may now be found. And information—whether correct or inaccurate—lives forever in digital caches, located wherever Google and other archives keep it.
Online exploitation
So what does all of this mean when it comes to sociopaths?
Sociopaths live by exploiting people. The Internet and other tools of digital technology give sociopaths another avenue for exploiting people. And it’s a powerful one.
Internet fraud is a huge growth industry. Here are annual dollar losses due to Internet fraud reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center:
- 2007 – $239 million
- 2008 – $265 million
- 2009 – $560 million
For sociopaths looking to exploit individuals in romantic relationships, the Internet and online dating sites allows them to fish in a very big pond. They can troll for victims 24/7, around the world. They can bait their hooks with fictitious profiles. They can work multiple targets at once, to see who actually bites.
Helpful information
Yes, the digital age gives sociopaths a lot of tools—but it also provides tools to the rest of us.
Lovefraud is proof of that. Lovefraud provides information about this personality disorder, enabling people stuck in the fog of manipulation and confusion to finally understand what they are dealing with.
Besides general information about sociopaths, the Internet allows people to acquire specific information on people they meet. Websites like DontDateHimGirl.com, Womansavers.com and Ripoffreport.com allow readers to post names of people to be avoided. Exposure works—many people have been saved from predatory relationships by finding the case studies on Lovefraud.
Seduction in the mind
One of the fascinating things about Cyberlife is that it brings into sharp focus how much of our lives take place in our own minds.
Lovefraud has heard of several cases in which people were involved online relationships, to the point of severe emotional trauma, with people who didn’t even exist! Some sociopaths play this cruel game. The sociopaths don’t get money, or sex, or a place to live. But they send flowery, romantic texts and emails, promising future happiness that will never happen. They manipulate their victims, just for fun and entertainment.
These situations are extreme, but every relationship that starts online starts in the mind. All you have is digital information. You don’t see a person across a room and feel a twinge of animal magnetism. You don’t fall in love with the sound of their laugh. So what happens?
As the Internet Threat page on Lovefraud.com explains, 65% to 90% of human communication comes from nonverbal cues. When communicating online, therefore, 65% to 90% of the meaning is missing.
What do we do when reading email and text messages in communications with a potential romantic partner? We indulge in our hopes and dreams. We fill in the blanks with what we want the communication to mean. We fall in love with our own fantasy.
Yes, our minds can trick us. Awareness, however, is also in our minds. We can educate ourselves that these predators exist. We can learn the warning signs of exploitative behavior. We can read about the experiences of others. All of this can be done online—that’s what Lovefraud does every day. As we say here on Lovefraud, knowledge equals power.
The conduit
In the end, therefore, the information revolution, the Internet, digital technology—it’s all just a conduit, and the conduit can be used for information that is either helpful or hurtful.
But we do need to understand what happens in Cyberlife, and how messages on the conduit can be manipulated. Digital technology is a tool. How the tool is used makes the difference.
Hopeforjoy
Oxy,
Seriously, can’t they just throw in the towel and call it a day? Is there a point to harassing you? I think he’s doing it just because he can. I hope the parol board rules to keep spath in jail.
I sometimes wonder what their inner dialog is like, then I take a step back and ask myself if I really want to know. It has to be extremely sick and twisted.
Have a great “vacation” to Katmandu, Siberia, Bali, or where ever the postcards take you!
silvermoon
The disordered defy understanding. And the contemplation of even trying invokes the notion of going down into and endless Warren of convoluted reality.
I think I’d rather go to Katmandu.
Ox, I’ll go too!
Ox Drover
DEar Hope4joy,
No, my P-son can not just quit, give up and leave me alone. In order to be “happy” he must, MUST beat me, he cannot let me “win” for goodness sakes, so he will NEVER GIVE UP. His mission in life is to “win” over me, to control me or get revenge on me.
My sperm donor hated me with a bitter venom until the day he died 40+ years after the last time I had seen him. He smeared my name to everyone who would listen, even if they didn’t know me, wouldn’t ever know me, and then he did it in writing. They are worse than a pit bull with a bone, they won’t give up.
The other psychopaths might LIKE revenge but have enough self preservation and impulse control to not come here I think because as much as they might LIKE to hurt me, they are not going to have the guts to walk into a “fire fight” which includes gunfire because they are not about to get in a fight with someone they are SURE is ARMED. Son P doesn’t have that restraint, he would walk into “machine gun fire” confident that the bullets would pass right through him.
I was told by an inmate friend of his that my P son who is a SMALL white man would belly up to a 6’6″ heavily muscled member of another race and scream a racial slur in the guy’s face, baring his teeth like a pit bull, but knowing he was going to get the carp stomped out of him and do it any way. He is like a small breed of terrier dog, totally fearless and oblivious to the size of the other dog. It may get whipped but it will never give up. My P son has had many broken wrists, shoulders, ankles and such so the punishment of getting the chit beaten out of him doesn’t deter him any apparently.
The inmate way of thinking, of being tough, and not being a pushover gets a certain kind of respect from other inmates, but in a way it is “heaven on earth” for a psychopath because they continually have the drama and the adrenaline rushes of risky behavior. As long as the drama keeps on going, they will never make any changes, and they will arrange to keep the drama going on.
super chic
Oxy, just read what you wrote to jake and hope4joy,
I am praying the p-son stays incarcerated,
praying for you and your safety,
you are one strong / smart / funny lady. 😀
Love the “trips” to distant cities!
Your p-dar sounds spot on.
Ox Drover
Dear Chic,
Thank you for your prayers! I think the prayers of my friends have helped me make it through the toughest of the times. I’m learning to accept WHAT IS more than just grouse about what is “not”–
There are lots of wonderfully smart, funny and strong people here at LF and though you will deny it (I bet ya!) YOU ARE ONE OF THOSE SMART, FUNNY AND STRONG PEOPLE!!!
Those of us who just keep on keeping on, even when we don’t feel all that strong and do the right thing even when we don’t feel like it. Courage is not being unafraid, it is being scared chitless and still getting up and going and doing what you have to do, and my friend, Chic, you have been doing that, and I salute you with a big TOWANDA!!!!! (((hugs))))
jeannie812
Ox Drover,
Your son sounds like a scary person. I got chills reading the description of him. Horrible.
Ox Drover
Dear Jeannie,
My P-son IS A SCARY PERSON. He has no conscience and lots of RAGE and no fear. Son D and I were talking about the P-son and the Trojan Horse Psychopath today and the differences between them. My other son thought he saw the TH-P in a small town near here Tuesday…it is possible he did,, but even if he did I am NOT afraid of that man, though he did try to kill son C, because the TH-P will only attack when he thinks he has a decided advantage, he is basically a coward. My P-son, however HAS NO FEAR even if he knows he is going to be beaten to a pulp, he will still jump into the fight!
When he was 18, he had some kids rob a place, actually like a home invasion, and one of the kids left identifying information at the scene of the crime and HOURS LATER P-son went back to the crime scene to retrieve the item and the people had gotten loose and were SHOOTING out the door, a bullet went through my son’s jacket sleeve as they sped away on his (stolen) motorcycle and it didn’t phase him. He is extremely smart, (exceptionally high IQ) yet he is one of the DUMBEST criminals I have ever known of, because he has NO FEAR at all.
If he got loose he would come here to hurt us even if he knew he would be coming into a nest of machine gun fire! That’s the difference between him and the TH-P. My son thinks some how the bullets would pass through is body harmlessly, or that even if he got killed in killing me, that it was still OK. ?????? That is what makes him SO SCARY is there is no way to “put the fear of God” in him.
He has got this idea, just like my P-sperm donor, that being the toughest Mofo on the block makes him somehow superior to others and that others ADMIRE him for this. Well, maybe some of the bad arse inmates “respect or admire him,” but NO ONE ELSE IN THE WORLD DOES.
His whole world is a series of lies told to others to make himself appear “a big shot”—but the only ones who would even believe a word of his lies are people just as warped and low life as he is.
It’s a shame too because this is a man who had the God given talent and smarts to invent the next cure for cancer, or put a rocket on Mars and in spite of every advantage he had from God and family, he chose to blow it all and become an unsuccessful thug and robber. Go figure.
He hates me with a passion and hates both his brothers as well but for different reasons I think. But I have NO doubt at all that if he gets out I will have to go somewhere else to live, but if I do I do, because I’m not about to let the little snot kill me and I know without a doubt that he would give it his best shot.
one/joy_step_at_a_time
would she have duped me in person? no, i don’t think i would have fallen for her cons. but another spath could have conned me. online or in person, there is risk, as all our stories attest.
I would put forward that every relationship starts in our minds – online or no. And that is what we need to wok on clearing away – all those cobwebs of desire, obligation, fantasy and neediness that catch us up and obscure what is in front of us.
and we need a healthier dose of self respect. and if we didn’t have that modeled for us, we need to step up and figure it out.
skylar
Oxy
Your p son’s attitude reminds me of Lucifer who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven. In previous posts you described how he can sit in jail and still think he won.
His lack of fear is similar and at the same time the opposite of my exPs attitude. They are the same in their audacity and their certitude that they will succeed . But my exP will also plan for years and enjoy every moment of the planning. That is why they get away with their BS. Normal people can’t conceive of that mindset: The time wasted in planning evil, the drive,determination and pleasure in it . Even those that see small hints of it, cannot accept the idea that they are dealing with Lucifer.
super chic
Oxy, well I don’t know how you managed
to turn that around into a compliment to me!!!!!!!!! LOL.
Thank you for the nice words.
I’m hanging in there with the rest of you,
and like you said last night…
I usually learn something new here everyday!
“Don’t just learn to function in your dysfunction”.
…from SHMS last night was really a good one.