Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following letter from a reader who we’ll call “Janine.” She fell in love with a man that she met online, but he wasn’t real.
It started back in Dec. 08, I was on an online dating site and came across a profile, his picture was nice, my type, dark hair, nice face, normal handsome looking. Brief description, saying his likes dislikes etc, so I messaged him.
From there is went to msn chat and then we exchanged numbers, when he rang me he said sorry if you don’t like my voice, I had an operation when I was younger and it has changed it. Didn’t think anything of it.
We clicked straight away, got on like a house on fire, had the same sense of humour and talked for hours about nothing. We texted and talked every day all day, he suggested we meet up and being nervous as I liked him. I suggested we wait, he said yeah that is cool, so after about a month I suggested we meet — he stood me up. Now he had also brought his friend Tom into the equation, who was gay (I lived with a gay friend) who we could double date with, neither of them turned up.
Stood me up again
He was apparently in a car crash, so of course I forgave him, we chatted on again, another month went by, arranged again, he stood me up again, this time his grandad had died, so I forgave him as I couldn’t really be cross about that. He sent me presents and flowers and everything else was perfect and although I hadn’t met I fell for him, he said he felt the same, our phone relationship continued.
He constantly made plans with me, trips away, gigs, but of course nothing came of it, he was jealous, hated my friends, but our relationship, apart from the not meeting him, was great.
We had phone sex, exchanged pictures and were as close as you could be without actually meeting. I lost my mum four years ago and he told me he had lost his dad ten years ago so that bonded us too, he told me all about his family, things from his past, funny stories about his friends, colleagues, even spoke to me on the phone when his mum and friends were there. We talked babies and marriage and he still continued to stand me up, he then broke down and said that he was having panic attacks and that is why he was standing me up as he loved me so much. So he said he would get therapy, and promised me that this time with therapy it would be different.
Met his friend
In the meantime, in August he asked if he could get a friend over to drop my birthday present. So I said okay, I met her, she seemed nice and we got on, and so arranged to go to the cinema. She talked about Matt, saying how silly she thought he was but how much he thought of me, how much he talked about me and constantly said he was in love with me. She said she had never seen him like that over a girl before. They grew up together.
This friend of his and I went out once a week, texted every now and then. Matt said how much this girl liked me and how much he was jealous that she had met me.
Our relationship continued, me seeing this girl every now and then, nothing major, me and Matt making plans, getting excited about seeing each other, him telling me he couldn’t wait to see me and kiss me.
This girl then came out a couple of times, both times with me getting so upset about my situation, one time resulting in her saying she didn’t know what Matt had been telling me but that she needed to take step back from us both.
Paranoia set in
By this point I had been waiting to meet him about 10 months, my dad had got involved and Matt had called them to explain the situation, spoke on the phone to my step mum for about 20 minutes.
My paranoia had set in by this point, I loved him and wanted to be with him so I accused him of seeing someone else etc., then I started noticing little things about his friend, she laughed liked him and said things like him, when I mentioned this to Matt, he was like, really? Oh probably because we grew up together.
Read more: Catfishing — sociopathic behavior, or a phase?
So the date for us to meet came, he had phoned me that morning saying that this girl had text him saying you had better meet her, we chatted had a laugh, said how excited we were, we both went shopping he said he had bought me presents, texted me all day, even up until ten minutess before we were due to meet saying he was leaving, then nothing. Again.
He emailed me (I changed my number) saying he panicked again and that his heart ached and he would never be with anyone else and that he hated himself and that his dad would be disappointed in him, and that he loved me so much.
Googled his friend
So I decided to do some Googling, I Googled his friend, I found her profile on match.com, I remember her telling me she had one and so Googled her username, I found out that she had used other names on various websites over the years, ranging back to two or three years ago, I then found a video of her getting a tattoo on her wrist, which was the tattoo Matt showed me that he had on his wrist. And whenever I saw her she had a sweat band on that wrist, covering it, and I remember asking why and she saying oh it’s a support.
So I emailed him, quoting the username, and he deleted his email and phone number, so I emailed his other account telling him if he didn’t tell me what was going on i was going to the police.
He emailed me back, saying I am who I say I am but I made my home life up, I have a disorder where I make things up, but how I felt for you was real.
Don’t know what to believe
I then kept on at him, saying that is not true, what is the truth, I then got a message saying that he was the girl, that it had been her all along and that it started out as fun but then she started to like me which confused her as she isn’t gay and then she couldn’t stop, she said she wanted to tell me so many times, and that she was sorry and that she was a sociopath.
I don’t really know what to believe as the person I spoke to was a man, but all the numbers I had for Matt and his “friend” have been cancelled so it has to be true?
I feel used and dirty, and betrayed and hurt and I’m also mourning this man that I thought I was talking to. He was my life for 11 months, I know I probably sound pathetic but I really don’t know how to get over this. He was snatched from me, even though he wasn’t real and I don’t know how to grieve.
He was my best friend, I spoke to him daily but he wasn’t real and now I don’t know what to do.
Learn more: Free! The Basics — Love Fraud and How to Avoid It
Lovefraud originally posted this story on April 21, 2010.
7 reasons not to have sex with a sociopath
hedidn’tbreakme – please take your time and really think this through. give yourself some time to rage and vent before taking any action, k?
what outcome do you want?
will connecting with her, keep him out of your life?
could it bring him back in?
what does she want? can you tell? might she put you at any risk with him?
think it through. go slow. don’t go off half cocked. take care of yourself.
Hi One Step,
Thank you for your message. I am so sorry to hear that you have been through an experience similar to mine. I searched all over the internet to see if I could find someone with the same experience as me and I could not find anything.
The girl was 22, and as Matt she was 25. I am 27.
When she was found out, my dad phoned to speak to her parents ( I did detective work and found out where she lived etc) he phoned not to be malicious and get revenge, but because he was genuinely concerned and felt she needed help, she answered the phone and spoke to my dad, offered to come to his house and discuss it all with us, she emailed me, explaining in detail everything…..she said she got carried away and that she wanted to come clean to me so many times, but she didnt want to lose me, and she knew that she would, she said she was obsessed with mine and Matts relationship.
She didnt have many friends (so she said) and that she had never met anybody like me.
When I first found out, I will be honest, I tried to be her friend, because I felt protective of her (she is the same age as my younger sister) My friends wanted to Kill her but I couldnt bare the thought of anyone hurting her. Then when she used to text me as herself, talking about guys she liked, it messed with my head, as in my mind it was still Matt.
In the end, I had to break contact, I couldnt be her friend, as it was confusing me and hurting me, and I couldnt understand how she could just carry on with her life as though I had been nothing?! I had such a huge gap in my life.
She swore she had never done it before and she swore that she wouldnt do it again as how it had made her feel.
I do worry that she is doing it again, and I do sometimes wonder if I should let her family know ( I know who her sister is)
But then I dont know if that would help things, or if its my place.
How old was the girl that you had the experience with?
Stargazer;
You are so right on many counts. In the last several years, I have been through some hard times as well as a couple of hard times further in the past. The night I first started to feel a real connection with Jamie, I talked a lot about my current situation. I remember him agreeing with and relating to much of what I said including his near repetition of my comment about being “a bit disillusioned, but optimistic…” Perhaps he was just mirroring me.
Yes, it is denial and empathy that still keeps me dwelling about him. The fact the Jamie is an atypical sociopath in terms of being nonviolent and without outrageous lies has also made it easy for me to overlook his manipulative behavior, lies of omission and calm but callous actions toward me.
I used to tell myself that if he just had the self-esteem to tell me about his HIV status from the beginning things would be different, but that would be like asking a leopard to change his stripes and I inferred from online profile there is much Jamie wants to hide. He was certainly hiding all that from me.
When I again looked at his online profile, I realized his superficial nature. In answer to the question as to why you should contact him, Jamie’s answer is “if you like what you see.” This from a 36 year-old presenting a photograph that looks like a 25 year-old. Such superficiality is not something I want. Funny that “Lovefraud” not only accurately describes Jamie’s treatment of me in person but his online profile as well.
Yet, while his online persona is pathetic, I do have compassion for his plight. Many gay men fear aging, with its loss of youth and looks. I am blessed to be physically attractive (if that means anything) with a very youthful demeanor. Hopefully, one day I won’t where Jamie is now, pretending online to be something I am not, hanging on to a gone past.
I have pictures of him from when we met. In retrospect, he looks so sad. I wish I could show you those and you would see why they invoke my empathy. A couple hours after those pictures were taken, he was going on a date with a nice person in one of the world’s great romantic restaurants. I often wonder what was going through his mind. Oh, he looks happy in one picture, a picture taken earlier on the day we met — to this day it is his Facebook profile picture. I doubt he even associates it with me, but you can see how it causes me to think if only…
Above I said, the last few years have been very, very difficult. The good news is that much has been corrected, the most recent being open-heart surgery 3 weeks ago to correct a congenital problem. Thus, I have not only had much free time lately but major surgery really makes you value relationships more than anything else. I just need to remember what he did, not what he said. I think as my recovery allows me to do more and more, I will have less and less time to think of him.
I probably won’t play him back, not only because it keeps him in my life but because it is not a very honest thing to do. One other possibility I am considering is sending an anonymous email to one of his online accounts. I would not make it obviously me, but I would include things about him in a general way, enough to make him think but not enough for him to be 100% sure it is me.
Janine;
I am truly glad you shared your story. I understand your desire to protect the boy/girl. I feel the same way about Jamie and even feel guilty about publicly discussing him, even when using a different name. I guess that proves neither of us is a sociopath.
I am also glad you had real closure, something I am wrestling with, as I never had any real closure. The coincidence of my coming across his profile on a relative obscure dating site raised more questions than it answered, even if it did not paint a very flattering picture of him.
Loneliness is not something anyone should suffer and I feel for Jamie even as he continues to commit his online fraud. I guess desperate people do desperate things.
Part of me even feels I should make some amends and be the great friend he thought I could be. I guess I need to be honest in that my ego is still hurting and it is hard for me to befriend somebody who rejected me. But there still are the issues of his manipulation and dishonesty.
Six months ago I met a real guy, not boy pretending to be a man (Jamie in person) nor a man pretending to be a boy (Jamie online).
Too bad he lived too far away and there where language barriers and income barriers (Nicolay would have been dependent upon me). For a while I thought it was going to work, but over time I realized it could not. I hold this relationship as an example of what a non-toxic person is like. The fact that I really hurt Nicolay’s feelings weighs heavily upon me.
Behind blue eyes, did I miss something? Who the H is Nicolay?
🙂
Kim;
Sorry for the confusion. “Nicolay” is a guy I met after Jamie.
Nicolay is attractive, intelligent, emotionally available, clean living (does not smoke, drink or do drugs) and was very much interested in me. There were no games, no quirky behaviors, and no two steps forward, one step backwards experiences.
In many ways, Nicolay is my ideal partner, much more so than Jamie. Unfortunately, too many things prevented us from having a relationship, not only I all the things I mentioned but also the fact that Nicolay is only 23.
Funny, I got the boy Jamie wants…
Okay, Blue_eyes, here it is BETWEEN THE EYES (this is a slam from a position of caring about you, BTW) YOU are so willing to accept BLAME AND GUILT for every damn person in the world that ever was “hurt” if they knew you. Jamie, Nicolay, or whoever.
There are lots of people in the world who are nice, who are good, that for one reason or another I don’t want as a partner and even though they might want me as a partner, I am NOT RESPONSIBLE for their happiness or taking care of them.
NEITHER ARE YOU!
SO, knock off the GUILT trip for goodness sakes! That’s why you are here in the first place,, and the QUEEN OF GUILT, miss Kimmie, can tell you that we ALL have TOO MUCH empathy and care too much about OTHERS and it is now our turn to realize we need to care for OURSELVES.
OK–HOMEWORK. Sit down and write 500 times “I am not responsible for other’s happiness” and turn it in before the end of the school day or stand in the corner with your nose in a circle for 30 minutes!!!!
F–Fear
O–Obligation
G-Guilt
FOG Now stop it!!!!!! ((((Hugs)))))
Blue eyes – Ox Drover sat me in that corner many times, she did it with love and concern.
I used to pass up all the good guy’s for the bad boy’s that needed nurturing and rescued. Now I am 55 and all alone, I would give anything if I had it to do over now that I know what i may have passed up. But i am more content and grounded than ever now that I have rescued myself from my old pattern’s.
OxDrover;
I needed that…
Henry;
I did not pass up Nicolay because he was good, I really mean that. There were just too many issues. However, in the past I have passed up some good boys for bad ones…