Editor’s note: Lovefraud received this e-mail from a reader whom we’ll call “Lara.”
About three months ago, I met a 34-year-old German banker from Munich online (he added me on Facebook), after being very hesitant to speak to him, I gave into his persistence and we started a whirlwind romance over the phone for two months. He asked me to meet him in Paris and I did a few weeks ago, only to be dumped the day after we had sex together. I have been asking myself for answers but it was only recently that my friend brought to my attention that Y (German banker) exhibited the key traits of a sociopath.
Y added me randomly on Facebook and we had one mutual friend (A fellow Korean Uni student at my university in New York). I messaged him asking if we had met, only for him to say that he “met another Lara in NY who looks like me.” I believed him but then later found out he also added my friend and a few other girls (some of them my friends) randomly on Facebook. I thought this was very weird behaviour as I do not understand why a grown man would add random younger girls on his Facebook all of whom he does not know.
After further investigation, I found out he was messaging a few of these girls too asking to “speak on the phone as he was curious about their voice,” which is exactly what he said to me. I found this very unnerving—a grown man messaging a plethora of younger girls on the Internet asking to “hear their voice on the phone.” I confronted him about this and he got incredibly defensive and sent me an incredibly long and eloquent email explaining why he added us on Facebook as a “social experiment.” He also called me paranoid and asked me how I could be concerned about Internet predators when I had more than a 1000 friends on my Facebook.
Talked on the phone
After saying no many times to a phone conversation, my curiosity took over me and one day I agreed to a brief conversation. I thought that if he turned out to be a creep, I would just block his number on my phone. Our phone conversation turned out to be alright—he was a decent and pleasant guy. However, he continued to call me every single day from then on, along with numerous text messaging.
Soon, he told me he had grown incredibly fond of me and was using affectionate terms like “baby.” I asked him why he was interested in me, as I am a 21-year-old university student in New York, who he has never met before. He told me I underestimated myself and that he liked me because I am “well traveled, educated and down to earth.” I just could not grasp how a 30+ year old banker from Munich with good looks would stoop so low as to find a romantic interest with much younger women on the Internet.
Intimate questions
Soon after we started talking on the phone, he started to be very inappropriate with me, asking personal and intimate questions. He knew I was very uncomfortable with this but he still persisted. He would tell me to “think of falling asleep in his arms,” “our kiss,” and then he would ask me to “fantasize having sex with him.”
I don’t know how he found the confidence to talk to me in this manner, as I never reciprocated his affection or romantic interest. I was uncomfortable, so I messaged a friend of his, which I found through his Facebook list, and asked her whether I should trust him. She responded immediately with glowing reviews about Y, saying she was good friends with him when he lived in London and that he was incredibly charming, successful, social and that a lot of women fancied him. However, despite all his inappropriate behaviour, I was so completely charmed by his looks, intelligence and wit that my judgment was practically impaired.
Fly to meet him
A few weeks after this, Y asked me when my next university break was, as he wanted to see me. I had one coming up in a month, in middle March. He insisted that I fly to Munich to see him. I told him “absolutely not.” I would never stoop so low as to fly to Munich to stay with a stranger I have never met before (as a girl I need to maintain a level of dignity and self-respect). He was very persistent and said I could stay with him and that we would drive to the mountains and the outskirts of Munich to ski. I told him I would not do that, and if he really wanted to see me, he could come to New York. He told me he could not take time off work to fly to New York and so I had to go to Munich.
Anyway, I ended up deciding to go to London to visit my friends during my university break. I told him he could come to London to see me but he was not satisfied with that as “London is not a romantic city and I would be around all my friends and not spend time with him.” He said he was willing to compromise and that we should spend a “romantic weekend in paris—just him and I.”
I was very hesitant and all my close girlfriends told me not to do it, as they felt he was trying to isolate me to a place where I do not know people or speak the language. However at this point I had already fallen for him so I agreed to it. I told him I wanted to have my separate room from him but he was completely and utterly adamant that we share a hotel room together. During this point of our phone conversations, he was already telling me that he felt like he could fall in love with me, that he had told his mother about me and that I should move to Munich next year after I graduate from Uni. I couldn’t help but believe and fall for his words.
Going to Paris
Two weeks before Paris, Y and I had started talking considerably less as his company was working on a major buy-out and I was occupied with exams. He said it was good for our relationship, as it would make us miss each other more. However, as days went by, he completely stopped texting me or calling me. Before Paris, we spoke once on the phone and it was a very brief conversation ”¦ he asked me about my week and I told him “it was very stressful along with hormonal problems due to my period.” He responded by saying, “Wow perfect timing that your period is over in time for Paris.” I was very disturbed by his comment—out of everything I told him about my stressful week, he was only concerned and delighted to know that I had just ended my period in time for Paris. I started to question what exactly he wants from me. All our phone conversations were heavily intimate where he would try dig hard to get intimate information about me, and he would force me to say things to him that I was not comfortable with.
I flew to London three Thursdays ago on a red eye and then took the Eurostar to Paris. Cut to the chase, when I first saw Y opening the hotel door for him, I thought he was incredibly good looking and tall in person. Three minutes into our meeting, he pretty much threw me on the bed and tried to undress me. I told him to stop it as I was uncomfortable and that I wanted to spend time talking to him first. He seemed visibly annoyed and agreed to go have a drink with me near the Trocodero. During our drink he was very cold, distant and aloof. He was NOT affectionate with me at all.
We went back to the hotel room and I did sleep with him and then the next day at brunch in Paris, he told me “it was over and that he could not see a future with me as I was too young for him.” I was so stunned and confused. Where did this sudden realisation come about? Months after telling me he was completely “obsessed” with me? He said that he became “rational and decided it would never work for him.”
Kicked me out
I started acting irrationally and even told him that it was unfair that he did not give us a chance and that he made me feel so vulnerable by coming all the way to Paris only to sleep with him and get dumped. He became incredibly defensive and angry and told me to go back to London that same night. I was resistant as I was so confused but he pretty much kicked me out and booked me a train ticket.
During the painful last few hours with him, he acted like a complete chauvinist—making me feel bad that he wasted his weekend coming to Paris and that he could have been so many other things in Munich. He started calling his Paris friends on his mobile phone while I was next to him asking if they would have “dinner with him that night,” and while we were walking back to the hotel, he even used his knuckles and pushed me from behind as he complained that “I was walking too slowly.” He even said I should be grateful as he has so many “women on Facebook who are interested in connecting with him.” It is almost like he forgot that HE was the one who connected with me on Facebook and pursued me RELENTLESSLY.
Y did not even send me off to the train station—he asked me to drop him off at Gallerie Lafayette (a shopping mall) because it was on the way to Gare Du Nord (the train station). During this whole time, I was still so numb and confused about the situation that I did not even act disappointed or hurt by him. I even suggested we try to stay friends.
Numb and confused
I went back to London that Saturday night completely numb, confused and shocked by the situation. I gave my heart to this stranger I met on Facebook who convinced me that he was obsessed and was falling in love with me—only to fly to Paris and be used for sex and dumped the next day.
It has been a few weeks since the situation occurred and I have become more rational and objective. My friends are all very disgusted by Y’s behaviour and have been trying to let me realise that what he did was “unkind and unacceptable” and that he was basically an “Internet predator casting a wide net for young girls on Facebook.” I still have trouble seeing it that way, as I keep remembering the person I spoke to on the phone for months. I want to believe that everything he said to me was real.
However, the anger now has set in a little and I cannot believe he did that to me. We have not spoken since. Many times I feel like talking to him as I want answers—but I know this is wrong. I recently found out that Y asked another girl out on a date (one that he also added randomly on Facebook). Initially I was enraged and jealous that he moved on so fast. However, my friends try to tell me that as a sociopath, he has basically found his “next victim.”
There’s still a part of me that believes I was not good enough for him and did not meet his standards, which is why he discarded me. I also feel that perhaps I “deceived” him on Facebook, because he felt I was not as pretty in real life as I was online. I am trying to rid myself of those thoughts that are only self-destructive. I am taking it day by day ”¦ seeing a counselor. I cannot let this situation make me crumble in despair for it will be letting him win. I need to become stronger from this and move on with my life knowing that I learnt an invaluable lesson.
Hugs to you, bueskies!
one_step_at_a_time says:
“blue eyes ”“ why don’t you want to ’believe’? ”
I think the reason stems from the positive aspects of Jamie’s personality and empathy toward his situation. Plus, in all this I did a stupid thing and looked back over some of his emails and there seems to be more empathy in a couple of them than I remembered.
Perhaps too, like many of us, I cling to “hope” as in the nearly 1.5 years since meeting Jamie, I have not met somebody with whom I felt such a connection. Also is that part of me that thinks if I met up with him today, all could be well if I told him I know about his and it does not matter.
But it is the HIV thing that really gives me the “out” to question things. His job depended upon travel to the US. At that time, he could have been denied entry into the US due to his status.
Still, and I know you will say this because I would say the same to Lara or anyone else:
1) He is covertly aggressive.
2) Regardless of his words, his actions over the course of our relationship showed a pattern of “lack empathy, tactlessness, insensitivity, and contemptuousness.”
He dumped me via email two days after spending the night with me in the hospital, while I was at home, alone and bed-ridden. He stormed out of a fine restaurant simple because I said I liked him and I asked him back to my place. He showed what best could be described at contempt when I provided the warm, cozy, Christmas setting we talked about.
To the latter, after his display of contempt for candles, a Christmas tree, and a simple pie, I vividly remember thinking to myself, “Jeez, this guy has intimacy issues…” During the night, I remember looking at him and saying “why are you so f**king cold…”
3) There is the whole issue of his profile on the dating website. Moreover, the fact that it presents him in a way so different than the person I was dating is disarming at best.
4) Regarding the issue of me potentially “outing” his status, I sincerely doubt US Immigration would take any action based upon a phone call wherein somebody claims a person is HIV positive and traveling regularly to the US.
5) It does not really matter is he is a sociopath or not, Jamie is toxic and dishonest.
Lara’s story and mine are similar yet different. However, my advice to her is the same advice I must follow. Forget words. Look at actions. This is why I repeat his actions toward me — they are stark and not very nice.
The last two years have not been very easy for me. Last month, I had open-heart surgery and in the weeks before, I thought a lot about Jamie. I looked at his profile for the first time in over a year. It was recently active, meaning he was “available.” I started an email that I never sent. I was wise to realize that my condition left me vulnerable to further manipulation.
Then I came here, first as a lurker then as a contributor. As I began focusing on his actions and avoided his words and pity play, my emotional attachment to him rapidly lifted. I still have much of the “WTF” going in my head, but I have no desire to reach out and contact him nor do I see him as an ideal partner for me. He is far from that.
In about one more month I will be able to resume full activities. Too much time on you hands leads to too much thought, but I survived this long and can last one more month.
One last piece of advice. I found that by giving him a name, albeit not his real name, this allowed me to be totally honest without feeling that I compromised whatever “good” there is in him. I guess then I am “James,” as we share the same name.
Thus, a strong case can be made that “Jamie” is really a metaphor for me. My empathy toward his loneliness came from mine. The same with his health issues. And for his desire to have a loving relationship.
Laura,
“Confuses you to the core”, these are words spoken when you feel duped by someone.
It IS confusing because these encountors never make sense.
And that is precisely why you don’t go back for more.
He pursued you. He was obsessed with you. He reeled you in. He discarded you.
It doesn’t really matter why he manipulated you, for sex, or not for sex. Just that he did manipulate you.
Generally speaking what happens in these types of encountors is that after being discarded so abruptly we become obsessed with them.
This is what we want you to realize….Why is he taking up so much space in your head? Ask yourself this question.
Because he is toxic for YOU. That is the bottom line. Doesn’t matter why he did what he did. He DID it. That is what does matter. Don’t go back for more. That is what is important now.
You didn’t know what you didn’t know, before. Now you do know.
Good post, witsend!
Blue Eyes,
Hope your recovery contiunes to go smoothly and your back to your vibrant self, climbing (biking) all those mountains!!! In regards to Jamie, looking back, we tend to see through rose colored glasses. I’m glad you know that he’s toxic, but you still are doubting because he was manipulative and could say things to you that made you think he was caring and empathetic. More like pathetic. He wasn’t good for you.
This is something I have done for along time in my current situation. Husband says he loves me more than anyone in the world, yet would gladly have me committed. I hold on to that knowledge, no truely loving individual would do that just to cover their dirty little secrets. Nope, no way.
Keep your head up and know that Jamie made you doubt your instincts, doubt yourself. Know that you are right, no one should ever put you in harms way (HIV). Someone in our area just was arrested for having unprotected sex and he is HIV positive. It’s a crime, pure and simple.
Lara, if I seem blunt, then so be it. HE IS NOT A NICE GUY – whether he fits the socipathic profile, or not. He is a “bad guy,” and this waffling of whether or not he “conciously” set you up is not helping you, one iota. He DID set you up, consciously or not, and he DID inflict damage, consciously or not, and he DID throw the whole mess into YOUR lap (which screams of sociopathy) by saying, “you tend to see things through your own lens.” No, no, no………it has nothing to do with a person’s viewpoint. This is NOT ABOUT OPINION!!! It’s about what is right, and what is wrong. Do you believe that the way you were treated was right, or wrong? If you feel that the way that you were treated was right and well deserved, then that’s your belief. If you feel that you were treated wrongly and abused, then take control of this and stop making excuses for this spathole!
Clothing, expensive or not, can be replaced. Communicating with him to “ask” for you clothing items back is outrageous. Sending him an email explaining the damage that he caused is another open door to keep that fantasy that drew you in alive.
As Smeagol would say, “He’s false. He’s tricksy, and we hates him.”
Lara,
Its really difficult to see how this is playing out. To read all that he did to you verbally and sexually — met you in person for less than how many hours?? — and then discarded you for months.
As far as the simple fact that he seeks out young girls across the globe to add as FB friends, up to including friends of YOURS?? — omgoodness Lara thats enough right there for me to freak out and get away.
Whether he is a Sociopath, or toxic or a womanizer or user WHO CARES?
I certainly would not be giving ANY stranger let alone a strange man I met who “pushed me with his knuckles ” (RED FLAGGGGGGGGGG) but I would certainly NOT give him my address. Hopefully his intentions are never to harm you – but YOU DONT KNOW THIS MAN. I would replace the clothing item myself, but if it means that much to you open up an P.O. Box at the post office. We simply dont know if you have pushed any buttons by calling him out, by laying out all the info about Sociopathy in your email…or if he is just a jerk by the way he treated you and wont ever bring his fist to your back again… in any event my advice is to really steer clear.
And Lara, about all of this self-doubt and remembering what your childhood was like and being made to be self-righteous and seeing through your own lense, etc… I really do understand that – and that is PART OF THE REASON WE WOMEN FIND OURSELVES IN TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS. Because here is the kicker…. up until the aftermath of Paris – YOU DISPLAYED NONE OF THAT SIDE OF YOU… you saw the truth.. you saw a guy stop contacting you before Paris and you witnessed a guy try to have sex with you upon hello (whether he was obsessive or caught up in the fantasy THATS WHAT HE TRIED TO DO and even after you had sexual relations with him – you did nothing wrong — BUT HE – HE LARA DECIDED IT WAS OK TO TREAT YOU LIKE SHIT, ABANDON YOU AND DISCARD YOU…
And I think its important to remind you, that yes, we all come with baggage and issues — but a good guy would NEVER EVER NEVER EVER TREAT YOU THAT WAY -, lets say should you see something inaccurate through your lense or should you be mistaken about what unfolded a good guy would never ever ever push/shove you, tell you it was all a mistake, kick you out and BLAME YOU. So your long shot theory that it was all you – your doing – your “view” being so distorted (WHICH IT WASNT) – but even if someone ever agreed with you about that = THE POINT IS A DECENT GOOD GUY WOULD TREAT YOU WELL UNTIL GOODBYE AT THE TRAIN. OR AT LEAST SAY, IM SORRY YOU FEEL WAY YOU DO, LET ME GET YOU TO THE TRAIN…ETC…
HE IS BAD NEWS. We dont have answers why he didnt take you up on your offer to be sexual again that day, other than he was either done with the chase or he didnt want to give you any further impression or acting that he was in it for anything more than getting you to have sex that one time. It happens that women who have unhealthy childhood backgrounds will reach out to these toxic people and DO ANYTHING TO MAKE IT BETTER IN THE MOMENT, to get their approval, to fix the situation, up to including offering them to have sex again after having just been lashed out at or used, abused.
You didnt have the tools to deal with him, his horrific treatment of you. If given the chance again, he will do it to you AGAIN. Please dont give him that opportunity. Tooo many women already are. Please get tested for STD’s. You didnt know this man or anything about the reality of him. OR how many women he is having relations with, FB conversations with, aftermath arguments with. You just know his words through a computer and tele. Oh and you know how he can treat you in person — too.
Read and listen and absorb. Protect yourself. Noone else can. GL!
Blueskies… your input is valuable and has reached many who visit LF ,and it will continue too. Rosa’s input is valuable and has reached many who visit LF, and it will continue too.
We all have different opinions and views. Sometimes we all agree (like the other evening with the crazymaking going on here… and sometimes we really do disagree and its ok!!!!
We will all say what we feel is helpful. Some of what we say will be of no use to some and other things will make a great impact on someones decision… your input , Rosas input, TB’s, Oxy’s,Wittys, everyones, etc…. mine too!!! I can ony count on one hand some stragglers who havent been very helpful to anyone here – except to give us the opportunity to hit the “Report Abusive Comment” link and see what happens :)))
xoxoxoxoxo (hugs)))))))
I’m cool:)x More worried about Ms. Lara, than getting into a debate with Ms. ‘did i trigger you’ I have often thanked her for helping me!:)x
Now I am definitely offski – I have a date with the tv and some noodles.x