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.
I start with a bunch of garlic, some olive oil and a handful of grounds before I start tasting….and after that I just kind of throw whatever is hanging around into it to see what happens. Maybe dry mustard, maybe a touch of vinegar, maybe a scooch of honey.
Just depends on what I’m in the mood for.
I love the dark new mexico chiles. Saok them, scape out the inside of the shell. Add it to anything.
if really could be awesome silver. THAT is a cookbook i would write. it would be SO wild. a great educational tool. and give us a forum for the mix of what is true for us – the humour and pain, the intelligence and the shattered nature.
i really like this idea.
scalping – what an idiot.
i hear you about buying a job for life. i really think that’s what it ends up being. but if one is all in for it…it would be quite fine to make that commitment.
dark new chilies – are they ancho chilies?
Yeah the dried nearly black new mexico ones- love those!
OK- so here is the wild idea- lets do a cookbook for a new life. Survival for emergent women – a diet for wholeness and legal remedies.
On alternating pages we can put in psych infor about these eveil and then the recipe that corresponds to feeling – well you get it.
that would be cool.
think we could get it promoted on oprah when she finally gets Donna and Dr Leedom on it???
Then if it goes, we’ll can make a resturant to go with it…..
i have only had them dried – they have a slightly smokey taste if they are the same ones. there is a store in a sort of nearby large city that has – i don’t know – 100 types of peppers?
god, i love food!
i started cooking for my family at about 9. my mom taught me to bake. she sucked at cooking, but was a good baker. i remember baking all day on saturdays – bread braids and pies and cakes – i couldn’t do that much NOW. mind you i wasn’t old and crippled from gardening then. 😉
Just catching up on online news and popping in to share this:
http://www.aolnews.com/crime/article/christopher-james-dannevig-allegedly-lured-nona-belomesoff-to-her-death-via-facebook/19479249
Im sure just one of thousands of chilling stories and thought of Lara and everyone who got conned or lured in one way or another…
Knowledge is power…having good boundaries and personal rules and regulations in place is a necessity in life on the internet as well!
Hope all is well with everyone tonight…didnt have a chance to catch up here tonight…so apologies for popping in middle of what looks like some yummy recipes and great conversation!
Nite all! xox
One, its late and the system is slow.
have to call it for now
ciao bella
Lemon Chess Pie
Adapted from Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock’s “The Gift of Southern Cooking”
Makes one 9-inch pie, enough to serve 8
Note: All ingredients for the pie must be at room temperature for thorough blending. Any cold ingredients, especially the buttermilk or lemon juice, will cause the butter to resolidify and separate from the mixture.
* 1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (recipe follows)
* 4 eggs, at room temperature
* 1 1/2 cups sugar
* 1 tablespoon white cornmeal
* 1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/3 cup (5 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature
* 1/2 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
* 1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice, at room temperature
* 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* Whipped cream
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the eggs briefly. One at a time, whisk in the following, blending until each ingredient has been incorporated before proceeding to the next: the sugar, cornmeal, flour, salt, melted butter, buttermilk, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla.
3. Pour the filling into the unbaked pie crust, and bake in the middle of the oven for 30-40 minutes, until the pie is golden brown on top and almost set. The center should be slightly loose; it will set as it cools. Remove to a cooling rack. Serve at room temperature with lightly sweetened whipped cream.
Basic Pie Dough
Makes enough for one 9-inch pie
Note: Use unbleached all-purpose flour. The higher protein content provides more gluten structure to incorporate the butter and lard into the dough.
* 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* 1/2 teaspoon sugar
* 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces and frozen for 10 minutes
* 2 tablespoons lard (or shortening), cut into 2 pieces and frozen for 10 minutes
* 4-6 tablespoons ice water
1. Put the flour, salt and sugar on a large cutting board. Mix with your fingers to blend. Put the frozen butter and lard (or shortening) on top of the flour mixture, and use a knife or pastry cutter to cut the fats into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
2. Gather the mixture into a mound and, using your fingers, draw a trench through the center. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon of water down the length of the trench, and with your fingers, fluff the flour so it absorbs the water. Repeat the process until you’ve incorporated 4 tablespoons of water. The dough should begin to clump together into large pieces. If there are any unmassed areas, sprinkle them with water, and mix.
3. Gather the dough into a mass with a pastry scraper, and, with the heel of your hand, smear a hunk of dough roughly the size of an egg by pushing it away from you. Continue with pieces of dough until the entire mass has been processed. Then gather the dough and repeat the process. Regather the dough, shape it into a flat disk, and wrap it in plastic wrap, flattening it further. Refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.
4. Roll out the chilled dough into a circle 1 1/2 inches larger than your pie pan. Line the pan with the dough, and trim it to leave a 1/2-inch overhang of pastry around the pan. Fold this under, forming a thick edge on the rim of the pan.
a diet for wholeness and legal remedies sound very refined. just like you.
i think oprah will be off her show by the time we could put something together.
i think i would tend toward the more raucous – the place i am most right now in my healing…chocolate martinis and high fat. there is something freeing in the raucous for me. i am trying to be more true to who i am really am. i rewrote my writer’s c.v. and it is closer in character now, to who i really am. i need to shake my tail feathers and be true and see who it attracts into my life – not talking lovers here, at all – just be real, not so bound by properness, and see what happens.