Into Grief

The person who was the other party to this sadness would probably ridicule this post. He showed himself to be someone who has no remorse for the things he does to people. I noticed this early on; I don't think I ever heard him apologize, saw him make amends, or express remorse for anything. In fact, I was blamed for the entire incident that destroyed our relationship. It involved a love letter he wrote to an extremely young woman in our writing group (35+ year age difference), some horrible things said about me, and an admission that he has basically been stalking her for a year (he said she had been his "muse" for a year). His inane comments on her blog (some of which...in fact most of which...were increasingly intelligible) stretched over a very long course of time. She had no idea whatsoever that he was interested in her as anything other than an older and wiser friend, one of the few people who commented on her blog. And yet, what he was doing over that course of time was the "grooming" process, entirely calculated to win her trust. When she innocently told our writing group that she was going to San Francisco with her boyfriend, he ran home and wrote her his sob-story email about how he didn't know she had a boyfriend and he was crushed, etc. etc.

She was brave and kind enough to forward the email to me, at which point I ended contact with him. I don't need someone in my life who claims that my entire existence is a series of crises (when in truth, his life is that very thing to the nth degree--it was nearly five years of endless complaints about dogs, Republicans, his mother, his father, his brother, his brother's girlfriend, what he didn't have in life, his failure to make it in his chosen art form, his aches and pains...it went on, and on, and on). I don't think he realizes how unpleasant it is to hear such things, or to be privy to such deep ingratitude.

Warning signs: He had several people in his life who didn't speak to him. I never knew what ended these friendships; he was very closed-mouthed about it. I never knew why any of his relationships ended...not one. He always spoke around it, if at all. These are scary signs--I keep asking myself what happened, since I am now in the category of an ex-friend.

When I confronted him (very stridently...in fact, too stridently) about his predilections, I got nothing but justification, outright blame for me "making" him send the creepy, crazy email, and a lecture on how he had been afraid of just this sort of reaction from me. He had no idea, no matter how many times I tried to say it, that my anger came from how much he had frightened the young woman he wrote to, and how he had expressed no remorse for it. In fact, a later letter detailing more of his unsavory and unacceptable predilections seemed merely an opportunity to say his victim's name again. He said that any "girl" over 18 was fair game for him, and that his "relationships" were his business. What relationships? I know exactly how many he's had and wonder if he counts his less acceptable obsessions as relationships, too. He said he was a "law abiding citizen" now...no statement that what he might do to others could devastate them. He was supposed to be in love with the young woman he wrote the creepy email to....and yet not a word of concern for her. Loving? Nope. Narcissistic? Yes. What person in their early twenties would want to be yoked to a grouchy, groaning, constantly tired, complaining old man who spends his weekends resting? People in their twenties want to go out and have fun, and be in their peer group.

This (and I haven't gone into the detail I want to go) was one of the most sickening revelations of my entire life. To have someone take advantage of me for so many years, then blame me, and to never say "sorry" about all this without some statement of justification and blame, was like being flayed alive. In one moment, everything I thought about someone was ripped away. To hear him rage at me that I am a victim, that I am a slut, that I am delusional and psychotic--all these things were to put up a smokescreen for what he really is behind the carefully crafted, New Age and New Thought mask. I think now that it's no wonder he believes in that sort of thing, which never asks for accountability from its follwers. I know there are good people who ascribe to this kind of thought, but for the most part, I see how it attracts people like him, with its worship of money and its lack of accountability in any aspect of life.

When I go to grief, it is because of what I thought I had with this person. When he reminded me of all the supposedly "good things" he asked me to remember, I can no longer see them without the patina of an incredible lie at the core, and that I shared such good things with someone who has no moral compass, no moral center whatsoever, only a very careful manipulation of people to serve his purposes.

I'm saddened by people like him, not angry. What kind of life is that, pushing people away who really care and populating a life with fantasies of people who would never be interested beyond friendship? I don't know. I leave him to it. I don't intend to speak to this person again. I wish I could warn women away from him especially, but I can't. I feel I helped to support the one young person who could have easily been exploited by him (in my opinion, she already was). Perhaps that is enough: to have saved myself from more years of lies, and to have opened my mouth to tell him (even though he has no capacity to listen) that what he did to her was wrong, that I could never live like him, moral-less and exploitative beyond measure.

And yet so many people...so many...are like him. Day by day, I relearn what it is to trust...in good, in the people around me. It may be a long process, one of the longest I have ever known. It's caused me to wonder if there are other false people around me. I pray that he's the only one.