d. talks story

Virtual Insanity

I recently had a painful online affair with a narcissist. Please bear with me, I tend to the wordy side.

I met the Troll online in 1996, when I was 19. "The Internet" had just got going and I was wasting my first year of college on my parent's AOL account. I found him, actually. Going through guys' profiles, looking for funny, smart weirdos with a sort of punk bent to verbally spar and flirt with. I was overweight most of my life and had some major self-esteem issues that I wasn't even aware of way back then, so being online was perfect for me (although, I never did really click with anyone like with him, and I never developed any other online "friendships").

I don't remember a ton of details from back then (I started self medicating w/ drugs and booze for my general anxiety pretty young, but I am grateful to be almost 5 years sober today), but I clearly remember how I initiated things with him. I loved his (what I thought was) clever, tough profile so I (actually!) IM'd him: "will you marry me?" To which he promptly replied: "HELL NO!" Sigh. So I pursued him!

We chatted all the time. I remember the thrill I'd get when he'd come online. It wasn't sexual, really. We just had similar senses of humor and cracked each other up (or so I thought; turns out that he absolutely lacks a real sense of humor, or anything else authentic for that matter). I didn't have barely any experience with guys at that point, and frankly, I felt like he was out of my league. He was older, tall, manly and hot. Any boys I'd known or had been involved with were the skinny freaks n geeks I hung out with. He sent me a picture and my roommate sent him one of me, to my horror.

But he (gasp!) still liked me and wished we could "hang out." I hopped on a bus and went cross country to see him on my spring break that year. (God, I cringe). It was quite an adventure, on the bus at least. Our visit was actually pretty boring, after I jumped in bed w him immediately. During which somebody was banging like hell on his door- a girlfriend, possibly live-in, I'm now thinking (there were cool CDs there that he wouldn't have chosen on his own). Anyway, after that one time, he said "that was nice." We laid there and joked around for a minute, and then he wouldn't touch me again. We just hung out. Very blandly. Drunk, but bland.

I very much internalized his physical rejection. It didn't "break my heart" because I already believed I wasn't good enough for him anyway. I had auditioned and failed. He was a good sport about it, though--he treated me to mcdonald's take out and let me come to the box store with him.

We stayed in touch online, occasionally mailed letters and music, and he visited me at college as he was moving across country for some career training. I was determined not to have sex w him immediately and he was fine w that. Then we did. It was bland, the whole visit. Not really even unpleasant, just bland. I don't even remember it. It's funny too, bc this is the extent of our real life contact, and yet, years later, he recalls that "we always have a great time together." I recall that after he left my house, driving off w all his worldly belongings to become an officer in the most elite and totally fucked up branch of the military, I felt terribly sad and empty. I had been partying pretty hard for several years, but that was the first day (of many) that I drank alone in the daytime. Coincidence?

My self-esteem was abysmal at this point in my life, and so I kept crushing on him, despite what I realize now is his glaring lameness. He had this bemused detached attitude and I craved his attention and approval. Our contact became more sporadic as our lives moved on. I was busy hurtling myself down the path of self-destruction and getting toxically enmeshed with another, more local and pressing, narcissist fuck (maybe I will deal with that one here later; I dare say his damage was much deeper). The last I heard from the Troll was a reply to a "hey you, what's up" email I sent: he was married and his wife was extremely jealous of girls he had slept with. He'd let me know when it was all clear. Umm, okay. God, who knows what was really going on there.

He is career military, has one of the flashiest job descriptions available there. When 9/11 happened, my thoughts went to him, as I knew he would be flying out to fight in some real shit. I googled him occasionally, and my ears always pricked up when I heard news involving m@rines over there. I always had the feeling that I'd see him again, although I get now that that was my own kind of magical thinking.

Fast forward to 2008ish and the black magic of facebook, and I find him. I finally messaged him, asking if we could be friends again, now that I was happily married as well, ha ha. He seemed thrilled to hear from me, and we chatted a few times. Turns out he's now on wife # 2, since the first one was (surprise!) a psycho, who couldn't handle him watching porn. He said he left her for his own sanity. I get that even normal guys like porn, and I actually felt sorry for him.

Since last we'd met, I had changed a lot. Grew up, got married, got sober, lost a good deal of weight, started loving myself a little. I don't know what it was. I guess I wanted another chance to make him want me. Maybe i just wanted a new drug. Anyway, our chats got naughty. It excited me like crazy; I had never been so turned on. My husband has been my best friend for years, well before our relationship got romantic. He is sweet and honest, kind and gentle. But I never got that rush from him like this (the only other one to do that to me was the hella-toxic ex-n bf). I thought the Troll and I had something special that I was missing out on in my marriage. I know now that we did: a perfectly awful cocktail of magnetic, exciting and destructive psychologies. He called it a "cosmic bond." Ha.

A major contingency of my sobriety is living an honest and spiritual life, and pretty soon, my conscience got to me. I told him that I knew we were both good people (the most erroneous default assumption I've ever made about someone), that we oughtn't hurt our spouses, and that I needed to keep it clean with him from then on. He seemed to understand, respect it even. We still talked occasionally. I'd send him funny stuff, etc. One morning, after a particularly fun exchange while his wife and kid were out of town, I got a message that said he was "drunk as shit," but I was the most awesome person he has ever known and that he wished he could hang out with me every day for the rest of his life. I joked it off, sure that he would be extremely embarrassed once he sobered up; such an outright display of affection from this tough guy was uncharacteristic. But it still felt good. I should've quit while I was ahead.

Then last spring he got deployed. He IM'd me the first week, telling me he was in the desert for 6 months, and that he missed talking dirty to me (then tacked on, to be safe, "too much?"). I bit, hard. Hook, line and MFing sinker. I felt bad for him, being away from his kid (he really played up the dad thing) and risking his life every day. We started chatting more (he was usually off duty for sleep during my baby's naptime) and he began really pushing me for some dirty pics. At that point, he shined his attention on me full force. I loved it, but still, I was wary. I sent him one photo, just a little suggestive, and he pressed for more. I loved--no, totally got off on--his pursuit. And the fat, lonely little girl in me wanted his approval so bad, wanted terribly to please him. And, I now know (thank you, ladies!) that I have very weak, if any, boundaries (working on that!). So I gave him what he wanted.

The "honeymoon" lasted a month or so. We were hot and heavy, having daily contact. We set up secret email accounts to avoid detection. My thoughts constantly and obsessively revolved around him. i sent him stuff in the mail, since it was "safe," him being away from home. Then, when it was clear that I was enjoying myself, I suppose, the d&d started. The silent treatment was his main weapon (when i agreed to play dirty with him again, my single demand of him was that he talk to me and treat me like a friend, not just a "piece." I see now that i just gave him clear instructions on how to hurt me most). When I stood up for myself, telling him that he was treating me like shit, that he didn't care a whit about me as a person (and I actually used the phrase "feeding me crumbs"), he would make comments about me being psycho, and turn everything around on me, making me feel guilty for adding to his stress. I don't want to go on and on about what all he did or said or didn't say; it just was awful and maddening, his constant bait and switch of fun, affection and admiration with ice-cold indifference. You all know the routine. As Hunter says, same freak, different body.

i guess the hardest pill to swallow is that despite all these intense feelings I had for him as a friend and potential lover (and no, I never said the L word, or entertained any fantasy of us being together, aside from maybe a hot fling one day), despite all the risks I took, not to mention my secret betrayal of my husband, I was just a unique and useful tool to him at best, and some big fucking joke at worst. That's it. There's this one pic he posted on fb, among a bunch of others of his deployment stuff, where he was sitting in his "office," staring super-intensely at the computer screen (with those scary, empty black eyes), while his buddy is sitting next to him, cracking up in disbelief. I just know, deep down, that he was looking at me. Maybe the whole affair was conducted in a room full of horny, hard-up assholes. When I confronted him about it at the time, saying, "that better not be me you're talking to!" his only reply was something like "we don't have chat on the work computers." Comforting. But I digress.

I stumbled upon info about NPD, and thankfully, this amazing site, when I googled "silent treatment" and "online affair" after he had been home for a while and was still treating me like crap. I had tried to cut it off with him several times before, but I kept going back, out of guilt for leaving him high and dry (ha!) and my own neediness. But when I discovered the true nature of this "man," a narc for sure, and possibly a psychopath (after all, he does kill people for a living), everything just clicked and my blood turned to ice. I was mortified and terrified. I was afraid that he would post my pics somewhere, or send them to my husband. Or, even worse, that he would try to hurt me or my child. I realized I knew absolutely nothing about this person, who I just blindly accepted as trustworthy, or what kind of monster he could truly be.

And I get it, I really do, that I have played the biggest part in this awful ordeal. I have serious issues that led me to seek him out and which kept me going back, reaching out to him, trying to figure out how to make things right, make him worship me again. These are things that I need to work out for myself, or else history will just keep repeating, and I will keep escaping reality with some "drug" or another and fail to grow to my full potential as a human being.

Maybe this all sounds way overblown for an online affair, but it has affected me very much. I'm terribly embarrassed, and ashamed of myself for getting involved with him. I deeply regret betraying my husband, as well as messing with a married man. But with a little time and NC (15 weeks as of today), I have come to look on it as a blessing in disguise, and an opportunity for growth, much like my alcoholism, which, once I confronted it, changed my life drastically for the better. Today, I don't obsess about what he could do to me (although I do still obsess about him sometimes). If he does decide to exact revenge or whatever (I don't think he ever thought that I would be the one to burn the bridge), I will deal with it. But honestly, I don't think he will. He is an extremely selfish person, and also a coward (despite his job, a thrill-seeking, cred-bestowing front; he has no honor). He was always saying he had "more to lose" than me (hmm. One spouse, one child--seems pretty even), so I don't think that he will bother. In fact, I doubt that I even exist in his mind any more. Poof! On to the next thing.

I want to thank all of you for reading this giant wall of text, and more importantly, for saving me from making the biggest mistake of my life. I can't stress this enough: Had I not found this place, and learned so much from all of your experience, strength and hope, I would still be going round and round with him, and would have eventually met up with him in real life. God only knows the pain and destruction that would have spiraled out from there. I started lurking on this site for 4 months ago, reading everything you wrote. I went NC a week later. I am constantly struck by the clarity, strength and intelligence of the members and moderators. You all have saved me, and I thank you.