The other day, I was chatting with a friend about Jen. I found myself making an interesting remark. Yes, I am keeping my eyes open regarding Jen. On the one hand, I remarked, it’s a bit sad that I’m being cautious. On the other hand, after two serious relationships in a row where it turned out that I was just being used . . . maybe it’s sad that it took this long.
Jen is VERY different from Leah. She’s older and more mature (she’s, in fact, a little older than me and lives on her own). She has a good career. She is established in her life in New York and will not be moving in with me. She has stated: she needs nothing from me but my company. Great . . . except that this is a LOT like the claims of the lover before Leah. Let’s call her “X”. X made similar claims, but it turned out that all of those claims were lies. X saw that this is what I really wanted at that time in my life, and she created a persona that was irresistible to me. She was just using me. I want to say that Jen is different because of all of these reasons, but then I am reminded that X made many of the same claims. I guess the difficulty here is that it sounds like I don’t trust Jen. I DO trust Jen, but I am approaching this in the manner of the movie The Golden Voyages of Sinbad: “Trust in Allah, but always tie up your mule.”
X was an attractive, passionate woman. She was my “special friend” as the relationship-with-my-girlfriend-at-the-time was coming to an end. X described a fascinating life story and made herself appear to be the leader of a community of friends (by “made herself appear”: she literally created six or seven fake e-mail addresses and contacted me from these, pretending to be her-friends-that-were-soooo-happy-for-her). Basically, she needed a man to let her and her kids move in, and I was the best prospect at the time.
When she and her kids came out to visit me, she saw that I did, in fact, have a house that was big enough for everyone. Her con game moved in to high gear. On the one hand, the story of her past was enhanced with her involvement in big business (which she had to give up because of a head injury), that was going to result in her being rich in a few years. On the other hand, she increased the risk to letting her live where she was: her ex-husband was abusing her son and sexually assaulting her, and his family had so many connections out there that she was helpless. Add to that my own loneliness at that time, and her promises to take care of me (I wouldn’t need to cook anymore!), and soon she moved in with me.
X’s big trademark was constant lying (although there were other things, like her erratic abusive behavior). A year after she moved in, we broke up (although we got involved again six months later). To give a sense as to how bad it was . . . towards the end, we had an argument and I was sitting on the floor. I said to her: “There’s no more relationship to protect. You can’t protect me any more – you’ve already broken my heart and torn it to pieces. Tell me the truth about SOMETHING! I’ve earned that!” I was actually reduced to that level! And the punch-line was that she answered that with another lie.
I used to wonder why I put up with her. Why did I keep trying with her erratic behavior? A month after she moved in, it was revealed that she had literally lied about her entire identity: why didn’t I tell her to leave then? Why did I keep trying? Why did I keep trusting, even when I knew that it was an almost certainty that she was lying? The answer is that she was a skilled con artist. I kept giving her chances and hoping because that is what she wanted me to do. I can be easily played. Leah saw me going through that, and decided that it was HER turn to play me. All that has changed with me is that I am now with another woman, but I can STILL be played. And, yes, it is possible that Jen is playing me as well. I believe she isn’t, and I hope she isn’t . . . but if I kept on the rose colored glasses, then that means I didn’t learn anything from my experiences with X and with Leah, and THAT would be the tragedy.
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