The basic gist of what went down: a friend, someone who I met at a conference a few years ago with whom I have pretty much no regular contact but who's seemed like an OK person, who is married, came to my city for the weekend, and asked if I was free to hang out on Friday. I've been pretty isolated for the last while, especially since my partner was out of town for the week, so I said yes immediately and chatted online briefly. We met up, walked around for a bit. It started off that he was just hanging out with me for a few hours; then he had some reason to cancel his plans with his friends in the next city over and asked me to dinner. I accepted; we went, he paid for my meal as I'm also not financially in a great place right now and he knew that as it was true the last time I'd seen him a year or two ago. He was travelling and had forgotten to buy some stuff, so we made a stop for him to do that (socks and underwear, he said). We took the train to another part of the city I wanted to show him. It seemed all pretty benign and pleasant, though I could feel him doing and saying things that seemed odd to me occasionally. I wrote it off as him being socially awkward; I can be myself so I'm generally forgiving of such things. The evening wore on. It got late enough that it seemed like it would be a really long drag for him to travel all the way to the suburbs only to come back in the morning for his event then. He asked to stay on my couch to save himself the commute. I consented. We went for one more beer and a midnight poutine, then went back to my apartment. I set up my futon for him, chatted with him briefly, announced, "I'm going to talk to [my partner] on Facetime now," and went to bed. The next morning, we went for coffee, and he left.
At different points in the evening, I got the feeling that I was being played somehow. As I mentioned, I generally try to give people the benefit of the doubt. In this case, I feel like this part of my personality was used against me for someone else's purposes. It wasn't until I was describing it to my best girlfriend that I was played by a pick-up artist who had been hoping to sleep with me, without ever asking or telling me straight out that that was what he wanted. It's something that feels like a case needs to be made for it, since he was never forthcoming or direct about any of it.
Here were the most telling signs to me that something was up (some of which even occurred during the evening).
1 - the slow escalation, from "just hanging out" to "dinner" to "staying on my couch." It had the makings of a long con to me, for it would have seemed absurd to me to consent to the last item at the beginning. Sometimes that's just how evenings unfold, but that seemed way a little too convenient to me.
2 - there was a moment in the evening when he touched me, and it stuck out as something done for the purposes of conditioning. From that point on he probably felt it safe to transition to walking closer to me.
3 - from what little I've read online about neurolinguistic programming, he was doing a lot of things around mirroring my language. There were also instances of random, a propos of nothing compliments that I now see as an attempt to curry favour.
4 - this and the next three are my strongest indicators. At one point in the evening he told me (at 34 years old) that he still sucks his thumb. I learned yesterday in my research that this is seen as sharing something intimate about one's self in order to set the expectation for reciprocating somehow or garnering sympathy.
5 - At another point in the conversation he told me his wife "didn't like people," that he often came to my city alone to see concerts and stuff, because he knew she wouldn't enjoy herself, and that she was accustomed to it. I took this as a queue for a conversation about introvert and extrovert partners. Later on I started to realize he was stealthily telling me that he could easily make excuses to come to the city if I wanted to start an extramarital affair with him.
6 - In the evening, just before I retired to my bed, he attempted to get me to stay up later to talk to him. I did — sitting in my pyjamas at a significant distance from him. I now believe this was intended to be an attempt to take my slightly inebriated state to, in the vernacular, make a move on me.
...all that said, I don't really feel like debating the finer points of it. I present these details for the purposes of illustration, not because I'm open to being told that I'm seeing things.
As time has worn on since these events, I've gone through a plethora of feelings. In the moment, I was mostly baffled or thought him benign or harmless with a crush. I knew I wasn't attracted to him and wasn't going to do anything with him, because I have some pretty deep scars from having cheated on my current partner about 4.5 years ago (and hurting the person I cheated with pretty badly — he was a little bit younger, but I pretty clearly took advantage of his sexual inexperience and it's really something I'm very regretful and ashamed of having done) — and the incident was fresh on my mind (but really, has never been that far from it in all this time). I'm pretty aware of the pain I've caused my partner with that incident; he's also had to also deal with me being fixated with a crush I've had since even before that particular event, and he's been there for me through the journey of finally admitting that I needed help and taking various steps to help and heal my relationship with myself and to figure out how things with my family stress and make things toxic for me — things I am unspeakably grateful to him for. I told him that very night on Facetime that this guy was sleeping on our couch, that I found it awkward but that I felt like I was helping a friend out.
Yesterday, talking more with my best friend, I started to get rather angry about the whole thing, as I came more to grips with the machinations. This person had 'primed' me to say yes to things, I became increasingly convinced. I work as a dialogue facilitator professionally — some of what I read in the pick-up communities upset me because it seemed advice I'd heard and internalized previously, framed for much more nefarious purposes. I felt betrayed and duped. This is when the reading about pick-up artists began — part of a pattern of behaviour in me to pre-empt future pain. I quickly realized I wouldn't be able to do it, and started regretting not sending this guy on his way at various points where I could have. I regretted continuing giving him the doubt, or taking his requests on face value because I wanted to be nice.
It was in the marathon discussion with my best friend yesterday I was able to start getting to the root of why I was so upset. I do not deny that I was flattered and may have briefly entertained the idea of taking him up on his offer. Things have not been great with my partner on the sex front as a result of me (and to a smaller extent, him) being depressed, and I am also past the stage of thinking that it's a problem that will solve itself. I feel pretty ashamed of even having considered it for even half a second at all — and mostly, I think, that comes from a place of deep-seeded belief that I should be LUCKY that anyone finds my attractive in the least and would want to anything with me at all. This is the hall of mirrors that characterizes how I think about myself. When I thought back at my history, I started wondering — had I ever said no to sex for reasons that weren't related to me already being in a committed relationship? Had I EVER said no to sex simply because I didn't like a person, or because I had STANDARDS?
What this led to was a BUNCH of critical thinking towards myself, which was exacerbated by the ENTIRELY indirect nature of this guy's approach to this situation. Had I been flirting with him? Had I been giving him signs that I was interested — by letting him crash on my couch as he'd asked? Did this somehow mean I owed him something, (for the paltry $60 he'd spent on dinner and my drinks, ugh)? Am I a slut in denial? This round of thinking got me angry again — at myself. It quickly bled back into a shame, familiar from five years ago.
So the whole fact-finding expedition I went on, I'm fairly certain, is a symptom of the games I'm used to playing in the context of my love addiction — the wondering, the poring over signs and meanings, implications, etc. So right now I'm having the conversation with myself to stop that, because it's fruitless for making sure I don't get hurt in the future (I will, undoubtedly, I remain a frail and silly human no matter how many probabilities my tired brain has worked through).
The part that is feels more insidious is the evidence for continued desire for external validation — manifesting in evidence of attractiveness and sex. As I told my best friend yesterday, I was probably considering 'just going for it' for a moment or two. My best friend, being awesome and insightful, told me that I really shouldn't be a perfectionist on myself on this front — that what matters the most is that, presented with the opportunity, I didn't do anything that I should be ashamed of. Maybe if I hadn't done the work of learning more about the nature of my illness, its roots and the way it manifests in thoughts that try to get me to sweep away the consequences of my actions in favour of "a hit", I really would have given in and been in a much messier position than I am now, just grateful that I stuck to my guns, a little pissed off at me and a LOT pissed off at this person for manipulating me and maintaining plausible deniability six ways from Sunday on it.
I guess that's where I am. I'm conflicted, confused, ashamed, but I guess this is actually par for the course for recovering from this particular illness. Hurray....!?!?
If you've made it all the way down here, you have my gratitude for your commitment to listening and interest, 'cuz that was a big ol' wall of angsty text.
I'm not one for long messages but I will say that I'm at least happy that you were able to come to a point of realization and reflection, especially so soon. Love addiction can be complicated but I think that you don't have anything to be ashamed of. Guys and gals can be manipulative in order to get what they want, I guess these are little social games that we play. So of us catch on quickly some of us don't (Im in the latter category). So, I hope maybe this is something you can gain experience from...you seem to be very intuitive of your feeling and have awesome friends as well. Thanks for sharing! 