Four days later I’m not doing a very good job concentrating at work, and go to check Facebook for the first time in a couple of hours.
Apparently, at some point in that two hour timespan, Zoe either blocked me or deleted her profile.
I post on Tumblr:
“Oh cool yup. She definitely blocked me on facebook. I haven’t messaged her in 4 days, which probably makes that kind of a shitty thing to do to someone she’s already totally fucked over but whatever I guess. It’s pretty minor relative to everything else.”
Later that night she messages me on gchat.
[censored — not mine to reveal]
I am confused as to why she’s saying I’m not respecting her requests for space or time, since she hadn’t made any such requests (except for arguably the last conversation we had, after which I didn’t message her for four days). I toss it in the puzzle piece pile.
As for what she tells me, it convinces me to give the relationship another chance. At some point we start talking about this issue where she gets angry and defensive or says she’s panicking any time I try to understand more about her cheating on me, or why she kept telling me she wasn’t involved with anyone during the breakup, or why she tried to prevent me from sleeping with other people while she herself was doing it in secret, or any other of a host of unanswered questions. And I tell her that if we’re going to make this relationship work again, those things need to get talked about.
Dishonest? What the heck is dishonest about trying to figure out what was and wasn’t true for the last 7 months? I guess I’ll throw it in the puzzle piece pile for now.
Anyway, as expected, so long as we don’t broach the subject of the past, she’s calm and pleasant and sweet, and we even manage to joke around a little. Eventually, the information she revealed becomes irrelevant, and she has a meeting to go to, but sends me this text a few minutes after logging off.
God damn it yes. Thank you for being decent finally you lovable jerk.
We talk on gchat again the next morning, and the conversation isn’t too tumultuous; though it doesn’t offer me anything in the way of new information or closure. Eventually she says she has to go to bed and we say our goodnights and both log off.
I send her a message letting her know I have a question when I notice she’s online some 6 hours later, but she doesn’t respond. Four days go by and I don’t hear from her. Weird?
It’s plausible that she just hasn’t been using gchat though.
I send her a text.
No response for the next day. I send her two more texts, and she’s almost certainly ignoring me now. Why? This is confusing.
Welp, I’m stumped. Maybe the puzzle pieces will help. Let’s see what we have.
- Zoe unfriended me on Facebook.
- Zoe’s behavior when talking about things she did in the relationship has changed — In the conversation when I was at the library she would just lie a lot until cornered; now she gets defensive / angry / tells me to back off way before there’s a chance to be cornered.
- Zoe blocks me after I don’t message her for four days on the grounds that I am not giving her enough space to heal.
- Zoe says she feels like it’s dishonest of me to be messaging her for closure??
- Zoe says she wants to make things up to me, even if we don’t get back together. But, after a fairly tame conversation, she ignores me for five days and counting.
I’m not seeing anything. Maybe it was something I said in our very last gchat conversation that morning after she sent her text?
Oh.
Oh god damn it.
God fucking damn it.
“do you wanna maybe try in person?”
“do you believe I want to fix this or not?”
“I don’t want to do this online.”
GOD FUCKING DAMN IT. SHE’S AVOIDED ME EVER SINCE THIS CONVERSATION BECAUSE SHE IS PARANOID I MIGHT GO PUBLIC AND DOESN’T WANT ME TO HAVE MORE LOGS.
Let’s look at the puzzle pieces again.
- Zoe unfriended me on Facebook: She’s establishing distance so I can’t prove I know her or contact her facebook friends.
- Zoe now gets defensive and angry when pressed for information: She does not want to leave more incriminating things in my logs.
- Zoe deactivates her profile after 4 days of radio silence: She wants to decrease the plausibility of the logs I have by making them look like this:
-
- She says it’s dishonest of me to message her for closure: She’s stopping just shy of flat out telling me she thinks I might go public.
- Zoe ignores me after telling me she wants to make things up to me: Because making things up to me decreases the odds that I go public, but
- She doesn’t want to do that online: Because that’s not worth the risk of my having more logs of more incriminating information.
JESUS CHRIST SHE IS FUCKING OSTRACIZING ME BECAUSE MAKING IT UP TO ME IS NOT WORTH THE RISK. Jesus F Christ what a selfish jerk.
I guess maybe I should at least make sure she isn’t also just failing to recieve my texts. I give her a call, but it goes to voicemail after two rings.
I’d like some response, so I guess I should give some innocuous pretense. She still has my fancy headphones, and she’d probably want to minimize the number of reasons I have to continue contacting her, so she’d probably respond to a message asking for them back. I send her one more text to make sure:
Motherfucker.
—————————–
End.
—————————–
thezoepost 
Holy.
Fucking.
Shit.
That is unbelievable.
I am so, incredibly sorry.
I am so, so, so, so, so fucking sorry.
This?
This is…no.
I have no words.
I have no reaction.
I am just so sorry for you.
I just found out about this a few minutes ago and I feel horrid.
This makes me feel sick.
God.
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I’m so sorry for your loss man, those headphones must have been nice.
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LMFAO! Awesome.
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Wow, you sure are all about openness and not at all just a vengeful ass with how you only even approve comments agreeing with you.
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I mostly approve arguments that aren’t vitriolic. There are a few approved which disagree with me, while not trying to make things into a flame war.
I am also not approving comments of the form “all women”, “anyone with tattoos and dyed hair”, or “genitals genitals genital genitals.”
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Reading this made me feel physically sick.
If airing this out bought you even a modicum of solace than it is entirely justified
I hope your future holds something spectacularly beautiful to make up for this shit.
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Obviously this is one side of the story (albeit very convincing), but damn. Makes me want to hug my girl and count myself as lucky.
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While it is certainly wise to remember we are only getting one side of the story here, that prudence holds less importance when one of the stories has some manner of evidence to back up its claims, while the other story involves suppressing information.
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I have spent just about my entire Saturday afternoon reading both sides of this issue and here’s my thoughts. Even though her personal life has really nothing to do with her ability to create a good video game, her ethics have everything to do with the accusations that she is using personal relationships to influence reviews on her game. As a woman and a devoted lover of video games, I’m sad and angry that she is the person representing me in the game developing industry. I’m sure there is misogyny working against her. I’m sure it’s hard as a woman to get ahead in this industry. But by sleeping with her boss and other influential people and then deflecting any accusations by saying that people are just being mean to her because she is a girl, she is just confirming all the stereotypes that misogynists use to keep women out of the industry. This shouldn’t be a man vs. woman thing, If this was a guy offering favors to reviewers to get ahead, people would still be angry. This calls into question whether or not reviewers can be trusted to give honest reviews of games to the public, not whether or not girls can make video games.
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I feel horrible after reading this whole thing. I can barely believe it, not because of lack of evidence but I’m amazed that someone so twisted exists, it’s so unreal. So, please, count with my support, love or whatever, man. Just don’t feel bad about yourself, you don’t deserve this shit.
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Wow.
Both at the length of time I spent reading the article, and at the absolutely horrific acts this person is willing to commit.
I’m truly sorry you found one of the more rotten apples in the pile, but at least this is going a long way towards stopping her and perhaps whatever sick vision she might be wishing to make real under her guise. I’m someone who wants to be the person she first described to you, upholding all which is good for a person to be, so it’s quite the sickening reminder that evil can exist in the self-righteous.
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Boy, get over it, and dont make yourself a jerk.
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Gotta agree with the poster who pointed out which side of the story to believe:
One person is throwing all the evidence out there (with perspective).
The other is trying to suppress it all.
Pretty clear who to believe, unless of course they have their own evidence, but somehow I’m not really confident that it will ever show up.
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Wow. Just….wow. I read it all. All of it. Every word. It took hours. I can only imagine how long it took you to put it all together. I’m so sorry you had to go through this.
Thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time to share your story. Thank you for exposing the truth. You could have easily kept this all to yourself. But now the public can reap some benefit from your suffering. People in similar abusive and/or unfaithful relationships can now be better equipped to recognize the signs and get out. While others will be able to avoid such relationships entirely. Thousands of Zoe’s followers will now be able to see her for what she really is. Your sacrifice will help people and that makes you a hero.
It’s funny to me how some think that by doing this, you’re being hateful or vengeful. I think these people need to look deeper and read between the lines. I don’t see hate. I see love. Even after all she put you through, you STILL love her. You’re still trying to save her. You gave Zoe a chance to seek therapy of her own volition. Now you’ve been forced to do things the hard way. This is tough love.
Anyone who was paying attention would notice a recurring pattern throughout the story. You kept giving her the benefit of the doubt. You kept giving her the opportunity to redeem herself. You kept looking for the good in her and having faith that she would eventually do the right thing. You never gave up on her. And I believe what you’ve done here serves as proof that you still haven’t given up. I was certain that by the end of Act 3 at the hotel, it was truly over, and you would never speak to her again. I think that would have been the breaking point (if not sooner) for most people. But when I got to Act 6 and read “it convinces me to give the relationship another chance” I thought to myself “wow, this guy really loves her.”
I must take a moment to applaud the composition of your story. The sheer amount of evidence and detail is overwhelming yet so well structured. It’s masterful.
I wish you all the best. I hope that you achieve everything that you had set out to do with this. Thank you again, Eron.
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You are young and inexperienced so you didn’t know that on the first date, she showed some red flags. She talked too much about herself; made herself look like a victim, badmouthed her ex-husband and went on about her past hardships. The next time any woman does that, do not go on a second date. She’s disqualified herself right there.
If you had avoided commenting when she unfriended you the first time, you could have saved yourself a lot of grief. But you kept talking to her and talking to her. When you’re more experienced you will see that this is toxic behavior and won’t say another word to her. That’s the only way.
Take care.
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Holy fuck.
That is….. Damn.
Sorry. Nobody deserves this.
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“GOD FUCKING DAMN IT. SHE’S AVOIDED ME EVER SINCE THIS CONVERSATION BECAUSE SHE IS PARANOID I MIGHT GO PUBLIC AND DOESN’T WANT ME TO HAVE MORE LOGS.”
I am so glad to have finally read all this, especially for your revelation here. When it became apparent to my abusive partner he was losing control of me and I was leaning towatds leaving him, he stopped addressing any of the things I’d bring up about what he’d done to me in e-mail or SMS too – after forcing me to delete the previous incriminating messages and pictures from my phone and accounts. He played it as a trust thing, as in he didn’t want me to keep holding it over him when we were still in the working things out or throwing his behaviour back in his face. In reality, he knew I was going to end up leaving him, wouldn’t be quiet about the abuse so wanted to make sure it was my word against his. He’d already done a good job of discrediting my word to anyone we knew by making me seem crazy (helped by the PTSD-like decline in my mental health as a direct result of his abuse), isolating me so I couldn’t tell people what really happened and by gaslighting me.
What you’ve posted sounds a lot like emotional and psychological abuse. That thing where you felt you were going crazy, or were made to feel crazy is gaslighting. Making you give up female friends who may or may not have been interested you, while not doing the same is hypocritical and controlling. So is the stance on cheating and sex. You had to be totally devoted and exclusive with her but were not afforded the same – exactly like abusers do to control their victims. One wonders what would have happened if you were perceived to be being unfaithful.
Leaving aside the media/Internet shitstorm surrounding this, I’m sorry you went through this. I hope you are able to get any help and support you may want or need.
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My condolences for your bad choice in women. Things like that happen but you should have broken it up earlier (I know that’s easier said than done especially the first time round).
However I also want to add that even terrible people can be excellent in their field ( think Bobby Fisher).
And I also don’t think her personal failings that need attention and self-recognition, disqualify her work. I think on that same line many other commentator are very shoddy and terrible. They equate her private live with her professional position and respond in the manner of a 12 year old child.
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She’s so-so in her field. But, the issue isn’t her value as a game designer. It’s the extent to which she is going against the values she espouses, and the extent to which she stands to harm the career’s of the business partners she gets into relationships with.
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I just read this. My feelings are…mixed, I guess.
Here’s the thing. A few years ago, I was in almost exactly your position – same age an everything. I just put up with it a lot longer, and with someone who (eventually) resented me for the fact that he cared about me at all. He kept coming back, but he punished me for it.
I’m not telling you all this for pity; I’m just trying to establish that I completely get how you feel/felt, and it’s awful. That relationship almost destroyed me, and I was a wreck for years afterward.
The thing is, on some level (though I wouldn’t admit it for a long time) I was not a blameless victim. I could have walked away at any time. And yeah, part of it was that I was being emotionally abused and he had me convinced I deserved it, and I thought I was being unreasonable asking for basic respect, and all that usual jazz. You know the litany. But there was more to it than that. I also…I can’t find the right words for it right now, exactly, but I kind of got off on it. I don’t mean I enjoyed the way he treated me – god no. To my shame, however, I did like being the one on the moral high ground. I kept coming back, kept picking fights, kept talking to him long after it was obvious our relationship could never be saved, because even though it hurt, *the suffering made me feel superior.* I could keep showing that he was an asshole, and I got to be this martyred angel who he took advantage of time and time again. And everyone would say, “oh, you poor sweet thing! You’re so good to him and he just doesn’t deserve you!” And it was true. But I also let him turn me into this controlling crazy person who could say, in the depths of her subconscious, “well maybe I can’t have real love, but I can at least be a martyr and get lots of attention and reassurance” and somehow think that was an acceptable trade off.
I couldn’t truly move on or learn from that experience until I understood that impulse in myself and accepted it. I didn’t keep confronting him for closure; I didn’t truly ever think we could rebuild trust or any kind of functional relationship. I kept picking fights about the same things because I wanted his attention, and I wanted to rub his nose in his failures, and I wanted to keep talking about how and why he’d hurt me. He felt like shit about it (he didn’t stop or anything; he was a compulsive, damaged person – but he did recognize that the way he acted was horrible) and I really, really wanted him to be as miserable as I was.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is this: I can’t tell you what your motivations are. I can only tell you what I know about myself, and observe that I see a lot of myself in your story. It’s a shitty place to be, and asking for something like permission to read her facebook messages is going to make you feel like crap regardless of the outcome. But ask yourself this: what if she’d let you? Right there on the spot? What if you’d read all the awful, heartbreaking things she’d said to others? Would you have been able to move past it, really? Or did some part of you just want the vindication of it?
I’m not trying to be a jerk here. If I could, I’d give you a hug and cookies and like five margaritas. What she did was awful, and there is absolutely no denying that. I guess I’m just trying to share the hardest thing I learned from my own pain, in the hope that I can help somehow. Honestly, I’m not sure it even makes sense XD
I know it doesn’t help, but things do get better! And when you meet the right person, it will be *even better,* because you’ll be sitting there going “man, it’s so awesome that I can trust you and you don’t make me feel crazy!” You know. As one does.
Hugs, sweetie.
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I guess, what most likely would have happened if she let me read the messages. Was we would either get couples counseling while she got therapy, or switch to an open relationship — again, while she got therapy.
Very probably an open relationship.
I’m sorry you had to go through all of that btw.
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I don’t think Zoe should be held as an example of “why wimmenz should get in the kitchen and off of teh x-box” because I don’t think what she did has anything to do with being a woman, but more with the high probability you unfortunately ended up dating a sociopath. The terms sociopath and psychopath get tossed around a lot, but she (from your accounts of the situation and from what I read in the logs) shows a ton of typical signs of sociopathy.
-She told you very early on in the relationship that she loved you. Sociopaths have shallow emotions and don’t understand what love truly feels like, thus it’s easy for them to throw the word ‘love’ easier than most.
-She told you plenty of sob stories. Who knows if any of them are true, you know she’s a liar now. Sociopaths will take advantage of neurotypical (non-sociopaths) capacity for empathy and use it as a tool in their favor.
-She made you feel like the most special, wonderful person in the world and fit all of the criteria of your ideal woman. Sociopaths don’t really have much of a true identity and will use different personas depending on who they’re interacting with to become close to them. She knew what you wanted to hear, what you wanted in a girlfriend and she became that person. Sociopaths are social chameleons.
-She tried to throw you off her path when you became suspicious by acting as though the very idea of what you were thinking was pure madness. That you were being unreasonable, that there was something wrong with YOU and how dare you not trust her. As another person mentioned before, this is known as ‘Gaslighting’. Gaslighting is a go-to tactic for sociopaths. Again, they will use your feelings, your guilt, against you in their own favor.
-She was perfectly fine with cheating on you, lying, cheating more, lying and some more cheating, but became controlling and possessive when it came to the very idea you could possibly end up involved with another girl. Sociopaths don’t really see other’s as equals, as people who deserve respect and decency. They view the one’s closest to them mostly as property. At best, pets. At worst, toys they can play with and break for their own amusement. She was fine with her own shitty behavior because she doesn’t have much (or any) of a conscience and feels no remorse, but since you were HER’S and HER’S alone, she felt it was unacceptable for anybody else to touch her favorite toy. Since Sociopaths also show high signs of Narcissism, it probably had something to do with her ego, too. No way was some chick going to out-do her and steal your affections…even if, hypothetically, she didn’t really care for you…she needed to be the center of your world and that girl was not gonna take that from her.
-The lying. She was both lying compulsively and was calculating. Sociopaths simultaneously can’t stop themselves from chronically lying and will their own lies if they tell them enough times. She also was very calculating when it came to her lying; she knew what to admit, what to lie about, what to omit. As you said yourself, she was opening up without actually being open and saying anything of any real importance during your talks. She knew what she was doing. She planned Nathan’s visit, lied to you about it a few days before (pre-meditation), created friends and a story and excuses as to why she was indisposed. Pretty calculated if you ask me.
-Sociopaths have an amazing ability to compartmentalize things in their life. Serial killer Sociopaths can choke a prostitute to death with her own stockings and cannibalize the body and two hours later, be cheery Dad at family dinner. Zoe was one person; the one you fell in love with, the one who cared deeply about social justice, who took honesty and morals incredibly seriously. Then there was the other Zoe who could toss her promises out the window, lie, cheat, break her own supposed moral code, etc. I’m sure she felt nothing when she was being bad Zoe and I’m sure all of her misdeeds didn’t even cross her mind when she was with you, having in depth discussions about honesty. That’s probably why she could sleep with Nathan hours before seeing you and then be loving and intimate with you without skipping a beat. Her earlier transgression was tucked neatly into a pocket at the back of her brain.
-Sociopaths do not feel remorse or empathy. When expected to, they’ll put on quite the show of how much the guilt is killing them, “I’m the worst, how could I do this, you don’t deserve this, I understand if you hate me, I’m a monster!”. That probably wasn’t genuine in the least. It’s usually really over the top because they really don’t know how an actual person feels when they feel shame and guilt, they just know they’re SUPPOSED to show those emotions…but they tend to be hams when it comes to acting. It was also manipulative as all hell, because you begin to feel sorry for her beating herself up, which distracts you from the topic at hand. Then the most manipulative move: “I’m going to/have hurt myself/I’ll kill myself/I’ve tried to kill myself”. Your capacity for empathy, love, concern, compassion all kick in and you want to protect the person you love and then she’s let off the hook for a bit.
-Sociopath’s will never learn, despite consequences. They will never change. They don’t really think there’s anything wrong with themselves, in fact, most of them take pride in their mental illness. They take pride in tricking, lying, cheating…generally getting off on pulling the wool over people’s eyes and getting one over on them. They fancy themselves as more clever than us and think our empathy and consciences are weaknesses that they don’t have to deal with holding them back in life. They can get farther in life than other people because they’re willing to do things (sleep with married bosses, game reviewers, etc.) that most of us would think of as ‘going too far’. Zoe blowing off therapy despite her promises she really, really, really wanted to get better and make it work and make it up to you and never, ever be bad again? That was inevitable since she doesn’t see anything inside of herself that needs to be fixed, it’d be a waste of time. Thus, GOIN TO EUROPE, BRAH! instead.
She wouldn’t have resented you being upset, she would’ve seriously tried, she wouldn’t have cared more about bad PR than the fact she slept with a married man while in a committed relationship herself, she wouldn’t demand respect and trust right after being caught as a liar and a cheater, she wouldn’t have made you feel crazy for suspecting what she was really up to…if she actually loved you. That may be incredibly painful to read, but if Zoe actually is a sociopath (which, all those puzzle pieces, when put together, seem to prove), then you need to face the harsh fact that the person you loved and cared most about in your life did not love you. She may’ve felt some semblance of something she thinks may be what other people experience as love, but it wasn’t the real, true love you thought it was. You mention she played lots of games. That’s very apt; sociopaths basically just go through life playing games with different pieces. When you found her out, when you realized she was all smoke and mirrors and lies and hurt, the game was over for her. She couldn’t fool you anymore, you wouldn’t implicitly trust her lies anymore, she couldn’t get away with what she wanted anymore. Now you were asking all these questions, asking for closure, asking her to go to therapy, etc…so no more fun. Why stay around? And that’s when she cut contact.
Your blog is important because, in my eyes, it shows a textbook case of becoming attached to a Sociopath. It’s a cautionary tale that may help many others see the red flags in certain situations and run for the hills instead of getting caught up in pain, confusion and turmoil.
My best friend in the whole world, a person who I thought was like some sort of friend soulmate, who was everything I wanted in a friend, turned out to be a Sociopath. She fucked with me for years. People ask why I’d go back after she’d, say, gaslight me to the point I became intensely paranoid (“why would I lie to you, I’m your best friend, how could you even think I could do such a thing? You’re terrible for not trusting somebody who has done so much for you!”) and wouldn’t leave my house, after she started secretly fucking the first person I dated and fell in love with and eventually convinced to leave me for her (only to dump a few months later, because where was the fun after that?), after she turned all my friends against me with lies because I’d accidentally irritated her…I’d tell them they didn’t understand. That I never felt such a close bond with anybody before, that I’d never felt more comfortable with somebody before, that she promised to change this time, that she’d never do it again. I just thought she was an asshole, really, maybe because of her traumatic childhood and needed time and an understanding friend to help her. She was fun and spontaneous and showed me amazing bands. But she also practically ruined my entire adolescence. I didn’t even cut her off permanently when we lived together with two other people in an apartment and got us evicted because she stole all the rent money and claimed the landlord was a lying thief (“BUT DON’T CONFRONT HIM, JUST DON’T”). I just happened to do a lot of reading on sociopathy one day and everything just clicked: My best friend wasn’t a run of the mill bitch, she was a sociopath. She was never going to change. Our close bond? It had meant nothing, absolutely NOTHING to her. I was just her favorite plaything who would always reliably come crawling back. It devastated me. The second you realize the love you thought a friend had for you for 7 years never existed, your mind kind of implodes. Then you become insanely furious and your ability to trust is fucked for a long, long time. People develop PTSD after friendships/relationships with sociopaths, it’s serious stuff. I see so much of my ex-best friend in Zoe that it’s disturbing. You might not believe what I’ve written, hell, I could be completely wrong. I don’t know her, you were the one who dated her. You’d know better than I do. I’m just saying, Eron, I see textbook behavior in your experiences with her, I see my ex-friend in her. I’m so sorry you went through all of that, I’ve also been cheated on (multiple times, actually) and it’s a horrible betrayal. If I’m right about what I’ve proposed in this comment, then I’m also incredibly sorry you went through the horrible bullshit that is being involved, in any way, with a sociopath. The hardest thing is contemplating that everything on her end wasn’t real. However, if you realize this, come to terms with it and learn from this experience, you’ll know to never let her back into your life and your spidey-sense will be on super-highly-accurate alert for skeezy people for the rest of your life and you’ll never have to deal with what you went through again when you can recognize the red flags. Just keep her at arms length and I promise your quality of life will vastly improve.
The best way to get over someone who hurt you, the best revenge, is just doing well. Be awesome, work hard, do amazing things. Someday, you’ll look back and wonder why you even bothered with her. You’ll meet somebody who truly is your ideal girl and you’ll fall in love again, and this time, without the panic attacks and bullshit drama.
Sorry this is the longest post ever. Good luck, dude.
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I generally don’t approve the psychoanalyzing comments, because honestly it can be a number of conditions that lead to this behavior. That said, I’m approving this one because it is an otherwise good and thorough appraisal of what happened.
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I’m kind of an unbearable armchair psychologist at times, that’s true, I apologize. Also, to stuff all of her behavior into one box and believe it’s the only possible explanation isn’t reasonable or realistic, I agree. It could be a completely different mental illness, it could be a variety of different issues that, when added up, create her negative behaviors. Like I’d said in my previous post, I don’t know Zoe (though weirdly enough, my boyfriend and I were discussing this yesterday and I found out he’s spoken to her a few times [he’s a gaming blogger]. Small world), you know/knew Zoe a thousand times better, and I’m also by no means any sort of trained doctor who could somehow accurately diagnosis someone without even meeting them. It’s really all just a theory based mostly on my own observations of your story, what I’ve learned about Sociopathy and my own past experiences with a Sociopath. If Zoe isn’t one, then that’s wonderful. I hope that’s true. I hope Zoe did truly love and care for you, but just didn’t have the ability to be in an open, honest, and trusting relationship at that time and has the potential to learn from her mistakes and become a better person. I am still very sorry you had to experience the pain of being cheated on in a relationship that meant a lot to you and I do hope that you’ll have much better luck in the future.
Also, sorry if you don’t get those headphones back…
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Haha. Well, that isn’t to say your diagnosis is necessarily *wrong.* I’m just generally averse to people making them without sufficient information. Interesting that your bf has met Zoe btw.
And thanks for reaching out!
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Just finished reading this, and I wanted to say: I’m really sorry you had to endure this. And I’m also very glad you took a stand and got out when you did. I myself just got out of a long term (3 years) relationship with almost the exact same person. It was incredibly emotionally damaging, I spent most of the end of it convincing myself I was a terrible person because at some point in the relationship it had been confirmed that I was “crazy” or “untrusting” and when I took a stand for myself, I could barely keep any ground I gained. It is so very hard to stand up to a person like this. Mind games are a really horrendous thing <— THIS IS THE REAL ISSUE
For those of the internet turning this into a "women" issue or a "feminist" issue, this is not what this is about. This is about people who cannot comprehend what it means to be in a relationship.
I, internet world, am a woman. I feel no less great after having read this. The person who did this to me was a man. It did not make the situation any better, or any worse. It was almost exactly the same.
This does not change the work that Zoe may do. It might be great work. That doesn't mean she's a great person.
In closing: This isn't a woman's issue, or a gaming issue, or anything else. This is a relationship issue. This is a problem with how people treat relationships, and the way our society puts infidelity on a pedestal. Please be real about what's going on.
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I had not even heard of Zoe until the (very one-sided) article on Cracked yesterday, but a quick Google led me here. I’ve found myself absolutely captivated by the situation… because of how much your relationship story with Zoe reminds me of a failed relationship of mine from about 8 years ago. In my particular case, she was cheating on me while away at college.
1. She lied constantly, just like Zoe did to you. And yeah, I thought “pathological liar” too, except that it turned out that her lies were very definitely to suit her various agendas. Fortunately (and I use that word bitterly), Heather was never able to remember her lies from one week to the next, so it didn’t take long for me to become suspicious – though I’d always talk myself into giving her the benefit of the doubt, because it was too painful to allow myself to believe that she really was cheating on me. And yeah, she’d have lies within lies, just like Zoe.
2. Whenever I did confront her about things that didn’t add up, I’d get that whole “You don’t trust me!” argument from her, and she’d make me feel guilty for doubting her. On those rare occasions when she did admit to having lied about something, she’d twist it around to where it was somehow *my* fault for creating a situation in which she felt she had to lie.
3. Like Zoe, Heather was always lecturing me about fidelity, honesty, etc., while doing the exact opposite things behind my back.
4. Zoe made up two people to cover the fact that she was sleeping with Nathan that week? Hell, my ex made up 3 roommates that she was allegedly moving in with, to hide the fact that she was actually moving in with a guy she was sleeping with.
5. The two guys she slept with (two guys that I know about, at least) had no idea that she had a boyfriend at home in Virginia, because she was lying to them too.
6. Heather didn’t delete me on social media to hide me from her boyfriend(s) in Maine (or them from me); she just had two different accounts (MySpace for Virginia, Facebook for Maine) so that we wouldn’t see each other.
My horror dragged out for many months. I *knew* she was cheating, because so much of what she said and did never added up. But part of me thought that maybe I was just being paranoid and, since she was so far from home, I couldn’t easily verify any of my suspicions. In fact, the full, verifiable truth didn’t come out until two months after our breakup, when I actually managed to find her Maine boyfriend’s old MySpace account.
So yeah, while our situations were different, it certainly *feels* similar to me, because of how many personality characteristics our respective exes seem to share.
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Wow, this experience very closely mirrors the only time I ever fell in love. The same red flags in the beginning, the same compulsive lying. Long story short, I was used as a tool to scapegoat the blame for ending a year long relationship she was tired of, all because she didn’t want to explain to her friends that her ex was boring her. I can’t believe I was so taken in by all the stories of douchebaggish treatment, and general dickheadishness she spun. The chemistry seemed to real, so natural, and I was completely taken in. At the end, everything was my fault, all the time, and I believed it because I couldn’t fathom the idea that she had simply lied to me for such a long time (9+ months). After it was all over, I met her ex boyfriend by chance. He was actually a pretty cool guy. Anyways, I’m sorry someone else went through something like this, nobody deserves it. Get through and you will become a stronger person, I know I did. The right girl is out there, somewhere, you will find the right one.
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i actually rather like your brain. are you too inundated with communication to make new friends? i just think you’d be interesting to talk to and i don’t want to talk about this at all, don’t worry
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while I’m not going to get on any pedestal and say
>haha I see your first mistake having a oneitis is for lonely beta FAGGOTS
I still will admit to thinking you only played yourself. Reading the logs it seems like you are a rational person. Now, what would possible my make you stay for that long? Love is easy to say but was it really love? I’ll try to take your word and say you loved her too much but thinking rationally and not ethically (because ethics is not a science and if it was it would be just as credible a science as philosophy or theology or such [which is to say not at all])it would be ridiculous to say you would stay
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Man, I know I’m a bit late about all this, but. I think you’re the most patient and understanding human being ever. You really don’t deserve that.
There are a lot of clues in those convo (in addition of the fact that she is constently lying) showing that she has huge mental disorders. I hope you get that she was the problem, and that you did everything just so fine.
I think you’re a good person and I hope you now live an awesome life, to make up for this terrible story.
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Did you get the headphones back?
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