Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Writing this has been a cleansing and a reminder of how easy it is for men (and women) to prey on those of us who may not be living with our heads on straight and how when that happens we are at the most vulnerable stages of our lives. It is a reminder to me as I write just how easy it was to be taken advantage of especially when we cannot look the person in the eyes and see the lies. Hopefully someone may read this and avoid what others have been through. Let’s think about one mechanism we all have – it is inherent in all good people that we need to listen to our guts. Our gut doesn’t let us down, we let it down. We all know what the feeling is. If an inherently good decent person tries to do something wrong, almost immediately there is a nervousness in the gut. Butterflies, queasiness, actual nausea, whatever – it is our guts telling us “watch out” but do we listen? Hell no, our head’s are telling us don’t listen to your gut, this is a nice man. He is so sweet and kind, he is so caring and loving. HE IS NOT. Our gut knows what our hearts are not listening to.

MY STORY – NOVEMBER 1998

It has been almost nine years since my very short-lived but highly intense internet relationship with PZ. It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I was living in downtown Chicago and working as a sales rep for a medical equipment company. I was “in a relationship” that was slowly beginning to unwind. It was a dreary sad time for me, I was standing at the precipice of breaking up with a soul-sucking man, the holidays were approaching, and so was my birthday.

I turned my computer on that morning to check emails. I was leaving town for the long weekend with my current insignificant other whom I will dub Mr. Wonderful. It was a dysfunctional relationship and it was dying. I belonged to AOL at that time and I had IM and a screen name and a profile. I was in the middle of emailing my boss when I received an IM wishing me”Happy Birthday.” One of the first things I remember replying was “How many other women have you wished a Happy Birthday to today by looking at their profiles?” PZ told me four. I guess I shocked him by calling him out on what I knew he was doing but it did not stop me from continuing to chat. Where was the warning light then I ask now? We chatted for a couple of minutes gave each other some background information and it felt good. It never got too personal. I just remember that when he told me that he lived in NoDak that I had a slight hesitation of disappointment because this was a really nice man (go ahead laugh your butt off) and he was polite and just plain old Midwestern nice. I was in a position where I wanted out of the relationship I was in so I made it easy for PZ to start his usual modus operandi and start to weave his web of control around me.

I told him that I would be gone till Sunday and he IM’ed that he looked forward to “chatting” when I returned.

This snake in the grass dares to say he knows how to love. Those of us who have been there all know he does not. The wool he pulls over our eyes is that he was so darn charming and likeable, and as I said downright nice, that one is blind to the thought that this is not a normal usual way to start a relationship! What was I thinking? He lived in North Dakota. I did not like lonely nights. I especially did not like lonely weekends. I had my share of long distance romances in my life. My gosh now that I know what he is I sit here and I cannot even begin to compute in my mind the amount of time he spends a day doing this. How many profiles does he read, and how many notches has he put in his computer tower? Worse yet there must be thousands of women who blew him off and he would just go back on the prowl with a click of the scroll button. I am sure in my life’s experiences and those of my girlfriends that PZ is the type of man who preys on those of us who are in need, sad, depressed, and unwound. If we were happy and in control of our lives we would have been one of the thousands to blow him off. Not that we are at fault, he is. We were just ripe for the picking, who doesn’t want to be loved, cherished, and adored?

I am not truly one of the notches on the computer tower because the universe stopped my notch from being carved. It happened through chance – it never got that far. It could have but through some miracle of meetings I had an intervention happen before PZ could play too many mind games with me. I do feel anger now because I had believed for almost nine years now that he and another like him “saved me”. I would think about him once in a great while and I do not know what prompted me to Goggle his name this past week. Maybe he had a fleeting thought about me- and our thoughts transferred, we all know he is good at that. I had no idea that he has become such a popular person and that his deeds will follow him past his demise. I do know and understand now that he is a pathetic piece of what you try to avoid stepping in when you walk in a cow pasture. But for the past nine years to me he was a 3 month hero –God I hate to use that term, but that is what he was. In fact worse yet, as I said earlier there were two heroes in my life at that time. However those three months were like being on a roller coaster of emotions and thankfully through this a chance meeting my life turned around. By February, 1999 it was all over. PZ had to go, he knew that because he can’t stand the competition and he had one heck of a competitor, I had met the man I would spend the rest of my life with and PZ knew this. However to get from Nov ’98 to Feb.’99 and now to April ’07 and to finally know the truth about this sick man and my other “heroine” H means my story finally has closure and a true ending. What part does H play in all of this; well this all became the ménage a trois of mind games.

I met H while out at Navy Pier and we became friends. She was in a relationship with a married man, I was in the slowly dying relationship with Mr. Wonderful, and I guess I was ripe for the picking because H turned out to be every bit as conniving as PZ. She and I did a lot of fun girl things together. She was apartment sitting a gorgeous place on Lake Michigan and we would cook wonderful meals together, and sit and talk about our entire lives. She told me she was on the faculty of a university in Chicago, she told me she was a ghost writer of novels, she was also a massage therapist and that many of her friends were people with mystic minds. I like diverse people, I thought H was just a breath of fresh air and I needed that in my life. I remember the one and only time she ever met Mr. Wonderful she told me there was a total black aura surrounding him. She was right he is in prison now – third strike – for embezzling a lot of money. He had a dark soul. It must have been the season for me to be drawn to dark souls because H and PZ certainly fit into that description.

I had been living back in the US for about a year when all this happened. I was actually legally still married to a man who had insisted on retiring to a foreign country and once we had packed up and moved there it soon became apparent I could no longer live with him and I came back to the US. My family and friends were scattered all over the country, and I chose Chicago because I had lived there before, I knew the city well, and I had great contacts for starting my career over and I love that city.

Go figure-I was approaching 50, kids all grown, their dad had died, I had remarried and was divorcing, I had moved out of the country, now I was back. But lives had changed so much and there is a certain amount of truth to the statement about going home again. It is always different and it can be difficult.

I had started dating Mr. Wonderful a year earlier, and I soon knew it was a dysfunctional relationship but we all know how it is, old shoes are the most comfortable and I chose to stay and live in misery. That is where I was when PZ found me. We all know that “thrill” we get when we connect with someone and we hope that he will be back in touch. That is how I felt when I returned from Ohio. Someone who “appeared” to be caring and normal was so eager to get to know me better. (See how easy it is to be taken in?) PZ has this way about him, he listens to you, he strokes your ego, he makes you feel like a queen, he pushes all the right emotional buttons.

Sure enough Monday morning bright and early there was PZ-polite and as nice as ever. That was the week my world seemed to fall apart. Maybe PZ was the catalyst, I don’t know. All I know is that for some strange reason I was tempted to check the voice mail box of my insignificant other (I know – bad girl) and there it was, every thing I needed to kick him out. There was some other woman telling him how much she loved him, thanking him for the bracelet (which was stolen from me) and apologizing to him that she had not been able to sleep with him in my condo because she felt “odd”. I kicked his sorry ass out on the street and then I called her and told her where she could pick him up, and yes his clothing went over the balcony 23 stories up. Only his clothing I did not want to injure anyone and most of it went into the Chicago River.

Boy was I ever ripe for PZ picking then. I hit rock bottom emotionally as well as this was a financial let down for me because I now had to live off my income. PZ heard my tears and fears and he came riding in on his white stallion to rescue me. I holed up in my condo for the rest of the week. I was not eating, sleeping, or working I was f***ed up. PZ was on line with me constantly. Then came the suggestion to talk to each other live line. We would talk for hours. All day, half the night. We were on line all that while too. Now I knew he was married at that time, I remember how disappointed I was to find out he was married. See I was sinking into the quicksand of his control. Then I read (here) in another story here that he got caught (again) and she left-what the heck took her so long? Talk about a screwed up couple and I don’t even want to think about what their behavior did to their son, oh well.

So I would sit and let this man encourage me and tell me how wonderful I really was – which I know I am now, but then I was desperately depressed. I knew I needed to get out of my condo. It was PZ who talked me through getting dressed and leaving. My hero. The entire time I walked outside down State Street and back we were on the phone. I was getting better, I was healing emotionally. He did get me to forgive myself for all my mistakes in the past year. Even if it was only a predatory game for him, he did help me in a strange way back then. Too bad he doesn’t know he helped me because then he would be angry that he failed. He doesn’t want to truly help anyone, he cannot help himself how can he help others?

Now here is where my story differs some from the horrific things others went through with him. I never stopped wanting to meet someone locally. I also did not really want to be involved with a married man. My divorce was held up by the fact that the idiot still lived in a foreign country and I had no children with that idiot so as far as I was concerned I was a single woman. By my work alone I was being invited to hospital parties, doctor’s office parties, and I lived in a party atmosphere city. Once I was able to leave the condo I was ready for the world again. I dated. I had other girlfriends besides H and I went out. It was the holiday season. PZ would always ask me to call him when I got home. What the heck was he sleeping in his office or what?

But PZ knows how much to let you go and how much to rein you in, and I felt he was acting like a good friend should. He gave good advice, he was “there for me” and I was grateful. Now I realize he was trying using his “friendship and advice” as an insidious way to trap me. The trap did not work the first time he tried it. The trap he tried to set he planned well. He told me his family was leaving town for a holiday ski trip. He knew he and I would be out of touch and he pulled his stunt well. Hell’s bells if you are going to be out of touch what better way to keep control of a person than this?

We were sending each other instant messages. Of course I was sad he would be gone for several weeks and we would not be able to talk on the phone or on line. That is the moment he chose to tell me in an IM that he was totally head over heels in love with me. He told me he knew I probably wasn’t ready to hear those words but he could not think of a better Christmas gift to give me. I admit I did not see this coming so it did surprise me. But we all know how it feels when someone tells you that they love you, it feels good. You get all warm and fuzzy inside. Then he called me on the phone and repeated the words over and over again. I felt bad that he was going away, I fell into this trap and told him I loved him too because he was making his trip away sound so darn miserable and telling me how much he would miss our talks and our psychic hand-holding. Then I looked at the clock and realized I was running late to meet friends for dinner. It was Friday, December 11, I remember it well, because that is the night my good friends Nancy and Lee met me for dinner but brought along a friend of Lee’s and that was the intervention that started to change what PZ had begun. That was the night I met the right man.

I want to set a time line here since I moved forward so quickly. He grabbed his moment the Tuesday of the last week of November. That was the week I could not leave my condo. The next two weeks he stepped up his plan somewhat. He sent me an email picture of himself with his German shepherd, and he started “appearing” in my life. I know here comes the “Twilight Zone” part and I notice no one else has mentioned these happenings in their stories. However this really happened; and I do not use drugs. I had resumed my work schedule which involved a lot of travel in Illinois and Iowa. PZ told me he would come to me, that he would send himself to me. We were on cell phones and talking when he told me he was almost there. He actually came walking through my windshield and sat down next to me. The experience probably lasted less than 10 seconds. I asked him to never do it again while I was driving. He came to me many times after that. One day he told me he had to go to Washington DC because he was a lobbyist in the lumber industry. He called me from there, and he came to my bed that night. Not sexually, but he lay next to me, and I felt his hands on me.

I asked PZ how he could do this and he told me he was of Eastern European descent and that he had learned this from his father and grandfather. He called it night flight. Heck if you can’t be with someone all the time, what better way to keep them excited about you is there than to send yourself to them over and over again in short bursts of appearances?

I also spoke to H several times a day, these appearances were so new to me, but she was much more involved in the psychic world so she was fascinated with what was happening to me. She did the research on projection because I wanted to send myself to him. I did everything she told me to do, and I tried it. The next day PZ wrote me to tell me exactly what had happened to him down to the exact minute. I sent myself to him and rubbed his back. Like I said who was I to doubt?

The Saturday of the same weekend when PZ first cried out his undying love for me was when we were heading into his going away. He was using all the power and control he had at the time to make sure I was convinced and of course going to be his when he returned. PZ and his wife were hosting a wine tasting party that Saturday night and I had a holiday event to attend with a date. PZ knew this, I told him (because I felt guilty – see it was working). Then the weirdest thing of our relationship happened. I was waiting for security to ring and tell me my date was waiting, and all of a sudden I started to itch – I itched unbearably for about 30 minutes, almost ruined my date and I got sick to my stomach.

The next day PZ told me he had a reaction (at the very same time I was) and he was all itchy and got ill. I did a lot of research on transference of a physical nature. It is not that off base – it happens with twins. That was my true physical manifestation from this man. It makes me shiver to think what would of or could of happened.

That Sunday was the first time I asked H to talk to him, I wanted her to, I wanted her opinion. This was all very new to me. It was scary but thrilling. OKAY obviously I have some mystic abilities I was unaware of and now I had two people in my life who also had them, H and PZ. In a very weird way it was a stroke of luck that I connected the two of them, because it took a lot of the possible dangerous things away from me.

This was the third week of December and he was going away the following weekend and I would not hear from him till after New Years. In the meantime my life went on, I had plans. I saw H a lot. She knew everything I was doing. I even had dinner with her on New Years Eve and actually turned down a date with my no husband because H was going to be alone that night.

Then he was back. Now he was asking me about my two weeks, and when I skirted telling him all the details he would tell me what I wasn’t telling him. Like he was reading my thoughts and seeing I was not being entirely truthful. The truth was I had a real physical body to hold hands with, and he was calling and coming around. So I was caught in the mode of which one do I choose.

It was the beginning of January and I was approached by an advertising person about having pictures taken for a portfolio that could be presented to an agency to be a foot model. I know – it sounds funny. I have small perfect feet and well shaped calves and ankles. I thought why not, what fun. I discussed it with PZ and he was so excited. His “girlfriend” might be in magazines.

The two weeks he had been gone had not had the effect on me that I know now he had hoped it would. It was a New Year and you know what else I realize was happening, I was healing. I was talking to PZ more and more like a friend, rather than the lover he professed to be to me. The day before the shoot I arrived home to a gorgeous bouquet of red roses from PZ this was the only gift this man ever gave me. Come to think of it other than printing out his IM messages I had nothing except a picture in an email.

Then came the ultimate PZ challenge, he was intending to come to Chicago in two weeks and he intended to make mad passionate love to me, never leaving the condo, just sex, sex and more sex. He was losing control and he knew it. So he had plan B and I knew then he was playing the age old trick of choosing one over the other. Remember I told H everything going on in my life and I realize now she was telling it all back to PZ. The thing is I really wanted to see this man in person. I was curious. I admit it. I also knew in my female organs and brain that if we connected in person I would have slept with him. He was very mesmerizing. I played it coy. I wanted him to come, yet I did not. I finally told him to come. Do you think he did? He backed away from that like a puppy urinating near cactus-if he came to Chicago he came to see H not me.

After that we basically started to wind down. The thing is the night he “broke up” with me H was in my condo. Now that I think about that I remember she was not invited but showed up. He sounded very “father like” – he attempted to advise me on two extremely personal things and when he talked about them I remember thinking Holy Shit he is psychic because how would he have known these things happened to me? Well now I know how he would know, there was only one person who knew besides me and she was in my condo watching my face as he was breaking it off. When I think back now I can see he loves doing that he is a master of manipulating-how he keeps every thing straight I have no idea.

I was very sad when this happened, I had needed and liked his “friendship” and like an addict I had depended on it. He is like a drug. He is intoxicatingly personable, he is Prince Charming and he loved me (and others I know) and he was telling me that he needed to end it all. He did not put the blame on me, he actually told me I was in a better place and that this new man in my life was the right one for me. It hurt because I wanted the friendship and (sorry) the guidance he gave me. I called him the next day, he picked up the phone but he told me we could not remain as friends. That was basically it. I grieved over what I thought was the loss of a good friend. Guess what the end of this story is-H disappeared as a friend also. Now I know why. I thought they were my life rafts. I told people they were – now I realize the part they played in my story was not to truly help me (although they did) – and now I finally have the answer as to what really happened.

H continued in my life till about April when she totally disappeared. I called her number and it was disconnected. Either she was still with PZ and he controlled her into ending it with me, or they broke up and she was too embarrassed to tell me what she had done. It matters not. Every once in a while my sweet husband will bring her name up and wonder out loud what happened to her. The next time he does, I might say; “maybe she met someone we would not have approved of.”

As for PZ, I think he is despicable. I am amazed no one has taken a pot shot at him; actually I am truly amazed no one has ever gotten physically violent-because he has destroyed people. He has destroyed relationships. He is an insidious liar, a predatory stalker, an evil man who cannot love. Furthermore I believe he may be a misogynist. I do not think he can possibly like women – it is impossible to conceive that thought in my mind. How does anyone profess soul mate love and then walk away from all these women? He does not love anyone. He can’t.

While he did not break my heart, I understand now he wanted to, he wanted to add me to the butterfly collection of broken-hearted women all over the country.

I have survived many things over the years, we all have. I have lived 14 years past a diagnosis of breast cancer, and I have survived a physically abusive relationship, my children’s father’s suicide, and many more things. I will say this to those of you who have told your stories, you are amazing survivors I am proud of you all for being able to tell what he did to you, for being brave enough to admit your feelings, and I believe you are all honorable good women with much love to give people. Those who disagree or have tried to cause problems for anyone here who has spoken the truth are followers of a sick man and have no souls.

4/11/07

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