Red Flags By Mercedes Dantes

Even though I’ve done my research and written essays for all to see in hopes no one needs to feel the pain I’ve felt, one of my biggest fears has come true. I fell for another narcissist. I feared this because the love of a narcissist is all I’ve ever known. I’m attracted to their confidence, their life force but the saddest thing about loving a narcissist is that they will never love you back. No matter how amazing and accomplished you are, they are incapable of loving you the way you love them. All they can do is mirror the love that you are capable of giving and that’s what fools me into trusting them.

So, some background: I met this particular man on Plenty of Fish around the same time I met my now ex-husband. He is 14 years older than me, very accomplished and I felt intimidated. Also, he had a pretty busy lifestyle and I didn’t really see a place for me in it. My now ex was very proactive about meeting me so I went out with him and the rest was history. I stopped talking to this older man. A few weeks ago, I got back on POF to see what was out there and one day I got a message from a gorgeous older man. Sure enough, it was the one that got away. Or so I thought.

I told myself it was fate. I needed to learn the lessons I learned in my last relationship to be ready for this meeting that was 6 years in the making. I had grown so much in my marriage I do think it is part of the reason it failed. I had grown and my ex-husband had not. I challenged him to be a better man who was worthy of my love and he rejected the challenge and projected his inefficiencies onto me. I really felt that all the stars had come into alignment, and I was finally about to live out the fairy tale that I had always dreamed of.

There were a few problems though; some red flags that I refused to see because I didn’t want to remove my rose-colored glasses. The first and biggest was that there was another woman living in his house. One night he and I had scheduled a “video date” and for the second video call, he was in his car. He told me he was running errands and wanted to stop to tan before he went home. When he got to the tanning salon he asked if he could call me back. When he did call me back, I was obviously asking questions like; we scheduled this “date”, if you had plans, why did you make plans with me? It’s a date, I expect your undivided attention. That’s when he confessed there was another woman living in his house.

Now before you all accuse me of being a homewrecker hear me out. I’m 100% girl gang. He and I were friends on FB and he had some pics of them together there. I went to her profile and her relationship status was listed as single. Had she been in a relationship I would have reached out. Instead, I messaged him and savagely described him as a narcissist. I called him a disease to women and said he could only love himself and blocked him. How I wish I had left it at that.

The next day I called him expecting to have been blocked but he answered. I apologized for the diatribe and made the mistake of starting over. We talked on and off for about 6 hours that day and the next day was pretty much the same. I asked if it would be okay if I talked to his ex (the one that was living with him) he said he asked her about it and he could see in her face that she was hurt and she refused to talk to me. He told me that she was moving out in the next few days. I told him I’d give him the benefit of the doubt and if she wasn’t gone by the end of the week, I’m out.

Over that week we talked every night for hours. One night when on a video call, we did a little shopping for shoes and lingerie. He paid for it and had it sent to my house. About a week later he invited me over to his house. I really thought I knew this man, I felt safe so I went. Sure enough, no trace of a woman living there. He made me an amazing dinner, we drank wine and made “love” 4 times. It was love to me, by the time I left I knew in my heart this was the man for me. That day I went to my mother's for breakfast and when I got home, I hadn’t heard from him in hours. He messaged me in the afternoon then told me he was going to his ex’s to drop off some stuff. He was MIA for the next 3 hours.

When he finally called me, I was elated! I answered the phone in a very enthusiastic tone, “HI BABY!” I was so very happy to hear from him. We started talking and I somehow started telling him of a very violent incident with an ex-bf from a very long time ago that I regretted my little daughter seeing, and he interrupted me. He told me every conversation we have I talk about an ex. I told him I didn’t realize and I apologized. He told me he had made a mistake at work and it was really stressing him out. He said he also needed to adjust to his new life without his ex and he needed to hang out with his son tonight. I had barely heard from him that day, he had been with his ex for most of the day, and now he needed some time away from me. What would you think? I was DEVASTATED.

I felt like he was pushing me away and I said so in a text. He responded with “no it’s not like that I had a bad day”. I explained how hurtful it was that the day after I gave myself to him, I needed him close and he needed time alone. Again, he responded with, its not you it’s me, it’s just a bad day. I responded an hour later with. “I’m having a bad day too. Some jerk who’s been acting like prince charming fucked me last night and now he needs space. Thanks for the ride cowboy, happy trails.” He pretended to be all confused, yada yada yada, then he sent me a text saying: “Any time you feel hurt, you’re just going to break up with me huh?” I pushed him away, pushed him away, pushed him away, and he never even bothered to call and ease my mind.

The next day, he didn’t call or text. It was then I realized that I fell into his trap. He pushed me away to make me feel insecure so I would push him away and it wouldn’t be his fault. That night I sent him a text saying: “I hate how much I miss you”. He said he was sending me a message on FB. It read:

Hello wonderful, brilliant and beautiful Mercedes. How I miss our conversations. I was saddened that my hard emotional day affected you as well. I didn’t intend that and for that I am sorry. I needed to express to someone I care about, that I was in such a weak state that day due to so many difficult circumstances, none related to you. It seems I failed at my communication. Although we met in a whirlwind, it seems to have ended equally as fast. But I will never regret meeting you. You've taught me so much in such a short time. Lessons I will carry for a lifetime. You're beautiful Mercedes but your beauty is overshadowed by your fascinating mind. There, in that place in our conversations where you revealed your thoughts, your passions and your pain, is where I found someone I could relate to in every way. And because of this, it pains me to say that we will no longer be speaking. By losing your friendship I have lost a rare intellect that can only be found when stars align perfectly. This is a great loss to me. I hope that someday you will forgive me for allowing my downtrodden day to affect you. I wish you healing. I wish you success and above all I wish you love. -A and then he blocked me.

Over the next few days, I made a fool of myself, texting him and calling him every awful thing I could think of and in my mind, he’s getting off light. Finally, after 4 days no contact I got drunk and down loaded an app called burner number that lets you dial out from an unknow number. I called him, he answered. “Don’t you miss me?” I said, and he said “Mercedes?” I said “yes, how could you do this to me?” He responded with something along the lines of I’m so mean for saying what I said (after he blocked me) “he thought we were something special but we’re not.” And he hung up on me. I called back, no answer I left a message, god knows what I said and that was that.

The next day my shoes came. I sent him a text letting him know and told him I won’t contact him anymore but thanked him for the shoes and sex. The rest of the weekend I stayed sober. I needed to work through this pain instead of numbing it with alcohol. I really had let myself fall for this man and he was a con the whole time. I didn’t understand why or how I could share my stories with him and he still had no reservations playing with my heart. I finally had to admit to myself that my initial take on who he was, was correct. He was a narc and I was just another conquest.

I found myself doing all these things I know better than to do. Like reaching out and looking for closure. No matter what I do I know I will never get it, and all my efforts were just feeding his ego. He made sure he had closed all the loops that might bind us and he was able to shut me out entirely. He promised to make all my dreams come true and, in that moment, I found what I had been searching for my whole life; safety and security. When I was with him it all felt like a dream come true. He was my twin flame, or so I thought. In reality he had just learned my dreams so he could pretend to appear as such so he could take all the best parts of me and leave. The only way to know if you can trust someone is to trust them. I trusted him with my heart and he crushed it in the palm of his hand. This broken person I had spent the last year rebuilding, he had managed to completely incinerate in less than 2 weeks.

SO! Now that you’ve read this story, there are 3 very easily identifiable red flags that I refused to see in the moment but now, knowing what I know they are as plain as the nose on my face.

1. Relationship to Relationship- The woman living in his house. Most emotionally mature people will take the time to heal after a breakup. When you love someone and it ends it can emotionally be as devastating as a physical injury. When you break your leg, you don’t sign up for a marathon when you’re still in a cast. Not taking the time to heel is a strong indication that this person is emotionally immature, or they are a sociopath. Possibly a narcissist, or someone with some other kind of personality disorder.

His initial reason for being on a dating site before his last relationship had really ended was that he didn’t think he’d find anyone worthwhile so quickly. “What are the odds” that he’d find me, he was just thinking of me a few weeks prior, he adored me, he couldn’t let me get away again. Now of course I see, it was all lies and manipulative bullshit. Like the hopeless romantic I am, I believed it because I wanted to.

2. Love Bombing - He spent over $120 on 3 pairs of shoes and lingerie for me before we had physically met. It’s normal for a man to buy flowers and little gifts on a first date but excessive spending before a relationship has been established is a tactic narcissist’s use called love bombing. They shower you with compliments and gifts and make you believe that they are generous. Again, in my hopelessly romantic mind, I thought he was doing this because it was meant to be and I was just the one.

3. Deflecting (Gaslighting) - When I told him that the space he needed was devastating to me and I was hurt he said; “You’re just going to break up with me whenever you feel hurt aren’t you?” He did not take responsibility for the hurt he inflicted on me, but instead turned it around to make himself the victim. He portrayed himself as someone who was quite educated in psychology so I assumed he would recognize that my hurt feelings had triggered my fight or flight response. Now I realize when he said he was into psychology, he meant he learned how to manipulate people.

BONUS: I can’t have asked you to identify this one because I didn’t mention it but the man is 52. He looks amazing for his age but was constantly looking for that outside assurance that he was still attractive. He told me about his strict diet, how much he enjoyed working out, but put his health at risk to remain this olive skin tone. He was vain, he IS full of himself.

Looking back on every narcissistic lover I’ve had, these 3 things are always traits that show themselves in the early stages of a relationship. I write about all my experiences as a cautionary tale. The truth is no matter how much you love someone with this personality disorder it will never be enough. They will pretend to be everything you ever wanted and when they are exhausted by keeping up this false persona, they will just stop. In their mind, they will not have changed. In their mind, you’re just a taker. Even though they have always been the cold-hearted person you see before you. There is nothing you can say or do to convince them that they have changed or that you love them. As my ex-husband used to say, “you don’t love me as much as you think you do” and in his mind that was truth.