A few years ago I met a great guy that I had a lot in common with. We hit it off pretty fast and when we weren’t hanging out together, we were messaging each other. He seemed to be very supportive and really acted like he cared about me. When I knew I had to change jobs and therefore, states, I asked him to come with me and become my roommate. However, once we were living together it was easier to start seeing the problems. He’d told me he had a problem with anxiety and depression, so I mostly thought the problems were because of this. However, as time went on I’d catch him in obvious lies. When I confronted him, he’d look away and down and not say anything. I tried to get him to open up to me, but the more time passed the less interest he seemed to have in me. Every time I talked to him he claimed he still cared for me, but his actions said otherwise. Eventually he admitted that after the “newness” fades he usually loses interest in a person. He would go from messaging me all day to barely speaking to me for a week for no apparent reason. Then he stopped helping out around the house, even when I was working 84 hours a week. Finally I’d had enough and asked him to move out. The next morning my pet rabbit was dying and I woke him up to ask him if he’d like to say goodbye. He rolled over and went back to sleep. However, later on social media he was posting pictures of MY rabbit and saying how he’d died and he was so sad. Shortly after that his mother contacted me because he hadn’t spoken to her in over three months. After speaking with me she came down to visit, but I can’t say it did any good for anything really. I tried to help him find a new place to live nearby. After about 2 weeks of looking at apartments with him on my days off I learned that he’d stopped going to his job about a month ago and had been getting dressed and leaving the house pretending to go to work for 40+ hours a week. After that I packed him a bag and threw him out immediately. He was actually surprised by that and asked me what he was supposed to do. I told him he should have thought about that before he stopped going to work but pretended to for a month. It wasn’t until I sat down and put together his attitude over the years, his actions and inactions, and his lack of any other friends that I realized he really did match a startling amount of the traits for antisocial personality disorder, more commonly known as sociopathy. I did end up messaging him a few days later and shockingly he admitted that it did fit and he probably was a sociopath.
My problem now is this……..I’m torn between missing the person he was when we first met (kind, supportive, caring) and feeling incredibly stupid to not realize that that person never actually existed and it was all a front for him. So the sadder I feel at the loss of my “friend” the more angry, guilty, and stupid I feel and it’s a never ending cycle. I’m really trying to keep it all in perspective and put it behind me, but I don’t have anyone to talk to. I’ve tried to talk to my husband, but although he loves me, he’s not good with this kind of support. In fact, he actually made it worse today. I understand what he meant, but it still made me feel so much worse when he said, “Are you sure you’re not purposely wallowing in it?” I don’t feel like I am as it’s only been one week since all of this occurred. I think it takes more than a week to deal with the feelings of betrayal, sadness, and everything else from losing a best friend, even if the friend was only a facade.
