First, quick clarification: I am differentiating here between “a needle but not *your* needle” and “this guy is definitively not anyone’s needle”; in this case we are dealing with the latter.
Same here! I would have immediately blocked him. But there was a time in my twenties when I would not have, so I can understand why she was drawn in. I'm glad she escaped early.
Same here. The BHDM is truly life saving! For the OP, I would highly recommend reading “why does he do that” by Lundy Bancroft. This guy was ticking a lot of abusive man boxes from the beginning. I find that book a really helpful resource to help weed out the abusive people in real life.
I was married to a covert narcissist for 24 years. I felt terrible for Michele when reading the pace at which her romance developed after having lived it myself. Never again will I see a whirlwind romance as romantic. In my world view it will always be a glaring red flag. I’m so glad to hear that Michele got out quickly.
I was married to one for 30 years, the divorce was just finalized. He proposed one month after our first date, we were married 3 months after that. I used to think it was romantic too. Never again, those were GLARING red flags.
Yep. Married to my covert narcissist 22 years. Divorced since March. Started talking about getting engaged within weeks. We were engaged at 10 weeks, and married 10 months after our first date. This guy’s profile screamed he would love bomb to me.
Lived it as well! Immediately noticed the pace of the romance and the love bombing! I still feel so stupid for falling for my ex husband! UGH. Live and learn and find BHDM!
I think it’s easy to fall for it—especially if you’ve never encountered it. The skilled love bomber has such a talent for making you feel so special. And then they have a special talent for using the love bombing against you when they’ve messed up. And, at least in my case, people SAW the love bombing side because that was somehow always public or known, but only those who spent a lot of time with us ever saw the other side. And in my case, it was definitely death by 1,000 cuts. There was no grandiose, blatant abuse; it was very easy for people to ignore the quiet undermining me as a parent, the lack of support, the lack of participation in family events. It was even easy to cast me in the role of nag and witch and impatient mother because that was so much more evident than the quiet abuse I endured. I became a crazy person! Thank goodness I left. It’s so nice to not feel crazy all the time.
Okay, his profile gave me the icks straight away. I may be a horribly sarcastic and cynical person, but anyone who tells me they love me in 2 weeks is bad news on some level. Nobody knows me well enough in 2 weeks to be in love with me.
Another fantastic article Jennie! Please write more like this if possible!!! I have noticed a few men discussing a “fantasy scenario” and I see it now as a massive red flag! I once conversed with a man that said this: “Typical Sunday - would be our time to be as lazy as you want. Leave your hair tousled with no makeup as we float into the kitchen to make crazy awesome lemon ricotta pancakes, with a hot cup of coffee and leave the dishes till way later!” (Yes I saved it, lol). I remember at the time - this was well before BHSDM - I was deeply uncomfortable with this little fantasy but decided to “give it a chance” anyways. Early in the messaging he had an important question for me - did I wear a one-piece bathing suit or a bikini? I ignored the question because I didn’t like it, hoping that he would forget. He came back to it, demanding the answer. I told him I didn’t think the question was appropriate at this stage of the communication. He then proceeded to quote Brené Brown and say that he was looking for someone who had the courage to be vulnerable. 😱 somehow this man took Brené Brown’s words and interpreted them that a woman should be courageous enough to wear a sexy bikini for his liking. I immediately blocked him. But notice the link between the fantasy scenario in the bio and the objectification.
Katherine, this is a great point about the “fantasy” aspect, it is a little weirdly specific for my taste, like I have to play a character in a scene? It doesn’t feel authentic. Also it is feels a little patronizing, like when men say “you need to come home and take a bath and drink a glass of wine” after a bad day. It is simplistic and not really offering real support, but makes it sound caring. My ex had a lot of these types of “fantasy” stories, not quite as detailed as what you shared above, but enough that now I interpret these as a way to make it sound like they have empathy and emotional intelligence, but they really don’t. This type of language is exactly that, a story that is not real and someone has to say these things because they don’t actually happen. Also, I don’t need anyone to tell to have a day to be lazy and not do my hair or my make-up, um I can do that whenever I want.
Thank you for sharing your experience, that sounds like you made the right choice and good for you for not giving into his invasive bathing suit question.
I agree with every single word you wrote Hillary! Yes, when they write a fantasy like that it shows me that they have an “ideal” or “vision” of something specific and unrealistic, and if “real life” doesn’t measure up, they will be disappointed. It’s these types of men who will later discard a woman for not living up to unrealistic expectations
I wish you'd send that to Brene Brown! She used to be accessible via Twitter/X. I don't know if she's still on it. I think she said DMs there were okay. She'd get a kick out of that. And, that sounds like a narcissist—using widely known self-help literature to manipulate.
Oh my god. You just helped me tick another narcissist box with reference to the guy I dated last year (I will post shortly on this). Literally quoted to me from his Brene Brown book about wanting to get in the arena 😂 I’m going to see if I can dig it out. This group is SO therapeutic!
Literally his texts copied word for word - after we had a small argument:
“I must have had a sense this morning I would need some help as I was compelled to grab brene browns rising strong for the trip”.
“Just rereading the part about the credit belonging to the person on the arena marred by blood, sweat and dust ; who strives valiantly. And love being an arena. I want to be that person and I want to pick myself up and be more vulnerable with you. I really do.”
So glad I kept all these texts. They could make a really great case study sometime - now that I can laugh about it 😆
He also dropped the line “sorry if I offended you” which to me is a man who is turning it around as if it’s YOU who has the issue for being too sensitive 😡
Absolutely agree, that bothered me right away too. I labeled it a "self-insert fanfiction" (because I'm gen z), and it really struck me as a sign of wanting to project a ready-made fantasy relationship onto a stranger. That's a massive ick and gigantic red flag, B2b right away for me.
Wow. Thank you for sharing a clear example of someone using otherwise emotionally intelligent content as a way to brow beat a woman. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.
I hate his whole profile text. Men who describe themselves as the 'perfect gentleman' like in a movie from the 50ies usually are fake. Also all this self-praise? Reminds me of one of the many scam-friend-requests on facebook we all get daily. It said "I'm a very honest man!" which had me laugh out loud. 😄 Nothing says 'dishonest' more than stating it like this.
One guy I dated praised himself, saying, "I'm a great partner" and "I'm a catch." At first, I thought he was confident and knew his worth, but it turns out he was neither a great partner nor a catch.
right- but as Jennie pointed out, there's also a lot of 'demanding/directive' stuff, written in the 2nd person. So I think the movie reference is quite fitting- with men like this you're more or less an 'extra' in their movie- and beware if you don't stick to the scipt they wrote for you! (or that you don't even know about!)
This is so on point! This guy I dated (who thought he was “a catch”) disagreed with my choice not to get married or have more kids. He didn’t get that his differing desires meant we were incompatible. He didn’t understand boundaries. He is a 40-year-old man-child.
I'm really pleased with myself how quickly I picked up the narcissist vibe from his profile. I'm almost two years out from the worst year long dating experience of my life with a narcissist and had to have trauma therapy to recover from him - it took more than a year, even after just a year with that man. Working on why I missed the early red flags and it looks like it's working!
What got me was “If you’re a mom you’re a great mom and your children are not mimes”. I’m a solo parent and I do the best I can. I’d hate to be held up to the impossible standard of ‘great’. I’m sure I am a great mum in my child’s eyes but I would never describe myself as such or expect others to live up to that standard. I don’t need to feel pressure from a prospective partner on that front either. This would have made me pass because I eye rolled at that alone, as well as the ‘mama raised me right’ comment.
A huge red flag for me now is when someone tells me what I will or will not do.
‘You will never open your own car door or walk on the street side of the sidewalk with me,’ sounds already very controlling. What if I want to open my car door MYSELF? According to him I ‘will never’ do this with him. I’m an adult. I don’t need a man to do this for me and I certainly don’t need a man to tell me that I will not need to do this anymore (without my consent!) because he exists.
Big bow to Michelle, Jennie, and this community of increasingly empowered women. I heard alarms going off the moment I began reading. I had a lovely time on the apps for three months at the start of 2020 before the pandemic. I haven't been back since and never used them before that. When I learned about BHDM, I realized I'd intuitively been employing the rules, except having them choose the places. The 2-3 dates I didn't listen to my inner wisdom, the dates were horrid and put me at risk.
Reading the comments, I'm reminded that most of us know this BS sounds/reads off. But we want to be nice, we shush our inner warnings, overriding them with a tinge of desperation. Or we haven't learned the classic signs of a narcissist. I had a 4 year relationship that ended with marriage and divorce during the last year. The beauty of Michelle's albeit painful story, is she broke the chains, got help, and now she's here sharing with others.
That's my biggest take away from life and dating relationships: What do we learn? If we learn, we can break the patterns. My 2nd marriage was my wake-up call to a lifelong pattern of attracting narcissists. It took crashing my life at 50 to look back, see the pattern, learn where it came from, and learn a different course. Narcissists are smooth operators. Michelle's story sounds familiar to a number of folks here because they employ classic patterns. And, his was embedded in a dumped concoction of cutesy rhetorical garbage.
In gratitude and admiration for the trifecta of Michelle, Jennie and this community. Y'all rock. We rock.
It's funny isn't it? I was with my ex-husband for 11yrs, married for 8. Now trying to co-parent with a narcissist. Thinking back, his online profile included a paragraph about how he was happy on his own, enjoying life but 'see if you can change my mind' or something. Which is a massive red flag.
Given I married him, you'd expect I hadn't realised. But I still remember that line. Nothing else from the profile. But I remember that almost word for word. And the feeling I had when I read it, my subconscious balking at the sentiment, and the 'giving the benefit of the doubt' programmed into me by a society that tells you the worst thing that can happen is missing out on someone that might be ok. I knew. The only difference is now I don't ignore it.
What a helpful analysis and gratitude to you and Michele for sharing her story. Pathological men are real and one of the biggest vulnerabilities to women is not being educated that there are people out there who are abusive, needy, and destructive to your life; out of their own deep wounding, or a sense of entitlement, or having no empathy and getting enjoyment from ‘gaming’ people.
I am a therapist and work with people recovering from pathological relationships and the one statement I hear every time when describing what their ex is doing or did in the past, is “who does that?” Yes exactly, when you are involved with someone and you keep scratching your head and asking “who does that?”, then this is one easy to recognize sign to remove yourself from that person as soon as you can. Their behaviors do not fit within the social norms of healthy relationships and will not make sense.
Also, the other thing I noticed about the profile in your article is that he doesn’t talk at all about anything meaningful about himself. I think this is the other side of the “designing the AI girlfriend”, they talk all about what they expect from the woman and this takes away space they could be sharing anything meaningful about themself. The few things he did share about himself are 1. Not indicative of compatibility in a relationship. Someone opening the door for me is nice, but doesn’t make a relationship that is emotionally connected and healthy. And 2. are cliches and most likely not accurate assessments of his behavior. Saying ‘my momma raised me right’ doesn’t actually demonstrate that he has been ‘raised right’. I would venture to guess this is along the lines of someone writing they are very funny, when usually people who write that, are usually not funny. If you are funny it will be apparent and you don’t need to tell people. Write something meaningful about who you are as a person.
"My mama raised me right" is an immediate red flag for me. My first thought was that he must have had a complicated relationship with his mother to have written that sentence, let alone use it as an opening. Something about it suggests rigidity and maybe abuse.
His profile seemed weird and way too specific. I’m sorry for Michelle though and this is just my pet peeve but I hate it when people say “this clearly made her stronger”. It sounds like she’s kind of traumatized now and afraid to date. Some things don’t make us stronger they really mess us up and then we have to live with it.
I go with the phrase “shit just happens!” I can’t stand the everything happens for a reason bs! No, shit just happens sometimes and we choose to learn or we don’t 🤷♀️
This man has a script and is looking for anyone, not someone. I have experienced love bombing 3 times while dating and my spidey senses tell me not to get tangled up in their web. This profile would be an automatic ick and swipe left/block.
I am so appreciative of the BDHM method which has clarified some of the patterns I was already figuring out from too much time on dating apps. Not only clarifying, but encouraging quick B2B. I would definitely back B2Bed this one.
I was in a similar toxic relationship before getting back on the dating sites and finding BHDM. He wasn't an alcoholic, but definitely a narcissist with similar love bombing at the beginning. Oh boy, love bombing can be so intoxicating, especially if you haven't experienced it before. (I'm sure especially if you have certain wounds, like a completely neglectful, narcissistic father). The only clues on my ex's profile would have been aligning himself with his grandmother (old fashioned values, now a B2B for me). However, mine did comment on my looks early in conversation, so BDHM would have served me well. It wasn't in what seemed a creepy way, but he went on quite a bit about how he liked my crooked teeth and how an imperfect smile was more attractive to him. I've learned this is also called negging (which he did a lot of, especially a little later in the relationship). I can relate to Michelle in that I saw glaringly obvious signs of trouble a couple weeks in with jealousy, but stayed. There has been a lot of hoovering, so that makes it really hard to leave. Even six months after we broke up (and we were only together a year) he is still hoovering if he gets any chance (not much because he's blocked and I avoid anywhere I know he'll likely be).
Beware of those narcissists! They come across as very charming and loving at the beginning and make it really painful to leave them.
Because of BHDM I read this profile an was immediately turned off. Thanks Jenie Young.
Same here! I would have immediately blocked him. But there was a time in my twenties when I would not have, so I can understand why she was drawn in. I'm glad she escaped early.
Same here. This method has taught me me so much. Im loving all the information.
Exactly I was thinking the same thing, but also how subtle some of it was and Pre-BHDM I would have thought it was a great profile.
Same here. The BHDM is truly life saving! For the OP, I would highly recommend reading “why does he do that” by Lundy Bancroft. This guy was ticking a lot of abusive man boxes from the beginning. I find that book a really helpful resource to help weed out the abusive people in real life.
Yup. This book is a game-changer.
This was exactly my reaction as well
I was married to a covert narcissist for 24 years. I felt terrible for Michele when reading the pace at which her romance developed after having lived it myself. Never again will I see a whirlwind romance as romantic. In my world view it will always be a glaring red flag. I’m so glad to hear that Michele got out quickly.
I was married to one for 30 years, the divorce was just finalized. He proposed one month after our first date, we were married 3 months after that. I used to think it was romantic too. Never again, those were GLARING red flags.
Yep. Married to my covert narcissist 22 years. Divorced since March. Started talking about getting engaged within weeks. We were engaged at 10 weeks, and married 10 months after our first date. This guy’s profile screamed he would love bomb to me.
It’s the love bombing that can be so compelling—especially when I was 22 and had no idea what I was facing! I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
I was 22 also and a single mom. I just wanted a family, and he swept me off my feet.
Mine was the proposal 2 months in, and married 2 days shy of having known one another for 1 year.
Lived it as well! Immediately noticed the pace of the romance and the love bombing! I still feel so stupid for falling for my ex husband! UGH. Live and learn and find BHDM!
I’ve never felt stupid for falling for it, but I have felt stupid for staying as long as I did.
Good point! I stayed 11 years! So glad I’m out of toxic relationship and life!
I think it’s easy to fall for it—especially if you’ve never encountered it. The skilled love bomber has such a talent for making you feel so special. And then they have a special talent for using the love bombing against you when they’ve messed up. And, at least in my case, people SAW the love bombing side because that was somehow always public or known, but only those who spent a lot of time with us ever saw the other side. And in my case, it was definitely death by 1,000 cuts. There was no grandiose, blatant abuse; it was very easy for people to ignore the quiet undermining me as a parent, the lack of support, the lack of participation in family events. It was even easy to cast me in the role of nag and witch and impatient mother because that was so much more evident than the quiet abuse I endured. I became a crazy person! Thank goodness I left. It’s so nice to not feel crazy all the time.
Okay, his profile gave me the icks straight away. I may be a horribly sarcastic and cynical person, but anyone who tells me they love me in 2 weeks is bad news on some level. Nobody knows me well enough in 2 weeks to be in love with me.
Another fantastic article Jennie! Please write more like this if possible!!! I have noticed a few men discussing a “fantasy scenario” and I see it now as a massive red flag! I once conversed with a man that said this: “Typical Sunday - would be our time to be as lazy as you want. Leave your hair tousled with no makeup as we float into the kitchen to make crazy awesome lemon ricotta pancakes, with a hot cup of coffee and leave the dishes till way later!” (Yes I saved it, lol). I remember at the time - this was well before BHSDM - I was deeply uncomfortable with this little fantasy but decided to “give it a chance” anyways. Early in the messaging he had an important question for me - did I wear a one-piece bathing suit or a bikini? I ignored the question because I didn’t like it, hoping that he would forget. He came back to it, demanding the answer. I told him I didn’t think the question was appropriate at this stage of the communication. He then proceeded to quote Brené Brown and say that he was looking for someone who had the courage to be vulnerable. 😱 somehow this man took Brené Brown’s words and interpreted them that a woman should be courageous enough to wear a sexy bikini for his liking. I immediately blocked him. But notice the link between the fantasy scenario in the bio and the objectification.
Egad! So any day but Sunday, he expects you to do your hair and make-up before breakfast, and do the dishes immediately after breakfast!
That'd be an immediate B2B for me.
Katherine, this is a great point about the “fantasy” aspect, it is a little weirdly specific for my taste, like I have to play a character in a scene? It doesn’t feel authentic. Also it is feels a little patronizing, like when men say “you need to come home and take a bath and drink a glass of wine” after a bad day. It is simplistic and not really offering real support, but makes it sound caring. My ex had a lot of these types of “fantasy” stories, not quite as detailed as what you shared above, but enough that now I interpret these as a way to make it sound like they have empathy and emotional intelligence, but they really don’t. This type of language is exactly that, a story that is not real and someone has to say these things because they don’t actually happen. Also, I don’t need anyone to tell to have a day to be lazy and not do my hair or my make-up, um I can do that whenever I want.
Thank you for sharing your experience, that sounds like you made the right choice and good for you for not giving into his invasive bathing suit question.
I agree with every single word you wrote Hillary! Yes, when they write a fantasy like that it shows me that they have an “ideal” or “vision” of something specific and unrealistic, and if “real life” doesn’t measure up, they will be disappointed. It’s these types of men who will later discard a woman for not living up to unrealistic expectations
Also, Why can't I have no make up and tousled bed hair every day?
Only on Sundays? So every other day it's expected/implied that I'm geisha'd up? It's a pass for me.
And he’s warning you that he’s a slob so you can’t complain about it later. No thanks!
I wish you'd send that to Brene Brown! She used to be accessible via Twitter/X. I don't know if she's still on it. I think she said DMs there were okay. She'd get a kick out of that. And, that sounds like a narcissist—using widely known self-help literature to manipulate.
Oh my god. You just helped me tick another narcissist box with reference to the guy I dated last year (I will post shortly on this). Literally quoted to me from his Brene Brown book about wanting to get in the arena 😂 I’m going to see if I can dig it out. This group is SO therapeutic!
Literally his texts copied word for word - after we had a small argument:
“I must have had a sense this morning I would need some help as I was compelled to grab brene browns rising strong for the trip”.
“Just rereading the part about the credit belonging to the person on the arena marred by blood, sweat and dust ; who strives valiantly. And love being an arena. I want to be that person and I want to pick myself up and be more vulnerable with you. I really do.”
So glad I kept all these texts. They could make a really great case study sometime - now that I can laugh about it 😆
What a manipulator!
He also dropped the line “sorry if I offended you” which to me is a man who is turning it around as if it’s YOU who has the issue for being too sensitive 😡
So, classic test and apologise 😏
It would have been so tempting to ask "Is it ok if I fart in on Sundays too as I'm probably not allowed to the rest of the week?"!
Absolutely agree, that bothered me right away too. I labeled it a "self-insert fanfiction" (because I'm gen z), and it really struck me as a sign of wanting to project a ready-made fantasy relationship onto a stranger. That's a massive ick and gigantic red flag, B2b right away for me.
Wow. Thank you for sharing a clear example of someone using otherwise emotionally intelligent content as a way to brow beat a woman. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.
Didn't Brené Brown share after her first Ted Talk how many people critiqued her body? She was objectified. What a twist.
I hate his whole profile text. Men who describe themselves as the 'perfect gentleman' like in a movie from the 50ies usually are fake. Also all this self-praise? Reminds me of one of the many scam-friend-requests on facebook we all get daily. It said "I'm a very honest man!" which had me laugh out loud. 😄 Nothing says 'dishonest' more than stating it like this.
One guy I dated praised himself, saying, "I'm a great partner" and "I'm a catch." At first, I thought he was confident and knew his worth, but it turns out he was neither a great partner nor a catch.
Fake it till you make it…it’s like they’re manifesting being a good person without any of the actions or work to actually *be* a good person.
Yup! He also had no female friends, which is a clue I’ll pay more attention to in future.
" Men who describe themselves as the 'perfect gentleman' like in a movie from the 50ies usually are fake."
...Or, have no self-awareness, depth or fleshed out context of relationships.
right- but as Jennie pointed out, there's also a lot of 'demanding/directive' stuff, written in the 2nd person. So I think the movie reference is quite fitting- with men like this you're more or less an 'extra' in their movie- and beware if you don't stick to the scipt they wrote for you! (or that you don't even know about!)
This is so on point! This guy I dated (who thought he was “a catch”) disagreed with my choice not to get married or have more kids. He didn’t get that his differing desires meant we were incompatible. He didn’t understand boundaries. He is a 40-year-old man-child.
I'm really pleased with myself how quickly I picked up the narcissist vibe from his profile. I'm almost two years out from the worst year long dating experience of my life with a narcissist and had to have trauma therapy to recover from him - it took more than a year, even after just a year with that man. Working on why I missed the early red flags and it looks like it's working!
We’re better off alone.
Same! Mine was a marriage. But I immediately recognized the signs.
The tangled legs comment would have me B2B. Way too much to have in your profile. Screams sex is at the top of his list.
I didn't even understand what it meant at first honestly lol.
What got me was “If you’re a mom you’re a great mom and your children are not mimes”. I’m a solo parent and I do the best I can. I’d hate to be held up to the impossible standard of ‘great’. I’m sure I am a great mum in my child’s eyes but I would never describe myself as such or expect others to live up to that standard. I don’t need to feel pressure from a prospective partner on that front either. This would have made me pass because I eye rolled at that alone, as well as the ‘mama raised me right’ comment.
Yes! That rubbed me the wrong way too, both because of the judging and "are not mimes" is just... weird.
Totally. When I read ‘your children are…’ I also had the thought ‘…none of your business at this stage?’
Bingo!
I feel for Michele. I’ve been there too.
A huge red flag for me now is when someone tells me what I will or will not do.
‘You will never open your own car door or walk on the street side of the sidewalk with me,’ sounds already very controlling. What if I want to open my car door MYSELF? According to him I ‘will never’ do this with him. I’m an adult. I don’t need a man to do this for me and I certainly don’t need a man to tell me that I will not need to do this anymore (without my consent!) because he exists.
Big bow to Michelle, Jennie, and this community of increasingly empowered women. I heard alarms going off the moment I began reading. I had a lovely time on the apps for three months at the start of 2020 before the pandemic. I haven't been back since and never used them before that. When I learned about BHDM, I realized I'd intuitively been employing the rules, except having them choose the places. The 2-3 dates I didn't listen to my inner wisdom, the dates were horrid and put me at risk.
Reading the comments, I'm reminded that most of us know this BS sounds/reads off. But we want to be nice, we shush our inner warnings, overriding them with a tinge of desperation. Or we haven't learned the classic signs of a narcissist. I had a 4 year relationship that ended with marriage and divorce during the last year. The beauty of Michelle's albeit painful story, is she broke the chains, got help, and now she's here sharing with others.
That's my biggest take away from life and dating relationships: What do we learn? If we learn, we can break the patterns. My 2nd marriage was my wake-up call to a lifelong pattern of attracting narcissists. It took crashing my life at 50 to look back, see the pattern, learn where it came from, and learn a different course. Narcissists are smooth operators. Michelle's story sounds familiar to a number of folks here because they employ classic patterns. And, his was embedded in a dumped concoction of cutesy rhetorical garbage.
In gratitude and admiration for the trifecta of Michelle, Jennie and this community. Y'all rock. We rock.
It's funny isn't it? I was with my ex-husband for 11yrs, married for 8. Now trying to co-parent with a narcissist. Thinking back, his online profile included a paragraph about how he was happy on his own, enjoying life but 'see if you can change my mind' or something. Which is a massive red flag.
Given I married him, you'd expect I hadn't realised. But I still remember that line. Nothing else from the profile. But I remember that almost word for word. And the feeling I had when I read it, my subconscious balking at the sentiment, and the 'giving the benefit of the doubt' programmed into me by a society that tells you the worst thing that can happen is missing out on someone that might be ok. I knew. The only difference is now I don't ignore it.
What a helpful analysis and gratitude to you and Michele for sharing her story. Pathological men are real and one of the biggest vulnerabilities to women is not being educated that there are people out there who are abusive, needy, and destructive to your life; out of their own deep wounding, or a sense of entitlement, or having no empathy and getting enjoyment from ‘gaming’ people.
I am a therapist and work with people recovering from pathological relationships and the one statement I hear every time when describing what their ex is doing or did in the past, is “who does that?” Yes exactly, when you are involved with someone and you keep scratching your head and asking “who does that?”, then this is one easy to recognize sign to remove yourself from that person as soon as you can. Their behaviors do not fit within the social norms of healthy relationships and will not make sense.
Also, the other thing I noticed about the profile in your article is that he doesn’t talk at all about anything meaningful about himself. I think this is the other side of the “designing the AI girlfriend”, they talk all about what they expect from the woman and this takes away space they could be sharing anything meaningful about themself. The few things he did share about himself are 1. Not indicative of compatibility in a relationship. Someone opening the door for me is nice, but doesn’t make a relationship that is emotionally connected and healthy. And 2. are cliches and most likely not accurate assessments of his behavior. Saying ‘my momma raised me right’ doesn’t actually demonstrate that he has been ‘raised right’. I would venture to guess this is along the lines of someone writing they are very funny, when usually people who write that, are usually not funny. If you are funny it will be apparent and you don’t need to tell people. Write something meaningful about who you are as a person.
"My mama raised me right" is an immediate red flag for me. My first thought was that he must have had a complicated relationship with his mother to have written that sentence, let alone use it as an opening. Something about it suggests rigidity and maybe abuse.
Let’s not blame a woman for this mess of a man.
His profile seemed weird and way too specific. I’m sorry for Michelle though and this is just my pet peeve but I hate it when people say “this clearly made her stronger”. It sounds like she’s kind of traumatized now and afraid to date. Some things don’t make us stronger they really mess us up and then we have to live with it.
I go with the phrase “shit just happens!” I can’t stand the everything happens for a reason bs! No, shit just happens sometimes and we choose to learn or we don’t 🤷♀️
Exactly!
This man has a script and is looking for anyone, not someone. I have experienced love bombing 3 times while dating and my spidey senses tell me not to get tangled up in their web. This profile would be an automatic ick and swipe left/block.
Correct -- anyone who puts up with his behavior
I am so appreciative of the BDHM method which has clarified some of the patterns I was already figuring out from too much time on dating apps. Not only clarifying, but encouraging quick B2B. I would definitely back B2Bed this one.
I was in a similar toxic relationship before getting back on the dating sites and finding BHDM. He wasn't an alcoholic, but definitely a narcissist with similar love bombing at the beginning. Oh boy, love bombing can be so intoxicating, especially if you haven't experienced it before. (I'm sure especially if you have certain wounds, like a completely neglectful, narcissistic father). The only clues on my ex's profile would have been aligning himself with his grandmother (old fashioned values, now a B2B for me). However, mine did comment on my looks early in conversation, so BDHM would have served me well. It wasn't in what seemed a creepy way, but he went on quite a bit about how he liked my crooked teeth and how an imperfect smile was more attractive to him. I've learned this is also called negging (which he did a lot of, especially a little later in the relationship). I can relate to Michelle in that I saw glaringly obvious signs of trouble a couple weeks in with jealousy, but stayed. There has been a lot of hoovering, so that makes it really hard to leave. Even six months after we broke up (and we were only together a year) he is still hoovering if he gets any chance (not much because he's blocked and I avoid anywhere I know he'll likely be).
Beware of those narcissists! They come across as very charming and loving at the beginning and make it really painful to leave them.
Yes! All of this and... the whole New York Times/Art Tatum/Farmers Market schtick is right out of a rom-com and reads like bait.
Shtick is a great way of putting it! They’re parroting a male fantasy of what women want.
Yep. “Newspaper” would have sufficed.