Hoovered, to my regret

[NorthernSoul]

All,

My initial post about this 'friendship' is here:

https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=78413.msg682300#msg682300

To summarise, last year, I had an online-only friendship with a younger woman. It ended shortly before Christmas after what I can only describe as narcissistic rage on her part. In the new year, I sent her an email with contact details of someone who could help her career, but wrapped it in a way that showed I was hurt and disappointed. Her reply calm, grey rock, and respectful. That was it until March.

She made a media appearance as a prominent audience member in a discussion programme. I didn't know it was broadcast, but I sure did in the days that. She unblocked me, and sure as heck told me all about it,and again was quite respectful and humble about how she spoke with me. Now I had much more knowledge about PDs, I decided to let myself be hoovered back in, because I thought I'd managed to toughen myself up, and also she has a first-class brain (which enabled our stimulating discussions), regardless of other aspects of her personality.

There was little idealisation this time round, but the false flattery had increased. So too did the gaslighting. Now I knew more about the traits of narcissism, I was able to keep a close eye out for her abuse, and make note of it. I noticed that she'd be particularly callous about 'weak men', and mocked them mercilessly to me. Here's the thing:the men she was talking about were comparable in many ways to me, and the aspects she was mocking them about were all aspects which she knew also applied to me. Obviously, it's difficult to tell from just online chat, but she seemed to relish mocking these men - she certainly held them beneath her contempt.

Following her TV appearance, a broadcaster asked her if she'd liked to be interviewed on radio, and gave her the option to have a fellow guest. She asked me if I'd like to join her (over the phone at her place), but I declined. Instead, I helped her research. Perhaps I should have after all...

As time passed, I noticed that she wasted no opportunity to assert her 'superiority' over me. If I'd done something I was proud of, she'd casually mention examples that she had done better at or had more of. One day she even tried to make me feel guilty for having gone out cycling, and ending up at a hotel with a spectacular view. Apparently I was compromising my integrity for doing something to go out and enjoy myself - in her view, because of my employment situation, I shouldn't have gone out (even locally) for the day. Several times she made negative remarks about the fact that I'd inherited my parents' house, that I was in a "pretty good situation". I knew better than challenge her about it.

Matters worsened in May. I noticed that she'd started using my insecurities against me in order to produce a rise. While I can tolerate limited discussion on certain topics, provided that the other person understands and has empathy, this isn't the case with this woman.

To give one example, she couldn't understand why I hadn't heard of a certain mechanism in higher education. Anyone with empathy would know to stop, and calmly explain, and take into account my insecurity over the matter. She carried on regardless, ignoring my obvious unrest over the matter. She just kept pushing and pushing the matter regardless of how I was protesting, and trying to explain that it was upsetting me. I tried standing up for myself, saying we should calm things down, but that resulted in another attack of rage from her, where she accused me of stoking up the argument. And so I got accused of being too sensitive, too defensive, and that I should be careful not to fall into these traps in future. That point is that nobody else in my life has accused me of this, and certainly nobody else has provoked me.

Shortly after, she started a two-month touring holiday. The boasting increased throughout this, and I noticed that she was triangulation another man back at home (let's call him James) with various men she photographed herself with on her travels. From what she'd told me about James, she'd been dining with him since some time earlier last year, even showing him her local area, but complained and pushed him off when he made an advance on her. She was now mocking James to me for being weak, and that he was getting upset that she was sending him photos of her with these younger men she was meeting on her holiday.

Something else she admitted to me was that several men she spent the day with on her trips would make a pass at her, to her disgust. Well, no wonder, she gives them the girlfriend treatment, and no doubt the sane neurolinguistic programming techniques she used on me. She even claimed to have converted several people she'd met to her view of politics, whether they wanted to or not.

By now her ego and boasting had got out of control. So too had her belittling of me. I noticed that I was being treated as an employee, with her as my manager. It's not help that she provides, it's control. If I had an opinion about something, she'd find a way to devalue it. Everything she did with me, every conversation was framed with one purpose: to estaish and maintain superiority over me. Heck, she considered herself superior over everybody she met on her her travels, including highly successful businesspeople and hospital consultants.

An innocuous discussion ended up in me feeling so crushed that I asked her to leave me alone, but not before she'd told me to "grow up, honestly" (paraphrased).

This was now several weeks ago, and we're still no contact. In my last message, I alluded that I had started to realise what had been going on, and that she picked people such as James and myself in her life because she saw us 'weaker men' as being highly susceptible to be able to control easily, and that I regretted letting her back in my life. I pity anybody who gets close to her, as I had.