Beyond cookies, odd coincidence or Fleetwood Mac

Fleetwood Mac “Rhiannon”

Mr. P is now to be referred to as Mr. C.  for Cookies.  I don’t know for sure what it is that felt off, but something did.

It started shortly after our first meeting when we became FB friends.  A day or so later, I receive an early morning text saying, ” I was looking through your FB pictures and I see you know Mary.  Mary is my oldest and dearest friend!”  I was not excitedone bit to learn we shared this mutual friend and I’ll tell you why.

It’s a pretty far out(as in crazy) story so I’ll try to cut it down to the most basic details in the interest of brevity.  I met Mary via another friend I was fairly close with; let’s call her Sybil.  Sybil and I were close friends/acquaintances for years.  Sybil was that crisis friend many of us know.  I’d go months and never hear from her and suddenly she’d pop up when her life was a mess…and her life was pretty much always a mess  or in between major “catastrophes”.  Always.  Sybil, however, took the “typical “crisis friend” to a whole new level all her own!

I may never understand why I was born with a savior complex: always feeling obligated to prove my loyalty, my love, my friendship, etc, etc.  I have learned the hard way though that this very trait seems to attract people like Sybil, people who border on the sociopathically self-centered side of character, pathological narcissists who merely collect people whom are naïve and/or stupid enough to fall for their chronic bullshit, repeated self-created dramas, and victim syndromes.

Sybil was one of my classic and most extreme cases of this.  She is, without a doubt, a pathological liar and a fairly high functioning drug addict.  Every one is merely a resource of some type to this woman. And she’s good!  She’s charming and cute, quite convincing, and very effective  at her game.  I also strongly suspect that she has Münchausen syndrome and/or  Munchausen by proxy syndrome, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchausen_syndrome ) as she or one of her three children is always at death’s door.  Although it’s hard for me to discern whether the symptoms she has of this rare disorder are actually from a mental illness itself or simply due to her extreme case of prescription drug addiction.  When you or one of your children is always suffering some extreme malady of sorts, typically you have access to painkillers either in your name or your children’s.  I’ve a sneaking hunch this aspect, as well as the attention received, is her biggest motivating force.

I fell for this game for years and often donated my own prescriptions to her various causes.  I’m not often willing or interested to take prescription strength pail relievers, so I’m an ideal “friend” for Sybil to have around at various dry spots in her addiction as well as a caring friend who goes above and beyond in most areas of friendship.

Toward the end of my 10 year friendship with Sybil, I met her friend Mary who had just returned from living in Alaska.  This was around the same time that Sybil had married a nurse she’d just met weeks earlier, allegedly this convenience marriage was only in order for Sybil to get health insurance (after all, she and her children are always seriously ill!).  A few months into this marriage, Sybil shows up at my house telling me how her husband was up on felony charges for prescription drug fraud.  Not only this, but he was cheating on her with his ex-wife!  And not only those two horrifying things, but she strongly suspected he was trying to kill her.  No, not figuratively, I mean literally, as in murder her!  There were stories of him hooking her up to IV’s in her sleep and preparing food for her that knocked her out for days while he sexually assaulted her.  Oh the stories got more horrifying and dangerous by the  day!

As crazy as this sounds in the telling and crazier yet that I’d fall for this, I did.  I invited Sybil and her three children to live with my family.  After all, this man was trying to kill her and he allegedly treated her children rather poorly as well.  And quite honestly, this wasn’t totally selfless, as I had recently been downsized by my non-profit employer and really needed a roommate anyway.  Sybil not only made very good money, but also collected a great deal of child support and would be a great person to split my household bills with.

Except, after paying for her move, buying her gas to get to work every day, supplying food for all four of them, as well as my own family and not receiving a penny of help for any of these expenses or others, Sybil still did not have any money.  Sadly(for Sybil), I could not afford to support us all for long on my meager unemployment  checks . In addition, after a few months of living together,  major cracks in her stories began to appear; to the extent that my daughters (who adored her and her children!) even began questioning Sybil’s stories and her character in general.  So when the “murderous” ex husband began coming around and after her 5 cats were destroying my beloved home, and I was totally running out of money for food and the mortgage, there was civil unrest in this household to say the least.  Shortly after I suggested she go back to her husband to work things out (they’d been “dating” since she moved in) , I discovered that Sybil had told him that I had charged her $3,000 per month plus expenses to live with me for two months!  In spite of the fact that I had asked her to contribute $500 a month and help with groceries…and never received a dime of that request.

Suffice to say, after the damage done to my home, the amount of money supporting her family cost me while she was banking mega bucks as I struggled to pay for our basic needs, and the damage done to the friendship by her chronic and hurtful lies to my children and me, this ordeal did not end well.  At all.  In addition, I came to the painful realization, that I had been duped on many levels for years by this woman!

Not a pretty story by which to know Mary, a mutual acquaintance of Mr. C’s, who I’ve not seen or spoken to since the crashing end to my friendship with Sybil.  I can only imagine the stories Mary’s been told by this sociopath!  I only know the horrifying stories I was told over the years of the various abuse Sybil always claimed she had suffered at any one of her friends’ or boyfriends’ hands through the years I’d known her.  Thus, I’m certain I’m now one of those sympathy “stories” for Sybil to tell future resources as well and I can’t imagine Mary has not heard this.

So, it was disheartening to say the least to find out my mutual friend with Mr. C was from this terrible ordeal.  And although it worried and bothered me, what do you say?  I mean really, what do you even begin to tell a relative stranger you’ve met about this kind of insane ordeal?

So of course, I didn’t tell him.  I said nothing except that Mary was a super great girl (and she is!).  I did notice Mr. C seemed far less interested in me after that little text.  He didn’t text as often as he had been previously and when he did, it wasn’t charming or funny, but more brief and to the point.  I tried to tell myself this was all in my head..that it was mere paranoia from that awful ordeal. Maybe Mary already knew what Sybil was really like and wouldn’t buy into any stories she’d heard anyway or maybe the few times she actually met me, she’d gotten a good enough sense of me as a person to at least have some doubts as to the veracity of any outlandish Sybil stories?  Or maybe even, Sybil had developed a conscience after she abused my friendship, my finances, and my home so much and she hadn’t told Mary any crazy lies about me trying to “kill her” or something so absurd like she tended to tell about the other people in her life? Haha… fat chance!

Anyway, back to Mr. C.  So, this seemed an unfavorable coincidence, but we still kept our cookie making date.  We made cookies and watched a movie.  Mr. C didn’t seem as chatty or fun as he had on our first date.  He got more talkative after my oldest and her friend came home while we were baking.  He seemed to enjoy talking to them far more than he did me.

Which brings me to another super odd coincidence:  On our first date, Mr. C had told me of a close female friend of his who was a single mom with four children.  Her (unforgettable) name was Rhiannon and they were the best of friends.  In fact, he often babysat for her children and had a close relationship with them.  Adorably endearing, right?  So, I didn’t forget this story he had shared.  Funny thing though, when my daughter came home around 9 PM with her schoolmate, Annie, Mr. C says to Annie, “you look so familiar, what’s your mom’s name?”   Annie answers, “Rhiannon” which was followed by an awkward silence.

Yeah.  Weird.  Still haven’t figured that one out.

I just wasn’t getting the sense that Mr. C was at all really into me, but I was still trying to keep it as fun as I could.  After the movie, the kids went to their room and he and I started a second movie.  I was surprised he wanted to stay for this, but okay, cool. Maybe I was reading him wrong…

We both fell asleep during the second movie.  We woke up thirsty around 3 AM.  I got us each some water and then he kissed me.  I was not expecting this after the “off” sense I was getting from him!  It was a nice kiss though…and we continued kissing for a while, progressing to more passionate kisses. This went on innocently enough til about 5 AM. I really kept expecting him to volunteer to leave…any minute….I mean this was fun, but gosh… two hours of making out at 3 AM is enough already.  I’m thinking to myself, this is just weird.  I really didn’t get the feeling all week or all night that he’s much into me, so what is this about?  And why doesn’t he leave??  I’m wondering this right around this time Mr. C goes for under the jeans, under the thong.  Hmmmm… was just NOT so sure how I was feeling about that.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not necessarily against sex on the second date or whenever really.  I’m more of a go with the moment if it feels right type of gal, whenever the moment feels right.  I see no need to put a specific time frame on when it’s right to do whatever.  It just is when it is…whenever that is.  Thus, as attracted as I felt to Mr. C and as much as I enjoyed making out with him.  All in all, after the past week of sudden quiet-ness and the odd disconnected sense throughout the evening, in all my confusion, I was sure of one thing, this time was not the right time to progress to anything under my jeans, much less under my thong!  Nope.  Not the right  moment. AT ALL!

And shortly after that maneuver, I told Mr. C it probably was time for him to leave.  There was a great deal of good-bye kissing too.  It was fun!  After he was gone, I just didn’t know what to think of everything.  Usually I get a clear sense of this kind of thing, but I really had no clue what the heck was going on, had gone on, or would go on from here.  One thing for certain though, his perfection in my mind was marred.  Not in a bad way really, just in that the odd sense I got from him really just created more questions than mystery and combined with his under the thong maneuver in the midst of it which really spoke volumes in my mind as to Mr C’s overall purpose.

I have not heard a word from Mr C since he left around 6 AM Sunday morning.  So, I’m guessing my initial sense of his “less than interested” stance must have been fairly accurate after all.

Ahhhhh…is everyone’s life so very strange?