Chapter 3
Christine had a few theories, and they all made total sense to me now. I’d forgotten how brilliant she really was in all those lost months before I’d finally woken up.
“Faith, this whole bizarre behavior of theirs has me believing that the persons who are behind all this are VERY immature, perhaps teenagers or even adults who are mentally unbalanced and/or emotionally immature. A true, rational adult wouldn't be so careless in doing things like this. And rest assured I know that the real man wouldn’t be cursing at, making threats toward, and verbally attacking total strangers. They could get into some deep shit doing that stuff. One, the big bosses at his company wouldn't allow him to do this as it's against company policy.”
“And frankly,” Christine continued, “these people may have only one to three days off in any given week. Why would they waste that precious time online when it’s better spent with family and real-life friends they rarely see to begin with?”
Well, she was certainly dead on about that, I thought.
Felicia had also offered her own input, one being she had questioned this man’s identity awhile back, probably about the time Christine had. Felicia had gone to an event while the actual man had been in the United Kingdom; she stated that he had had Well, it seems Paul has a ‘genuine special friend’ over there and when Felicia and a friend had seen him with the ’special friend’ the night before, the imposter had also posted comments on my web pages, which Felicia later saw. It confused her at the time, wondering how a guy could have been in two places at once, but figured she’d been mistaken at the time.
Looking back and taking into consideration some of my recent discoveries, I have a very strong feeling Felicia had been right all along.
I couldn’t help but sit back and wonder what the real guy would think if he’d known all of this was going on. I had encountered him briefly a few years ago; he’d struck me as a private person with some class that seemed respectful toward people from all walks of life–especially women–a far cry from this crazed person I had been dealing with the past week or so.
But whoever this was, what did he want from me? I’d been deleted and allegedly blocked from everywhere (at least to my knowledge) he’d been involved, why was the fixation still going on, no matter how discreetly it might have been?
With Neil’s help, I began reading articles that dealt with situations like mine, contacting and talking to other people who had been through it, learning my rights and responsibilities, and where to turn for help. I was learning things I never either considered or knew that existed before, and with both my new knowledge and what I had experienced firsthand, I knew once I’d gotten past my own ordeal, I could help someone else.
It was also reassuring to know that I wasn’t alone.
But as the days began to go by, I found myself more amused than agitated by the subsequent events. Even with some changes this guy seemed to be making, I couldn’t help but shake my head and think it was a little late in the game to be doing that. The underlying messages and threats that didn’t take brain surgery for me to pick up weren’t helping his case either.
At the same time, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for this man. How pathetic could it have been to draw in heaven knows how many unsuspecting people, feed them some kind of lines, concoct some story of a friend’s suicide, and basically be someone they actually weren’t? This had to be a lonely person with some kind of emptiness in their lives, a void that needed filled. But there are so many other, more positive ways, of doing that.
The other side of me was still appalled by the idea of people being conned by these stories I had heard for months. Did he have no idea someone would figure out this charade and expose him for it sooner or later? Was I supposed to just overlook all that, along with the name calling, the mocking, the criticizing, and the verbal abuse he’d also laid on me at one time or another?
I decided no more, and once all the lies were figured out, it made it much easier to break away, at least for me. Whoever this guy was, evidently he was thinking differently to some degree. Nevertheless, I stood optimistic that it would all be over soon and now concentrated on getting back to my own life. No way was some warped idiot going to keep me from living again.
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