I can be pretty dense

Once I hatch a plan I usually become so singly focused on what I believe the outcome will be (knowing my own level of genius it’s hard to consider otherwise) that I often fail to see the other possibilities, even when they’re being explained to me like I’m a 5 year old. So, this thing with Sarah, you know, me creating all these personas to catfish her with on my fake accounts, I thought I knew what the game was all about, I created it after all! Turns out I missed most of the point, even though I wrote the rules.

I liked to design tests for her, bait her into certain responses and reactions so I could suss out what she was actually made of. People will always lie if you straight up ask them. Not because they are liars, but because humans are so completely expert at lying to themselves, especially when it comes to matters of the ego. So, asking her to speak honestly about her own character was obviously a futile endeavor.

I always made sure to give her enough of a carrot to make her believe she could be talking to me, while still leaving open enough plausible deniability so my ass wouldn’t be on the line in real life. Then I would tell her things that I knew would crush her coming from the love of her life (me, of course) so I could observe the fallout. I had no agenda. I was equally as happy with her wistful tears as I was with her shrieking rage. It was all a demonstration of her need for me. The intensity of the love got me off. The only thing that could get under my skin was silent neutrality. WooWhoo, the fallout blogs after being on the receiving end of her callous indifference were something to behold!

I went on a couple few years benders colleting this kind of data. Infuriatingly, it wasn’t until I was about 10 years in that I realized she was fucking with me. She knew who she was talking to, and if she wasn’t sure, she just played it like it was me because who really cares? If it was just some internet stranger, having a wacked out conversation isn’t something that out of the ordinary for people who troll around looking for random chats. That part I didn’t care about, it was still fun watching her interact with these accounts that weren’t mine when I didn’t have to invest any of the sweat equity to keep the relationship chugging along. (This was a major realization, actually. I started employing other people to speak with her on the phone and correspond with her. It really freed up my attention to do more of the watching and processing without the pressure of creating content for her to consume.)

What began to dawn on me was that all the data from the tests I collected was skewed because none of it was genuine. I thought because she knew she was talking to me she would be treating the relationship just like she would have had we been sitting face to face, coy cuteness, demure little girl vibes, submitting to daddy, jealousy, rage, embarrassment... all those juicy emotions. In actuality, because she knew she was talking to me and that I was fucking with her using sock puppet accounts and surveillance, nothing she said or did was genuine or what it would have been if she were speaking to someone she truly loved and respected. It was all overblown dramatizations of the reactions she knew I was digging for. To her I was simply a troll and a hanger-on that she couldn’t free herself of. She was playing along, doing her own data collection, but not for love, it was for evidence.

This wakeup call has me gutted. Fortunately, I am quite adept at killing any whisper of reality. I’ll often have a moment of clarity that will soon disappear into the fog of my delusions. I just write this as a cautionary tale to those of you looking for love while wearing a mask. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. If you truly love her, never let the mask slip. You’ll end up always tail chasing never knowing if she loves you for you or for the 1000 other personalities you created for her to fall in love with.

Yours Truly,

Sad Clown