Hello,
I'm new here, and I'd appreciate others' perspective on a friendship (or whatever the heck it is) that I think I should end.
Last year, this amazing man entered my life. Smart, witty, and incredibly intelligent. We'd chat for hours, and pretty much from the get-go he started to share the secrets of his life, and what he thought of others. I thought it a bit odd that such a level of closeness would be achieved so soon, but overlooked it because of the sheer amount of attention he was giving me. I'm talking about hundreds of messages a day, pretty much through the entire day with only a few hours break in between. It was like a firehose of attention, praise, and flattery, and he'd laugh at even the most banal thing I'd say. It was becoming obvious I was the centre of his world, and that he'd placed me on a pedestal. It was also clear he had been stalking me on FB before we started chatting, and during this phase, he'd continue stalking, and not missing a chance to leave a comment on my posts. But then it started to change.
I noticed he'd then start talking about other women he was chatting with on dating websites. This was also around the time when he'd start making a few cutting remarks (disguised as just jokes), and I began to notice he'd start to brag about his accomplishments, especially in areas he knew I was insecure about. This prompted our first argument, as I reasoned that anybody with empathy - and who knew me as well as he did by then - wouldn't have boasted in such a way. I asked him to please stop doing so, followed by an explanation of why I was hurt. There then followed an outpouring of hurt and rage from him, that I should ever have doubted him, and it was significantly out of proportion with the nature of the argument. In the lead-up to this argument, I noticed I was getting drained of energy, increasingly anxious and depressed, and my work colleagues noticed a significant downturn in my mood from my otherwise happy, confident, cheerful self. I felt I was being crushed, but despite this, I felt desperate to get him back, because I suppose by now I was hooked on him. Throughout the friendship, he'd get quite intimate by giving me plenty of mental images to think about, and he certainly knows how attractive he is, and ditto his physique.
After a period of silence, we started chatting again, but it wasn't the same. The draining continued until a few weeks later another argument came out of the blue. By now I was pretty much a shell of my former self. I don't remember what prompted it, but again, I felt his rage was significantly out of proportion, as was the cruelty and paranoia. No matter what I tried to put my side across, he'd callously and coolly give a contemptuous answer back. I was then discarded.
A few months later, he made a media appearance, and naturally wanted his world to know about it. That included me. No apology, and no reference to how things had ended, though he did sound humble in his greeting. I decided to give him another chance.
It wasn't that long before I was being devalued and belittled again. Anything I had done, he'd find a way to prove or show that he'd done more of or is better at. He hardly missed an opportunity to do this, all while praising me, and considering ourselves to be equals. As time progressed, he'd find ways to belittle the things I enjoyed doing, implying I had little integrity in doing them - while he claims to have integrity and admire it in people, he's also quite a hypocrite. The harsh jokes increased, but when going over a topic I was insecure about, instead of stopping when I was becoming irritated, he carried on through, then complain harshly that I was too sensitive and defensive about it when I tried to get him to stop. Anyone with empathy - such as the rest of my friends - would know when to back off, or talk about it more sensitively.
I began to notice he was increasingly cruel, callous, and judgemental about how he talked about others. OK, I regret that I ended up doing a little of the same myself, but the scale of his callousness took my breath away. This is the part he doesn't allow anybody to see, I guess, except me, and it's vastly different to the sweet, charming, engaging, and happy persona he puts across to people. He travels a lot, and recently told me about how everyone he met liked him, and remarking how intelligent he is. It got to the point where it was bon-stop boasting, interspersed with mocking people he considered inferior to him - actually, he considers pretty much everybody to be inferior to him in most ways.
Again, I felt I was being crushed, and my mood had significantly dipped. He made one last hurtful remark to me after another period of boasting, at which point I ended our friendship. I don't know if there's anything to salvage, or if it would be worth it. We weren't romantic partners, BTW.
Part of me misses him, his intelligence, and our meaningful conversations. He's a remarkable man (he said the same about me plenty of times), but I wonder what was really going on behind it all. Was I too hasty in ending it, and should I have been less sensitive and defensive about things? I'd appreciate some feedback on this.