Note: This post was written in 2009 and I was in a different place mentally and emotionally. The recovery I’ve been through from 2022 on has changed my views on a lot of things, and I can critique myself effectively. I’ll do that in a modernized version of this post which I will link when it is complete. Please take my lack of recovery into account when you read this.
Return to Hell
Not for the last time
NOTE: I underestimated what there was to write. It turned out to be a total document of 14 full pages, of which only 5 were in the previous post. Sorry for the long posts!
So, about 4 months later, in despair after a failure with Insloan and a failed attempt at a relationship with some artist from NYC, I got in touch with Darlene again. She was carrying on with some mud guys, though I did not know about this at the time. I did the usual: sent flowers, paid a lot of attention to her, and it worked. Of course. Attention whores are easy to please if you know what to do. Anyway, before long, she was living in NJ with me. Initially, as usual, things were ok. Quite a bit of sex and fun.
During this time frame, Darlene began sending nude pics of her out to guys on the net. They being guys, they cross-posted them until just about everyone with any interest in the online community she frequented had nude pics of her. It became an embarrassment to publicly admit that I even knew her. I was so appalled. But I couldn’t lose…so it went into the file along with her infidelity and unreliability.
World of Warcraft
Darlene got her first copy of World of Warcraft early in 2005. She began playing it, as I did a couple weeks later. Her play became addictive while mine was built around my workday. She began hanging around with some guys on the game and corresponding with them, sending pictures, her usual attention whore stuff. Our bedroom and social time became less and less. An example is that, to get a blowjob, one night I had to stand next to her computer desk while she blew me in a break in a raid so that she wouldn’t lose her slot. It was good head, but still… how lame.
Around this time, her weight went south. Darlene went way up – I’m tempted to say inflated – from the about 150 she’d been most of the time I’d known her. She finally topped out slightly over 250 in mid-2006. She was well over 200 most of 2005 though. It impeded her sex drive and overall made her psych symptoms more apparent, till even someone as dumb as I could see them. More on that later, though. Incidentally, the weight gain was 100% attributable to the WoW playing, but at this point I understood why her parents hadn’t wanted her to move out. They had to get her to go out and not sit around and gain weight, and feared her ultimate obesity becoming permanent. Her mother apparently was expert at berating her about her weight, which left permanent scars.
Online Guys
After the first few weeks of living in my place, she began conducting online relationships which I found out about after she moved back to Atlanta. This is one of those places where I am weaving future knowledge into the narrative. She carried on with at least 3 guys online during 2005. Skype sessions, phone cards, anything she could do to hook up with someone new who would pay more attention to her. Because I wasn’t doing enough in that regard, having to work and all
The last good sex we had ever was in summer 2005. It was right after I’d gotten back from Australia. At this point, I know, from the email record and other material that she was carrying on with at least two guys via email, IM, in-game chat and Skype. That said, she’d come in sometimes and have sex. It was still good occasionally too.
That stopped perhaps in August 05. After that we had no more sex until the following year, except for two instances just before she left where I think she was just horny. The reason why she’d given up on it mostly was because I had talked dirty to her the last time we fucked. I don’t know why this was a problem, but it insulted her somehow. I mean, she was behaving like a sleazy whore, so why not talk dirty? So, therefore she didn’t want to have sex anymore.
Second Breakup
I broke up with her for the second time in late 2005 after giving her a week’s warning that things had to change. Not because of the sex so much, because I was banging my ex-wife by this point. Mary is a great lay so I don’t think I need to plead excuses for wanting to fuck her. Mary on her worst day is a better fuck than Darlene. But Darlene wasn’t putting out anyway and just eating food and not contributing, so my reaction is justifiable in this context.
Fling with Mary
Mary had contacted me about midsummer in 2005 and wanted me to meet her at a hotel. Then I created an excuse to fly to Tampa to meet her at the Hard Rock there, where we did 2 days and one night of sweaty excess. Sure, she had a fiancé, and I had a ‘girlfriend’, but we rationalized it out that we were married before we ever met them. Hah. Anyway, we had lots of sex in 2005.
Darlene decided to move back home for undisclosed reasons. I only found them out later. I drove Darlene back to Atlanta and we had sex one time more in a hotel on the way back there. It was kind of bittersweet actually. Not actually good sex. It was a pity fuck. The first time I saw Darlene actually show remorse. Probably the last, too. It was December 21, 2005. I unloaded her crap and brought it up to her place, and then left. I flew home from Hartsfield back to New Jersey and tried to not think of her as the holidays passed quietly for me.
Before and after she left, another woman named Jolene from Pennsylvania would stop in every few weeks. She was not the most attractive woman ever but she was understanding and would talk to me. Then she’d gently blow my troubles away. It was really nice. Then her husband called me up and told me she’d lied about being married, so that was that. Blah.
Bethanie
I met a woman named Bethanie on Slashdot (/.). I had some phone sex with this person and really lusted a great deal after her. Nice videos too, wish I’d been less honorable and kept them. Met her once and had a delicious kiss and fondle. One of the best ever. If I hadn’t been so obsessed with Darlene, I’d have been on her like stink on shit. But I was, and the opportunity passed by. Probably for the best in the end.
After I got back together with Darlene, seeing no future in a relationship with a married woman, her negative attitude really started to bug me. I was nothing but nice to her and tried to give her good advice after a fashion even after the mutual lusting stopped. So I stopped talking to her as a result of a nasty remark she made to me. Occam’s razor applied to my personal life. But then again, that is so like me. Anyway, my summary covers about December 2005 to …July or August 2006. Haven’t talked to her at all since then.
Not Being Obtuse
After rereading this, I decided to demystify this section. I made a point of rereading some of Bethanie’s writing – I’d destroyed about all of her personal notes to me, but I have a candle and a cd still stored away carefully, and I still know where to find the things she writes. She was having a bad time at the time, but she insulted me by saying that I was interested in dominating women or something of the sort. It was highly insulting and probably intended to be so because I had insulted her somehow by suggesting that, if she was going to get divorced, to take all the protective actions she possibly could before she filed. I suggested that people’s motivations and attitude change after a divorce filing. But she was sure that I was wrong, and apparently that justified a gratuitous personal attack.
The subsequent pile-ons of her, I stayed out of. Of course. I don’t do gratuitous harm to people. So, to be fair, I wish she’d been not married or otherwise encumbered at the time when I was available. I’d have given her a (probably very long lasting) spin, and been done with Darlene much earlier than I was. I liked her mind more than her body, and her body was hot and her kiss was like having your soul drawn off with her warmth replacing it. It was something that you crave many years later. Still do.
Rescue
Around January 20, 2006, I got a slew of messages/phone calls from someone named Reggie who is a decent friend of mine. He was telling me about Darlene and her situation. Apparently, what had happened was that Darlene had hooked up with a guy from Conyers, GA, not far from Atlanta. She met him while playing WoW. She moved back to Georgia precisely to engage in a relationship with this guy. Unfortunately, he wasn’t all that interested in her in person. Something about her weight and lack of interest in sex and attention seeking that required him to travel to her. Mainly because she found his digs in Conyers to be sub par. Whatever, she’s a rich bitch.
Anyway, Reggie thought it a good idea for me to try to ‘save’ her. “She needs your help, Kevin.”, I remember him saying. I should have balked at this because Reggie is kind of young and pretty starry-eyed about the whole relationships thing. Not enough experience to be truly jaded. But I was so intent on not losing with her that I insisted on trying to pursue her.
So I got in touch. She was cold and said to ‘come if I felt like it’. So I flew to Atlanta in a driving snowstorm. Got to her apartment. Every box was where I had left it when I moved her five weeks before. She had bought a bed and some bedroom stuff but that’s it. Nothing to sit on. Nothing on the walls. Just a card table for her WoW system, a cable modem and a little food. That should have disturbed me, but no, I was just concerned about her. I mean, she was clearly an addict, but I failed to raise the alarm at this time.
Insight, But Not Enough
What I know now is that she was completely shattered by this guy rejecting her. She was sure she could do better, somehow. And instead she was an obese 25 year old living in a one bedroom apartment with a college degree and no idea how to market herself, or how to change her life. But accepting reality and taking action to fix it is not her strong suit. In fact, she has little capability to do so. I blame her parents. They let her get away with “declarations” that she was going to change her ways rather than making her fully realize it. Therefore, she has this warped idea that just wanting things to be different makes them so. Or is enough. Either way, she’s more a child than an adult, and is completely broken as a person. But once again, I dived in to try to fix her.
Commuting to Atlanta
Swiftly acting, I put myself on the market in Atlanta and announced to my current employer that I was leaving. The market was pretty lame in Atlanta – I found that the jobs that were available paid a lot less than I was used to. So it took me a while to get myself desensitized to the point where I would accept about 10k less than I was making. During this time, my then-current employer was very good at letting me commute back and forth weekly, working 4 days a week in Jersey and spending 3 in Atlanta. I got both of us moved into a 2 bedroom place in a nicer area of the complex.
She started to warm up a little over time, but she never really treated me well at any point after this. The sex was pretty much nonexistent and the affection was minimal. I had to raid with her on WoW to share any kind of quality time. It was really pretty lame by any reasonable standard. I was staying at my mom’s house in Toms River, NJ during the week and spending my weekends in Atlanta.
Trying To Have A Real Relationship
Around this time, I lied quite a bit to get her a job at an IT firm, assuring someone who called me for a reference that I was her supervisor and saying a lot of nice things about her. She ended up doing a good job for them, and may still have that job for what I know. Still, the fact that I had to write the resume, submit the resume, coach her on what to say in the interviews, act as a personal reference and actually lie for her, was pretty telling as to her level of ambition, which was near zero. But at least I got her a job.
I attended her sister’s wedding with her and it appeared that she was starting to come out of her funk finally and become a functioning human. But as soon as the wedding was over, it was back to nightly WoW raids and her complete absence of ambition in real life. Any attempt to take her out to dinner or out to do anything else would require scheduling around the raid or somehow guilting her into it by bringing the specter of her family up. It was no life for anyone, but I was so certain that I didn’t want to lose…
Ariel and Second to Last Breakup
I met Ariel online sometime in early June 2006 while I was in Barstow, CA for a month doing an exercise at NTC, which is at Fort Irwin in the High Mojave. Barstow is a shitty town. Anyone who has been through NTC, meaning most soldiers, can tell you that. I spent my nights IMing away from a local hotel since I couldn’t play WoW for shit from there. Ariel said hi to me there and we pretty immediately found a strong attraction.
She’s from Wisconsin – Rhinelander WI precisely. It’s a pretty boring place and she had a pretty boring job and life and longed to get out of it. She’s a bit of an artist too, and I have a weakness for arty types. Anyway, we spent most of the summer pining after each other in a very limited way – we would never talk about sex much except for one night we were both drunk. But she kept me company while I was away from Darlene. That was enough – should have been enough – to tell me that things weren’t right with Darlene. Still, I prevaricated and continued being a slave to WoW raids and pretending I had a life with her.
I suppose Ariel had her effect though. In a way, she was similar to Salty long before – she alerted me to the negativity in my own life and gave me the opportunity to take steps to change it. Unfortunately, I only did half-assed ones at this stage. I kept telling Darlene that I was sick of the raiding. Finally, in early September 2006, I told her that either we were going to change or that we were done. I broke up with her the next morning, quit the WoW guild and stopped playing.
Shame
Now we’re getting to the part I didn’t want to write. Remembering it makes me sick to my stomach that I put up with this from anyone. After I broke up with her, the next day she hooked up with a guy from Texas that she knew online. I mean come on…this was going on for weeks beforehand, I am sure. But yeah, it happened miraculously the next day. At least she asserted…
Anyway, his name was …something. I think I blocked it out. Regardless, once again, he was a pretty nice guy who got taken in by her. For a few weeks, I ignored the situation and planned my departure from Atlanta, even to the point of summoning a truck to pick up my stuff. At the last minute, I cancelled it. I can’t remember the reason why, except to once again illustrate that I could not let myself lose with her.
Final Attempt to “Win”
So I resolved to win her back. I keylogged her computer. I became privy to every conversation she had with mystery guy. These were very painful conversations. I penetrated every mail account she had, every IM she had. Penetrated her cell account. I cut loose with every trick in my arsenal to remove every shred of privacy she had.
What I found out was breathtaking. She was a fucking mental case. She would say different bullshit to different people to keep them from knowing her true intentions, and would somehow keep all this bullshit straight. Actually, I respected her intellect more after this, since to be able to pull this off required some immense ability to keep all this stuff straight. Every time. She almost never slipped with anyone. I guess her family had done this to her. Her father is a lawyer and can talk rings around people and refuses to be turned away from his inquiry. So Darlene learned to lie really, really well.
At first it kinda appeared like I was winning. She agreed to be my girlfriend again. Then I noticed her planning a rendezvous with mystery guy. So I would arrange to be in town whenever they were planning it. Finally, they decided to arrange it for during the week when I wasn’t present. He came in from Texas. She cleaned up the house (for once). That was my first clue, beyond the mail and the keylogs. When I arrived that Friday, there was a used, but unfilled condom in the trash. Yeah, it had happened. She’d been fucking around in my house, in my bed. I played it cool, figuring I’d make plans to leave when I got back to Jersey the next Monday.
Shadows of the Past
I got a call from the mystery guy that Monday. He revealed he’d been there. He didn’t tell me the details about it, but I got them eventually: he’d been so grossed out by her appearance that he couldn’t get it up for her so he’d dropped the thing in the trash so I’d notice it. Apparently he was trying to drive me away. Hah, he had no idea what he was involving himself in. I never had sex with Darlene after this, but I kept playing the game for some reason. The objective was to teach her and this guy a lesson they wouldn’t forget.
I promptly accepted a job for about $15k less than I was making in NJ. I turned in my resignation. Now I was a full time Atlanta resident at this point. If you knew how much my job means to me, you know that this was a huge risk on my part. I did it anyway, without any surety that it was going to result in anything positive. Or maybe I did – I knew Darlene was a mental case, an attention whore. Given more time and attention, even for a brief period, would knock the other guy out of the running.
Alerting Her Family
I then began collating all the emails and texts and other information I had. I sent it, along with the nude pics she’d been sending out, over to her sister Julia, who then forwarded it on to her parents. The mails and pictures and such depicted her pattern of lies and WoW addiction that had dominated the last couple of years of her life. I depicted the other guy as some online fling of hers, poisoning them against him. Yeah, that was not entirely fair, but I was playing to win. I suggested that she needed intervention. And they followed through with the intervention.
They consulted a shrink with the material and were advised that the only policy that had any chance of success with her was cutting her off entirely from access to family money and facilities until she submitted to treatment herself. They recovered her house keys, keys to the cabin, pretty much disowned her unless she submitted to treatment. This policy remained in effect until she (later) moved back home. It annoyed the crap out of her but wasn’t immediately effective in changing her point of view.
She later whined to me that I’d somehow harmed her by making her mom think badly of her just before she died. Whatever, she was a sleazy attention whore who needed some help. At this point I didn’t even care about a relationship with her. I was interested in my own ego and by extension fucking with her as much as I could. So I did. I guess I wanted to help her too, but I wanted it to hurt as much as possible along the way.
Darlene Wises Up – Too Late
Around this time I got a little too sly and she discovered the keylogger, but not the other measures I had in place. She screamed and left and whined to her online lover. But ultimately she was back. The bottom line was that she was lonely and abandoned when I was gone, even though she gave me short shrift. I moved her primary WoW characters to another server, a PvE one. This resulted in the characters becoming boring. The hope was that she’d see the futility in playing and do something else with her time. It didn’t really work.
Shortly after this, mystery boy got in touch with me after I sent him a fair amount of the packet I sent her family. He read it finally and realized what a fucked up person he was investing his time in. He wanted to end it finally, and wanted my help in cornering her. I was on board with this. So we made plans to have a conference call that night at 10pm ET.
The Phone Call
I still remember the fateful phone call. I was in bed with Darlene, and mystery guy was on the phone. Then we confronted her on speakerphone. She had to explain what the hell she wanted in life. She was speechless. Darlene was so used to controlling information that having everyone on the same page as her was maddening. She got angry. She cried. Darlene tried every feminine wile. She tried to split us up so she could talk to people individually. But nothing worked for her. So finally she had to decide, and told him that she was sticking with what she had because that was better than the alternative.
That was a dumb move on her part. I still didn’t trust her. I’d have to be stupid to. So I made contingency plans for departure – plans that I should have just acted on at this time, or many times in the past. But I so badly didn’t want to lose with her that I had to hang on until the result was apparent even to a dumbass like me. But I watched Darlene closely, checking her cell phone records and computer on a regular basis. For a while, it appeared like there was a real change in her.
Dumping Ariel
Ariel is kind of a broken person. She was raped while she was living in New York about 10 years ago and still carries that memory as a kind of chip on her shoulder. Along with a couple breakups along the way, she’s created a wall toward real intimacy that is nigh-impossible to pierce. She also had a relationship going on with a guy who she didn’t like. I hate that situation and generally dump whomever is in that situation from my thoughts or interest because it’s a bad situation – people have to end their relationships on their own. Hanging around for them to make up their minds is maddening.
So I gave up on her and sent her on her way around this time. I knew things weren’t ok with Darlene but I felt like Ariel was not much of an improvement in any event. She didn’t take it well, but I hooked up with her again briefly while I was in Iraq, a little over a year later. She wanted to move in. I played along for long enough to see if her mind and motives had changed any. She was just using me, I decided, so I told her to fuck off and I don’t expect to ever hear from her again.
Super attractive, but super-destructive to me. So hot, physically and mentally, though. I miss her a lot. She was interesting. She’d send me pics of herself on my cell just looking pretty and somehow that always brightened up my day. But after Darlene, I couldn’t risk that kind of situation again. Interestingly enough, not that much different than Analie…
Darlene Fails
Darlene was treading water for about 2 months. She eventually gave in to temptation and hooked back up with mystery guy, or just started talking to him – whatever. Regardless of what was the actual situation, it was enough to set off my contingency planning. At this point, it was revealed that her mother had just a few months to live due to breast cancer that had spread. Her mom was a good person who tried her best to save Darlene from her demons. Her passing was not going to be a positive thing.
I told her I forgave her (liar). We went out out car shopping the week after the event, and pressured her into buying a car that was pretty close to what she could afford. I told her I was breaking up with her and leaving Atlanta a couple weeks later – so that she would not have time or the money to find another place and would have to move back home, a necessary component of my contingency plan. I suggested both to her sister Julia and to her that she find a shrink. Under pressure from both angles, she did find someone in April. Just before her mother passed away.
Salty Returns
I went to visit Salty for a couple weeks during late April/early May, with Darlene’s full knowledge. After 10 years, it was the first time we’d met. It was wonderful – I had a great time as did she. And it kept me away from Atlanta for a while. I did not want to see Darlene again. Sadly, her mom passed away while I was gone, but there was no reason for me to be there. So I spent a couple weeks taking in the British Columbia spring.
Victoria Island is a beautiful place. The relationship thing with Salty did not last, and strangely enough it hinged on one thing. She’s a Canadian national (her father is a US citizen, but she identifies with Canada) and I am a US citizen and I did not want to risk my clearance investigations by having to explain why I was in a relationship with a foreign national, Canadian or not. Believe it or not, that is the reason. Of course, if you knew her, you’d know why I feel that way. She won’t leave Canada for any reason. So therefore, if I wanted to be with her, I’d have to become an expatriate, and I love my country and it isn’t happening. Period.
Moving Back to Maryland
On May 12, 2007, or thereabouts, I returned to Atlanta and promptly left her. I had a new job in Maryland already – something that she was unaware of. She was gone for a couple weeks at the time so I need not see her again. I packed up hurriedly and drove to MD with great relief. My plan had succeeded. I saw her once more, coming to Atlanta to do the key transfer near Memorial Day. I don’t remember feeling much but regret about the entire thing. Certainly didn’t want her anymore. No kisses, no sex, no nothing. It was over.
That said, I was very happy about what I’d done. I felt I’d accomplished four goals. First, I’d gotten her some mental health care. Second, I’d gotten her a steady job. Third, I’d induced her to live at home, where there was security and someone to help her if she fell down again, as I felt she assuredly would. Lastly, I had her in a decent car. She’d been driving a piece of shit 1995 Explorer for a long time because it was suitable for towing her sailboat, and it was time for it to go. Body rot. So I felt she was in better shape when I left her than she’d been when I met her. Therefore, I could sleep at night.
Post-Departure
She tried to e-mail me a few times to my new home in Maryland. I ignored them, mostly just deleting them unread. I was done with her, and in fact done with all women for most of 2007. That situation made my decision to go to Iraq in early December 2007 all the easier. Who was I staying back for?
I had a run-in with Darlene while I was in Iraq, perhaps in January 2008, via IM. I still remember her saying, “You were right in saying that no one would ever love me like you did.”. Of course: I didn’t want to lose, so I enabled her bad behavior. Apparently, she wanted that back.
She wanted someone to make her feel good. I wanted some sex. She wanted to meet up and be pampered after I got back, but when she got wind that I’d want to fuck her, she claimed that was unacceptable. So therefore I said I didn’t want to bother meeting up with her without sex. She was offended after this and I basically haven’t spoken to her again. Not unexpected, but what did she expect? I gave up enough for free to her. Everything from there on out was going to be a business transaction. I thought I was being generous even wanting to see her, the way she has let herself go. That girl I lusted after in 2001 no longer exists.
Commentary
Darlene had little good about her except she was cute at first. Like, really hot. That was gone by 2004 or 05. After that, I have no clue why I stuck with her. Probably fear of the unknown or not wanting to change my mind based on looks (aka: being superficial). I should just accept the fact that I’m pretty superficial. But that’s not the whole story.
For instance, my ex-wife hasn’t aged perfectly – her skin is spotty and she’s getting wrinkly in the face and hands (normal for 40). I still think she’s hot. Why her and not Darlene? Probably because Darlene got obese more than anything else. But I used to think my ex was good looking back when she was packing about 250 lbs. Why? Maybe I just loved my first wife.
I don’t get it. Anyway, Darlene, as I saw her last, doesn’t even give me an erection, which is sad, because when I met her I thought she was the epitome of female form. It’s like watching a car wreck or the collapse of a beautiful structure. Something that could have been high and worshipful striking ground and exploding before me.
Mental Illness
Maybe it’s the mental problems. Darlene is…I won’t bother diagnosing her, I can just list symptoms. She’s paranoid, fearful of exposure, and sexually inhibited to the point of not being able to have an orgasm during the time I knew her. Darlene is a liar, lacks fidelity and lacks willpower. She’s unclean to the point of not even knowing how to do so. She fails at simple tasks like laundry. The bathroom was always a pigsty with her because at home she always had (universally black) domestic servants to do that kind of work.
She is the most selfish person I have ever run into. Even Mary is beaten out by her. She is given to various addictions – MUDs and WoW were the only two I saw in detail, but I am sure that if something else could occupy her time and make her feel better about herself, she would engage in it. Her father was an alcoholic. Her mother turned a blind eye to that, was sick with cancer several times, and berated Darlene about her weight and appearance. These are the excuses she uses for all of her bad behaviors listed above. It’s not a good excuse, really.
My life was a flaming wreck also; I suppose I went down with her. I had lost most of my possessions chasing her around the Eastern Seaboard and financing her. I moved to Maryland with not much more than the shirt on my back and my computers. It took me a year to reassemble a life. No, I don’t want to speak to her again. Fucking selfish whore. There, the anger finally comes out. My passive-aggressive screwing around didn’t express it well enough.
At least I was finally ready to move on. I hope I learned something.
Postscript
Darlene did contact me one more time, in about 2009 while I was living in Abingdon. Analie was in the room so I couldn’t pay too much attention to her. I ignored her for half hours and hours at a time. I never heard from her again, probably offended her. Attention whores can’t handle that.
