Once upon a time, many moons ago, I was working as a dresser on a musical production in downtown Toronto. For those who don’t know, a dresser is someone who looks after the costumes in the show and helps the actors get dressed.
At the time I was a lost little bunny with no idea what to do with my life. I had recently dropped out of theatre school because my mental health was such that I couldn’t continue. That school was very prestigious and hard to get into, so to leave it was a huge deal.
I felt like a total mess and failure.
I had been waitressing in a restaurant, and got this theatre gig through a co-worker who recommended me. The production was running for 10 weeks over the summer, and I felt super lucky to have been hired.
I was assigned to a group of six actresses who were in the chorus and who all shared a dressing room on the third floor. When they were down on the stage I was free to chill, which meant I’d generally sit on the stairway out in the hallway and read a book or a magazine.
On the other side of the stairs, in the same hallway, was another dressing room used by a single actor. I’ll call him … Matthew.
As it happened, Matthew was usually offstage while the chorus was onstage, and was then in his dressing room. In my first week there he came out during one of those intervals—in full costume and makeup, including a fake beard—and struck up a conversation. He was super interested in what I was reading, and in me generally, and I felt really special that he would take an interest in me.
A couple of days later I was locking up my bike by the stage entrance and this man greeted me with a big smile and a wave as he passed. I was a little confused—it was Matthew, but I didn’t recognize him right away since he was in his “civilian” duds and clean-shaven. Something in his eyes made me uneasy—they reminded me of a lizard—but I quickly dismissed my instincts because I had come to enjoy our conversations.
A few days after this Matthew asked me out and, long story short, we were soon in an intense romantic relationship. After the show he would meet me at my place (a rented room in a shared house), spend the night, and maybe leave around lunchtime. Sometimes he’d also drop by in the afternoon. He seemed to be all-in and I felt we had a special connection. I was swept off my feet, and though a couple of things gave me pause—a) he was around 16 years older than me; b) things were moving really fast; c) it felt a bit clandestine since no one else on the show knew we were seeing each other—I let myself be carried away.
When a month or so had passed, he told me that he wanted us to move in together. At that, I was taken aback. Things were moving a little too fast, I thought. Plus, there were a few red flags. I discovered that he had lied about his age, and was actually two years older than he’d said. He never offered to introduce me to his friends. He was careful not to let anyone at the show see us together. And sometimes he would go somewhere and be very vague about where he’d been, and I felt like he was hiding something from me.
And so I told him (very gently) that I thought it was a little too soon for that kind of commitment. He was gracious about it, said he understood, and even agreed with me. But the following day I did not hear from him, and he didn’t pick up when I tried to call. The theatre was dark that day, and when I went into work the following day he chose not to return to his dressing room during that long interval that we had always spent chatting. He was obviously avoiding me. I was hurt and confused. I reasoned that he’d probably felt rejected when I said I wouldn’t move in with him right away and I really wanted to talk to him about it, to make it right, but I couldn’t get him alone.
A week or so after this bizarre shift, one of the actresses I was dressing—let’s call her Sandy—came in all glowing and told the others that she’d been out on a date with Matthew the night before. They demanded details, and she proceeded to describe their whole evening, how smitten she was, and how infatuated he seemed with her. It was surreal, me standing there, practically invisible to them (such was the role of the dresser) and listening to her tell everyone about her budding romance with this man I’d just spent an intense and intimate month with. I hadn’t even been sure, up until that moment, whether were still together—whether we had broken up, or whether we’d just had a bad fight. He hadn’t even given me that much.
Over the ensuing days and weeks I witnessed, via Sandy, the unfolding of their relationship in all its magnificence—how he was giving her all these presents, how wonderful he was as a lover, how they had gone out for breakfast at this or that restaurant, and finally … that they were moving in together.
I couldn’t get my head around it. How could he do that—just switch off like that, and then be in a new relationship a few days later? Also, he must have known that she would be talking about him in the dressing room and that I would hear. He must have known that it would rub salt in the wound. Was he trying to get back at me because I had said I wouldn’t move in with him? Was this my punishment? We’d really had something special, I thought—and he had said so, too. Would he eventually came back and say he didn’t mean it, that he really loved me and had just been reacting to the sting of rejection?
It was honestly as though our union had never happened, as though I did not even exist for him, and it messed. me. up.
The only good thing was that the show was only running for a couple more weeks at that point. I don’t even know how I got through that time. I was absolutely devastated. I felt like … nothing, worthless as a pile of shit.
And so, the show ended, Matthew and Sandy moved in together, and I went back to waitressing and trying to figure out my life.
Then one night in February, about six months after this, I came home from work late in the evening. A car was parked outside the house. As I passed, the door opened, and Matthew stepped out. He came towards me grinning with that strange reptilian look in his eyes. He had been sitting in front of the house for two hours in the freezing cold, waiting for me to get home. He really needed to talk to me. That thing with Sandy … it was a mistake. It was me he had truly wanted all along.
I asked if they were still together. Yes—they were, but she was moving out.
I told him I was tired, and had to go inside. He asked if he could see me tomorrow. I agreed. When he showed up, he had a present for me—two silver bangles, a belated Christmas present, he said. He showered me with affection and kisses, begged me to come over to his place for dinner two nights later.
I went. We saw each other a few times after that, and then it ended. I don’t even remember how or why, only that I was hurt all over again. Also, I remember my intense longing to have my feeling that something was not right, not be true. I so desperately wanted to believe him, and ignore my own instincts. To fall into this illusion that this man was giving me, and believe it as truth.
So what have I learned ..?
I have learned that I was dealing with a textbook case narcissist.
I have learned that I was love bombed at the beginning, that his overwhelming affection and interest in me was a ploy to build trust and gain power over me.
I have learned that I was discarded, and that’s something narcissists can do because they have no empathy.
I have learned that I was triangulated when he put me and him and Sandy literally in the same building and played out his little game.
I have learned that this was his way of sourcing narcissistic supply.
I have learned that I was hoovered back in when he showed up outside my house on that freezing cold night in February, and love bombed all over again.
I have learned that I suffered from cognitive dissonance when I couldn’t wrap my head around what I was seeing (him and Sandy “falling in love” in front of my eyes), and also when I wanted so much to believe his contrition while knowing deep inside that something was seriously wrong.
I have learned that I was trying to make sense of something that completely boggles the mind of any normal, empathic person.
I have learned that, broken as I was, and having been raised by a narcissistic parent, I was a super easy target for this man and his machinations.
Matthew eventually became a successful performer and enjoyed some renown. We met once after this, by chance—I was riding my bicycle along a Toronto street and he pulled over in his car to say hello. I kept things purposefully light and noncommittal, told him that I was leaving Canada and moving to Europe. We wished one another well. Later I heard that he had married an actress, but that they later separated. Still later I learned that he had passed away.
If you find that you have become caught in a narcissist’s net as I was, and feel stupid and ashamed, please know that narcissists are master manipulators and this has nothing to do with who you are, and everything to do with who they are. Also, remember that you are able to love—and they are not.
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When I realized that we (his supply) were all interchangeable, it helped me finally realize that I was not the problem. He was. Yes, it hurt. But it was eventually a relief.
It's interesting how they all work from the same playbook, isn't it?