I wish I'd saved every text I sent, every IM chat, and taped every conversation I had with friends in the days following my beginning to find out what Clark was. I wish that, because while so much of me wants to be able to pretend he never existed, I also don't want to forget all of the things that have happened, either. It's kind of one of those "stranger than fiction" things that has just been so enormous and unbelievable that I feel if I've lived through it, I should at least remember every bit of it (as twisted as that may seem). Over these months, we've talked about so many memories and analyzed so many behaviors, and I want to have a record of it. Part of me thinks if I have that record, maybe I can stop thinking about it so much in an effort to remember it, because I'll have it down if I should ever feel the need to peruse it again. Thus, this blog. I'll still do posts on certain topics relating to sociopaths, but I'm also going to start telling the events as I remember them, just because I want them down.
Which brings me to my first real interactions with Clark. One of them involved plans we were supposed to have one night, yet the day of, I couldn't get ahold of him via cell phone. I kept texting and texting, starting to get nervous. Breaking off our afternoon plans was one thing, but we were supposed to be attending a big event that night, but I had no idea what time we were meeting, etc. I'm someone who lives by planner, so this was a problem.
Finally, a mutual aquaintance sent me a text saying Clark had texted him and wanted him to tell me he was in the emergency room being treated for chest pains. DING DING! WARNING BELL! If he could text our mutual aquaintance, why couldn't he text me? (By the way, that whole "have someone tell someone else something" thing is a whole different part of his pathology, but that's another story for another time). Oh well. I shook the thought away. I just hoped he was okay.
An hour or so later, he called me. He assured me he was fine to go to the event that night. When I saw him later that day, he didn't seem sick at all. He was perfectly fine. He did tell me that meant we couldn't stay at his apartment that night (he lived out of town)- we would go and stay at his parents' home, because "they had the medicine he needed there."
I would later find out more about why we really couldn't stay at his apartment. Again, another story for another time.
But this day was my first experience with his very large lies to cover for when he blew me off or blew anyone off. This was my first experience with the pity ploy, too, I think. Oh, no, it wasn't. That would've been the few days prior when he blew off something because his dad was having "triple bypass surgery." Cut to the night a few days later when we stayed at his parents' after the event. He told me (pre-damage control) on our way to their house to "not mention his Dad's surgery if he was home, because he was really sensitive about it. In fact, you'd never know he had surgery at all. He's recovered so fast."
Yep, you'd never know he had surgery, because he didn't. If only I'd see through that right then and there, I'd have saved myself a lot of heartache. Unfortunately, I bought it hook, line, and sinker.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Sunday, August 1, 2010
The Magical, Expanding Timeline!
Another thing I should've noticed about Clark right off the bat was that the timeline of his stories just didn't fit. He was of course an "expert" in his field,and he'd been renowned in said field. He'd had all sorts of awesome jobs, positions that neither made sense given his qualifications nor given his age. Since high school, he'd been on broadway (only later, when I compared notes with others who had been "friends" with him, I found out which show he claimed he'd done changed several times.), been a model, starred in stage shows at a theme park (I do believe he worked there, but I think the lie was in the role he "gave" himself in these stories), studied abroad in France for a semester (and was fluent in French), been on a trip to Afghanistan ( I later found out it was Iraq in some peoples' versions). Technically, from what I know, he only left town for about two years, and it seems almost impossible that all of these things could have happened in that time. Not to mention, Google is an incredible tool, and let's just say there is no record of him anywhere near any of these things.
Of course, I can't check the records of the France story, but I will say this...after I started to find out his lies, I recalled an incident where we met up with a friend of mine who was fluent in French. I raved to her about how Clark was, too...they could talk to each other! I remember her talking to him and the look of panic on his face. He just stared at her, his face turning red. I now attribute that to exactly what it was: he didn't understand a word she was saying, because he wasn't fluent in French at all.
This is one thing that still bugs me in regards to his snowing people to this day, because he uses these "professional acting credits" on his resume to land jobs and the respect of people around him, which is one reason so many people are quick to drink in his flattery. After all, who doesn't want to hear a professional actor tell them how great they are in an amateur theatre?
I wonder sometimes how I was dumb enough to believe it, too. After all, if he was a professional actor, why the heck was he busy doing community theatre productions? Why were there no playbills or pictures from his time in New York as a model or on the road on his tour?
But he was also very good at lending crediblity to his stories in such a way that you never heard the attesting to from someone else, but you believed it came from someone else just the same. Example: he once told me how some of his students (whom I knew) had "looked up his pictures online," and how embarrassing that was. I never saw them, I never asked the students about them. But someone, just that little tidbit was enough that it made you believe it. It's a phenomenon I can't exactly explain. It was as if he was able to have someone else corroborate his story when in actuality, it was just him lying to corroborate it using their names. Some of the tactics are so simple it's hard to believe they work!
I guess it goes back to the whole thing about how, if you're close to someone, you don't have a reason to doubt them. After all, 96% of the population aren't sociopaths. Unfortunately, I'd befriended one of the 4% that is.
Of course, I can't check the records of the France story, but I will say this...after I started to find out his lies, I recalled an incident where we met up with a friend of mine who was fluent in French. I raved to her about how Clark was, too...they could talk to each other! I remember her talking to him and the look of panic on his face. He just stared at her, his face turning red. I now attribute that to exactly what it was: he didn't understand a word she was saying, because he wasn't fluent in French at all.
This is one thing that still bugs me in regards to his snowing people to this day, because he uses these "professional acting credits" on his resume to land jobs and the respect of people around him, which is one reason so many people are quick to drink in his flattery. After all, who doesn't want to hear a professional actor tell them how great they are in an amateur theatre?
I wonder sometimes how I was dumb enough to believe it, too. After all, if he was a professional actor, why the heck was he busy doing community theatre productions? Why were there no playbills or pictures from his time in New York as a model or on the road on his tour?
But he was also very good at lending crediblity to his stories in such a way that you never heard the attesting to from someone else, but you believed it came from someone else just the same. Example: he once told me how some of his students (whom I knew) had "looked up his pictures online," and how embarrassing that was. I never saw them, I never asked the students about them. But someone, just that little tidbit was enough that it made you believe it. It's a phenomenon I can't exactly explain. It was as if he was able to have someone else corroborate his story when in actuality, it was just him lying to corroborate it using their names. Some of the tactics are so simple it's hard to believe they work!
I guess it goes back to the whole thing about how, if you're close to someone, you don't have a reason to doubt them. After all, 96% of the population aren't sociopaths. Unfortunately, I'd befriended one of the 4% that is.
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