On the dangers of manipulation, being manipulated and manipulators, Pt. 3

In the proceeding 2 entries, I have broken down some of my most pointed observations of people and situations (namely the death of my marriage) where manipulation is rampant.

To close this, I will attempt to compare and contrast that situation with another, namely a situation wherein I myself, attempted to manipulate another person and circumstance for what I thought at the time, was a noble cause, but in retrospect, was for almost wholly selfish reasons, and thankfully in the end, my efforts failed spectacularly.

In my now defunct first blog, nearly 10 years ago, I had a post, one of my early ones that gave a very poor and biased summary of a friendship of mine that had ended badly. 

It is to date, the single most viewed post on that blog. 

By a huge fucking margin I might add.

Given the groundwork laid by the previous 2 entries, in regard to my marriage and divorce, I will now commence with the comparison and contrasting, by tattling on myself in a way, to help bring full circle, this personal exposition into the perilous hazards of manipulation, and the utterly catastrophic damage it causes to all concerned.

Christina, was one of my first friends I had made when I started College, way back in fall of 2005, and I was introduced to her by Johnny, whom I had a passing acquaintanceship with from working at a church summer camp a year or two before, and with whom I had reconnected during my first semester.

At the time, Christina was dating, casually at least, another guy named Jason, whom I also became friends with. The four of us, all had a love for music, food, fellowship and our shared faith, and this brought us together via the Christian Student club, which we all were members of.

But as the next few years would play out, I would find myself in a game of wits, will and cunning that I was terribly unaware of, and only after realizing what some of the rules were, would throw myself into fully, committing to actions and choices that I never fully felt comfortable with, either at the time, or even now.

The lessons learned from this, stick with me to this day, and have only solidified parts of my personality and internal standards.

Christina was younger than me by 3 years, meaning she was 16, and I was 19 when we met, both of us approaching our next birthdays in the coming November in our first year of college, Christina the over achieving girl with a difficult past, who knew exactly what she wanted, and myself the socially awkward homeschooled guy with a learning disability I was fighting to overcome, the hard way, and no real clue what I wanted to do beyond a vague notion.

Over the next year, we became fast if tumultuous friends, our shared love of music and performing the focal point of our relationship, and a mild and humorous penchant for provoking and antagonizing yet supporting one another a prominent feature in our ongoing dialogue.

All the while however, Johnny, who was also a fixture in the social mix, was unknowingly manipulating the both of us.

After 2 semesters Christina broke up with Jason, due to a less than ideal level of romantic chemistry, but they remained friends as he was part of our circle, and the music was the glue that held us all together, with Johnny subtly guiding and directing us all.

After a semester single, I was only mildly surprised when Johnny and Christina started dating, and in truth mildly jealous as I had grown fond of Christina myself and yet was unwillingly developing deeper feelings for her. It was not long after, that I started to notice some of Johnny's less subtle efforts at controlling the context of the circle of friends (including others, but mostly made up of himself, myself, Jason, Christina, and two or three others not directly relevant to this) and the nature of the development of the shared friendship. Even so, Christina and I had become close, and as time passed and the circle started to fluctuate, she and I started to confide in one another more and more, and for a season, we became best friends, even as Johnny, sunk his hooks deeper and deeper into Christina, and carefully shepherded me into a position to support his designs, all the while, I was decreasingly, blissfully unaware of his efforts, until I grew moderately suspicious of his intent and methods.

It was not until Johnny proposed that I became alarmed, feeling that something was amiss, but the only reasonable explanation I could articulate, was that things seemed to be moving rather quickly, recklessly so, but it was not until their wedding day, that I finally knew something was profoundly wrong.

I can recall that event, even now, only in snatches of clarity, fragments of sound and sights, a few faces that stand out in my memory, but I remember, at last, knowing how very false it all felt, how almost hollow and facade like the event seemed, how it was some sort of stage production rather than a happy and joyous event.

It was the same day as my birthday.

I remember putting myself into a performance mindset, of making myself say and act in a way that I felt in no part or form as true.

I remember that for but a single heartbeat, when the traditional words: "let any who object to this union speak now, or forever hold your peace" where uttered, I almost frantically searched for someone else to do so, or for some divine signal that I should, I felt my jaw unlock, and the words "stop! I do! I object!" rush up my throat and down my tongue, only to be bitten back at the last second by my own teeth, an ulcer forming instantly on the inside of my lip.

Even now, I almost wish I had possessed the fortitude to actually have said it.

It might have spared me the devastation that was latter to come.

I remember how, I one of the Bride's best friends, had been all but shunned during the whole event. Barely more than a dozen words spoken to me directly by either bride or groom. In a rare moment of unspoken understanding and solidarity, Jason and I shared some punch, and something passed between us, some kind of understanding and kinship we had never before or since had, a moment of silent clarity, and horror. It all seemed to come together into a simple if veiled message pointed straight at my heart: "you are no longer welcome with us, we don’t need you" and we both felt it.

I and my parents and sister, who had started to also become friends with Christina, were the first of the guests to leave.

In the parking lot of the church, as we got into my mother’s car, she made a comment that I still to this day recall with mild agony: "Well, that seemed like quite a show... There is something very off about all of it. Like it was not for her benefit."

She then looked to me, and saw right through my crumbling facade, and asked me if I was okay. 

I replied with "I don't know, but I don't think it matters anymore."

The look she gave me, is one of the most heart wrenching I can ever recall, even to this day, after my father died.

My father, quiet as ever, hummed in agreement with my mother, but did not see my reaction, and only offered this in reply to me “I hope you do better son, and happy birthday.”

It somehow mollified me.

Christina had taken that fall semester off from college, to work and get married and the next spring, transferred from the community college we had attended, to the local state school, where Johnny was already an undergraduate, and I did not see or hear from her again, for almost six months.

Six whole months of void. Never before had such a long time passed between us without some form of communication, a phone call, a text message, an email, or even a comment on the then still infantile Facebook or the once and nevermore more popular myspace.

It was during this time, that my online relationship with Alexis was in its prime, and only Christina was even vaguely aware of it, but it was also during this time, my rivalry with Kristen had peaked, and then transformed into a grudging respect, and then working relationship, slowly morphing into a steady if mild friendship.

I lost myself in the writing and roleplay forums with them, ditching classes I was suddenly no longer interested in, classes I should have aced, I was suddenly falling asleep in, other than Acting and Music, and everything else just became dull and pointless to me. I bombed two of my five classes that spring, Public Speaking, and Geology 1, the latter of which alongside Philosophy, I dropped and only got good grades in Acting 2 and Guitar Ensemble, which I could no longer get any credits for after that spring.

I would take it at least once more, because I loved it so much.

And then the major and most active of the Forums, where I had met both Lexy and my Exwife, was suddenly and without warning, shut down, and deleted by the creator, without explanation. Alexis explained that the founder, had suddenly grown tired of it, and as he could not devote any time to it any more, he wanted to be rid of it, but rather than pass the baton to others much more willing and able, he selfishly wiped it out. Dozens if not hundreds of connections between fellow writers and fans of fiction and pop culture were suddenly cut off.

It was a hell of a way to end the spring Semester.

Over the summer, I worked odd jobs, until I landed a job working at a large shoe and accessory retailer near the mall, but it was going out of business, and so the job would not last to the end of the year, but it was good for my resume and work history, and it was extra gas and food money for me. My relationship with Alexis however had passed its zenith, and I was not keen on admitting this. She was going to college in Manhattan soon, and I knew her well enough to know that I would not survive this, our relationship could not survive it, but I selfishly held on, and started trying to manipulate things in my favor, under the pretense of trying to protect her.

Enter once more Kristen.

Having found a copy of a message she had sent me just weeks before the forum had been shut down, I followed the link to her own forum she was building, and quickly reconnected with her there. Our friendship restarted and Alexis soon joined us in writing and discussing things.

But the end of my internet romance with Alexis was fast approaching, and Kristen, now a solid friend, soon became my refuge, as most of my other friends in college didn’t know of the virtual double life I was leading, and even so, were leaving me behind.

As fall once more started, I returned to school, as much to roleplay online, as to study and learn, but to what end I still had not figured out. I lost my job at the shoe store due to the manager covering his own ass and blaming me for his incompetence, and I was mildly despondent, as the economy was starting to tank, at the end of the G. W. Bush administration, and the housing bubble finally popped, and oil prices suddenly skyrocketed out of control.

By the time summer was about to end again, I had managed to get a shitty underpaid job at a local Laundromat at that time, and was only taking one class, Audio Production 1, which I was enjoying and doing rather well in, and then, out of the blue, Christina called me, asked me if I wanted to hang out. I said yes. We had lunch, and I knew something was wrong, but for the life of me I could not figure out what. Even so we parted on good terms, and promised to meet up again soon.

But then August came, and Alexis, on the cusp of going to the big city for college, lost her biological father, barely a year after having reconnected with him. It wrecked her, and I managed to muster all of my resources to fly up and comfort her for a long weekend. But with that stupid, heroic effort, came consequences…

The cat was out of the bag, Alexis was official, and yet now that the secretive nature of our relationship was in the open, it only fell apart that much faster.

My parents were flabbergasted, my friends and family mortified and dismayed.

I was defiant.

I was also stuck.

Alexis, went off to college, and I dropped out.

By October, Alexis and I were fighting constantly, breaking up and taking one another back every week until finally during Halloween, I’d had enough, and was starting to distance myself from her, my efforts and manipulation having failed, as had my awareness of myself and how Kristen was gently exploiting things post online free-for-all between her and Alexis had ended with a confused but sour taste in my mouth, pushing me away from my now forever exgirlfriend, and to my now exwife.

Then, Christina called again, and asked if I would like to go to dinner and a movie with her and Johnny, I said yes, because I was frantic for some sense of normalcy, so we agreed on a movie, and a time, and dinner afterwards, but on the night I showed up to their home (Johnny’s parents home that they were long term house sitting) I was somewhat surprised and mildly alarmed when just Christina came out, and informed me that Johnny had a last minute business dinner to attend and would not be joining us.

My gut sounded the alarm, but I untrusting of it after the shit show of my own making with Alexis, ignored it, and justified it as fine, because I was a gentleman and would not cheapen or impugn my friend(s) marriage by doing anything untoward. And so I didn’t, at least, not directly and not with intent.

Movie, the Book of Eli, dinner, On the Border.

Christina and I talked like it was old times, and while it was nice, I could tell something was off, she was dressed just a tad too nicely, and her attention was always guarded, as if she was expecting me to do something, but in honesty, I had no clue as to what.

After dinner, I took her home, and there was Johnny, working away on his computer, ready to greet me. We talked some, I played them a song I had just finished writing, and then as it was late, I left.

The whole night, bothered me, and I cried the whole way home for reasons I still am not fully sure of.

The next day I recounted it all with my mother, who asked me what I thought about it, and I told her I had no clue, other than it felt like some kind of test, but that I had somehow failed.

In her wisdom, my mother summarized it for me by explaining that I was not the one being tested, but Christina, and that Johnny was dumping his own responsibility upon me for that night, because he knew he could trust me not to do anything dishonorable, and as such, he was somehow punishing or testing or manipulating Christina.

I was floored. How could a man do this to someone he claims to love?

Then, not two weeks had gone by, and Christina was reaching out to me again, this time, for support, she and Johnny were on the outs, she could no longer stand him, his controlling manipulating ways, or the neglect and abuse he was subjecting her too. She was suicidal and felt abandoned. I rushed to her side like the good friend I was…

In the midst of this, Alexis had come crawling back to me, and I redoubled my efforts in manipulation, frantic to have her back. I was so despondent at being alone I was willing to forgive her anything, but not without caveat.

I had taken up smoking in earnest now, and by the middle of November, was going through a pack every four days. As I had never been more than a social smoker prior, it was not long before, I was up to almost a pack a day, and miserable. I was also drinking rather heavily whenever I could get away with it. I was hiding my vices as well as I could, but I knew my family suspected, yet I could not stop.

As birthdays and holidays closed in (Kristen’s the 15^th, Christina’s the 21^st and mine the 29^th) Christina and I became suddenly closer than ever before, she confiding in me that after only six months of marriage, things had gone from ideal to nightmarish as she struggled to finish her degree, and Johnny became a workaholic, and then, he for no apparent reason, admitted that he had manipulated and entrapped Christina into marrying him, seducing her and taking her virginity before their wedding, to ensure she did not wander, leveraging her faith and beliefs against her, and then that not a month after he had started his new job, less than three months into their marriage, he had partaken in an affair with a coworker he had known previously from college, because Christina was not yet fulfilling his sexual needs to his likening.

In both blind, betrayed fury, and sheer boredom, she had not one, but two affairs, one with a coworker of hers, and another with her neighbor who was half way through his own divorce.

She then started taking anti-depressants, moved out of their shared apartment, and in with her mother and brother, and took up smoking and drinking.

For three weeks, she and I where closer than ever.

Time and again, we would meet up at a bar, an Applebee’s in Irving, ironically just around the corner from where I and Kristen would eventually move just before our divorce, was her haunt of choice, she ended up taking at least one water and one bartender to bed with her, causing a massive rift between the bartender and his girlfriend, a waitress at the exact same restaurant, a waitress she actually tried to hook me up with. If I had not been committed to trying to extend or salvage my relationship with Alexis at the time, I might have taken her up on it.

At this time however, Alexis was rebelling, and stressing me out to no end, and on top of that, she was convinced that I was going to abandon her for Christina, which I tried to convince her (and myself if I am not wholly honest) that it was not likely, because Christina was just my friend. Even as I secretly harbored feelings and a want for so much more than that, my still resolute moral justification was that I could not possibly allow myself to develop further feelings, even if I wanted to. Even if I already had.

But then, during week three of our time spent eating, drinking, smoking and hanging out, she started to invite me over to the townhouse she was sharing with her brother and mother. A small two bed place, cozy for one or two, downright crowed for three, yet with her brother working nights, her mother days and Christina working only part time, she had a refuge that she could hide away in. three times she invited me over, once, just to sit and talk, once to watch a movie, Pan’s Labyrinth, which to this day I can only remember parts of, and lastly, once to just sit, talk, and comfort one another. We sat out on the porch and smoked, drinking bottles of blue moon, and talking, until the very early morning, and at last, I said I needed to get home, as I had a few chores to do before work the next day.

I do not recall what the exact subject was, but as we wound the conversation down, she suddenly stated, bold faced and proud; “Honestly Caleb, I think you just need to kiss me and get it over with.”

My brain short circuited for a solid five seconds. I know because I counted them. It was all I was capable of.

Looking up at me expectantly, Christina gave me a look I would not, could not have ever before previously pictured her giving anyone, a look of rampant desire, hunger, and daring. She was testing me. Boldly, defiantly, beautifully and totally.

As to if I failed her test or not, in that moment at least, to this day, I have no clue, and honestly, I really don’t give a good goddamn.

In the pale, dim glow of the porch light, she was suddenly the most entrapping and enchanting creature I had ever encountered, and before I could even think to stop, I leaned in, my eyes locked on hers and I whispered; “Are you sure you want that?”

“Of course, but what do you want?”

Not two speed metal beats later, my heart slamming a staccato drum beat in my ears and sinuses, in the single weakest and supremely selfish moment of my life ever, I leaned in and gave her the full outpouring of my long denied and pent up aggression, desire, and longing, my hands crashed to the door frame, even as I bounced her head off the door itself, my lips not so much touching, as invading hers, her whole mouth welcoming me and my assault like a dying woman partakes of water, her tongue instantly exploring me, the ashy aftertaste of cigarettes mixing with the citrus tang of beer, and the floral flavor of her lip gloss, and that indefinable aroma and taste of a woman’s mouth drew me in, and by the time we parted, gasping for air, we where both flushed and blushing, her chest heaving, the fact that she had not worn a bra clear to me with her nipples trying to tear through her tee shirt, much like my thundering erection was trying to break the zipper of my jeans was clear to her.

We laughed nervously, feeling the long standing sexual tension between us not melt away, but suddenly erupt into a weight that fogged our minds totally. I jokingly asked her how it was, and she mumbled something about me being “highly adaptive” before she crossed her legs and took a deep breath, her hand falling to the door knob, her blue green eyes smoldering with greedy hunger, the faint musk of her arousal dragging at my nose.

Suddenly my better sense kicked in, and I felt like someone had punched me in the nose. I softly stuttered something out about how I had to go, and she just watched me in total shock and awe, as I stumbled down the stairs, light headed and utterly confounded.

In my car, and literally beat myself in the face, cussing myself out for both betraying Alexis, and for not grabbing a handful of Christina and dragging her into the apartment to rut her until someone called the cops on us.

To this day I can’t say if my bleeding nose was from before or after I had punched myself in the face.

The very next night, I was back at her place, and we talked, for hours, confession our sins, our secrets, our fears and hopes to one another, until we ended up making out and cuddling in her brother’s bed.

Finally at one point, she told that we were not going to have sex, and I replied “duh?” before not an hour later, asking her if anyone had ever actually made love to her, rather than just fuck her. She said, that no, no one had. I kissed and held and rubbed her, and she returned the favor, and I knew then and there that if I pushed, she would have opened herself for me and given herself to me gladly.

But I didn’t. She was still legally married, and I was still in the midst of a failing internet based long distance relationship that was on its last legs.

Once more, the white knight within me, refused to budge, and the outlaw within me, was not yet willing to play so carelessly with fire.

I finally stopped, and just held her until she was almost asleep, and knowing myself, I carefully extracted myself from her and the bed, and told her that I would see her the next day, and we would have dinner and just talk.

The next day I made a comment on social media about abusive and selfish people, pointedly not naming any names, but making it clear that I would hurt them.

It was a thinly veiled threat to Johnny, and anyone who knew half of what was going on, knew it was what I meant.

That night, after I had already go to the restaurant, looking for her, she would text me, telling me that she and Johnny had decided to try again, and that she could not be “that kind of friend for you” and when I asked her what exactly she meant by that, she couldn’t explain. I told her to fuck off, and to never contact me or my family ever again.

She never did.

Two days later, Alexis and I broke up, for what would end up being the final time. It was not until later, sometime before I proposed, that Kristen admitted to taking advantage of information Alexis had been feeding her, when she comforted and consulted me during a 3 three week, train wreck of a breakup.

I got hammered one night shortly afterwards, drunk dialed Christina, Alexis and apparently Kristen, and generally made an ass of myself, damaging a friendship I had made with a couple that knew my boss at the Laundromat and had befriended me. I was later able to repair one half of that to the point of reasonably restitution, the other half vanished into whatever bottle or butthole he wanted at the time.

Throughout the whole of that chaotic and painful three month time, from Halloween till some point before Valentine’s Day, I was constantly trying to manipulate people, people I did care deeply for, namely Christina and Alexis, but Kristen, I left alone, even if she herself leveraged things for what she wanted, which was mostly, at the time, for me to get away from Alexis, but her motives were not so pure and altruistic, and it was not until later during our engagement that I understood that, and not until much later, during our divorce, that I realized the true depth of it.

In this all, between us all, Johnny, Christina, Alexis, Kristen and myself, I can only say that one of us was truly a villain in any reasonable measure, and that of course was Johnny, for his rampant ego and arrogance led to him practically breaking and enslaving Christina, stealing from me my then best friend, and a girl I think I could have loved with all my heart but for the rest of us, who can really say? All any of the rest of the four of us wanted, was to be promised love, care, time and attention, and in the case of myself and Kristen at least the desire for that to be not just for self, but for another, was if nothing else, not completely selfish.

But it did not stay that way. Not for both of us at least.

Now, ironically, comically, Alexis and I are again talking, no romance, but more of just light and friendly communication, like old friends passing in the street, she is in a good relationship, after the end of her first marriage, raising her daughter with her partner, but too gun shy to commit to anything more, and I am once again also single, too burned and disgusted with my own foibles and the failings of my longest, and best friend’s betrayal in ending our marriage.

Johnny once, a few years ago just before my engagement to Kristen, reached out to me, entreating me to restore some form of relationship between himself, Christina and myself.

I wish that I told him that overtures where empty, and that real, actual restitution would be needed, and that given the context given at the time of the end, only Christina could actually make it happen, and I would need word from her that it was what she wanted.

Instead, I asked him why, and he claimed that it was time to restore the relationship. Given how he had always treated me as a friend of convenience, I was skeptical, but willing to extend an olive branch, but with the caveat that he and Christina would need to be in agreement on the subject before I would move forward with any such efforts, so as not to place any strain upon their own relationship, or burden upon any of us in the matter, and he agreed to reply as soon as they had spoken on the matter.

Neither of them has contacted me in the 8 years since.

At a moderate point in the midst of that whole mess, while I was temporarily broken up with Alexis, but just before the kiss with Christina, and her betrayal of me, my mother asked me, if I felt that I could ever love Christina, if she divorced and left Johnny and then allowed me to pursue her, even with all of her baggage, and damage.

I was rather much taken aback by this, as my mother had always been almost hostile towards her until just before she married Johnny, and my answer was an honest; "I don't know, but I wouldn't mind finding out if given the chance."

In hindsight, "perfect" as it almost never is, I think that it is true in principal, if not so much it seems in application; I could never marry a woman I was not close and intimate friends with.

This could in large part, be accredited to the relationship my parents had, which while far from perfect, was if nothing else, built upon a shared faith, a solid and dependable friendship, and good old fashioned cast iron stubbornness. They had both been married once before, and had decided individually, and together, that they never wanted to go through the devastation of a divorce again. They simply made it work, no matter what, even if it felt like it might kill one of them.

It never came to that of course, but even so, the almost 40 years they were married, until my father’s passing at the end of 2018, was a testament to the idea that a worthwhile relationship, was worth the struggle and effort.

And that safeguarded them against the manipulation of others in a way that I am terribly jealous of.

In this all, I have found that I am ill suited to the role of manipulator, in matters of relationships, interpersonal politics, actual politics, and social function, intelligent, informed, articulate and experienced I might be, I am yet still highly instinctive, direct, old fashioned simple even, I am forever my father’s son, and I am a blunt instrument. Dexterous perchance, but having a glaring lack of finesse, I cannot abide manipulators, in any shape or form.

For myself, and my romantic relationships, and the results thereof, I have naught but scars, ruins, and resolve to show for them.

And amazingly, somehow...

I am perfectly content with that.