A Lovefraud reader alerted us to an audio clip on YouTube called, How not to pick up chicks.

Here’s the story, according to the person who posted the audio:

“One of my friends from work and her friend were out one night in the SF Marina district and were hanging outside of the bars trying to find a cab. One of the girls, Olga, ends up meeting this guy Dmitri and they talk for at the most two minutes. She hands him her business card and says call me.”

Here’s what our Lovefraud reader wrote:

“You should be able to hear a telephone recorded message from Dimitri to Olga. It is so telling. Only Dimitri speaks, but for anyone needing/wanting a lesson in identifying red flags this couldn’t be more perfect. For those of us who have been victimized by this pathology, it is also a lesson in really listening to what is being said. For me, a former victim, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.”

by AlohaTraveler

Today, July 3, is a significant day for me. On this day, three years ago, I left the Bad Man. Let’s take stock of that moment in time:

• Total cash = $700
• Debt = at least $16,000
• Job = None
• Place to live, bed to sleep in, a clue = No
• Plan = None
• Me = A total wreck.

Between May of 2005, when I moved in with the Bad Man, and May of 2007, I have moved 10 times. This includes one move back to the islands in September 2005 and then back to California again on November 29, 2005. My car has 7,200 nautical miles on it and it shows. It looks like it’s eating itself. Cars aren’t meant to go to sea and mine crossed the ocean three times between July 3, 2005 and November 29, 2005.

Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader—we’ll call her Sally:

It’s been almost four years since I left my ex psychopath. He almost had me take my own life through guilt, when it was him lying, cheating, committing fraud, you name it—a textbook case.

The reason I write to you today, however, is I am so sad and disappointed in myself yet again. Four years and I thought I was over the damage done by the psychopath so I stepped out of my comfort zone to contact an old friend I had not seen since before the psychopath came into my life.

I made a decision to visit my male friend and we had a nice time. When I returned I started analysing the situation. Was my friend just after one thing? He had made a few small promises that had not come through (generally that wouldn’t bother me too much). I felt like it was happening all over again. I felt cheated, lied to and manipulated by such minor matters.

Editor’s note: The following essay was contributed to Lovefraud by Kenneth Royce at www.javelinpress.com. Ken discovered that a “friend” was a pathological liar, serial thief and con artist. “Though he made off with over $10,000 of my property in a very complicated scam,” Ken says, “it’s had the ironic benefit of outing him for the sociopath he is, and thus warning many other unsuspecting people.” He previously contributed “Optical illusions, autostereograms and sociopaths.”

A two-hour pilot and seven hour episodes were filmed in 1996. Critics raved about it, calling it one of the best TV shows in years. The writing, direction, and acting were all very good.

In posts to this blog, and in e-mails that I receive, many Lovefraud readers wonder, after the devastation of a sociopath, if they can love again.

Yes, you can.

I am living proof. In February 2000, I was divorced from James Montgomery, who took a quarter of a million dollars from me, cheated throughout our brief two-and-a-half year relationship, had a child with another woman while married to me, and then married that woman 10 days after I left him, committing bigamy. I was devastated.

After I left Montgomery, I had one nice relationship with a man, although it didn’t turn out to be permanent. He was normal, not disordered, and supportive of me. I was sad when the relationship ended, but it was a step along my path towards healing.

Reading the Sunday paper this morning, this little news clip caught my eye:

“The former fashion writer convicted of sexually tormenting a co-worker while dressed as a firefighter says he’d go on a homicidal rampage if released from an Ohio prison.

“Peter Braunstein told the New York Daily News in a jailhouse interview that he has ‘no desire’ for rehabilitation.”

Back in 2005, Peter Braunstein stalked a woman who worked for the same company as he once did (although he didn’t know her), set off a smoke bomb in the hallway of her New York City apartment, banged on her door dressed as a firefighter, and held her prisoner and molested her for 13 hours. He then fled and police launched a multi-state manhunt. He robbed a psychiatrist in the Cincinnati area, and was eventually caught in Memphis.

Columnist for WWD

As part of my day job—writing scripts for web-based training programs—I came across some information developed by the Institute for Global Ethics. Surveys conducted worldwide have consistently identified a group of values that people of all cultures and nationalities recognize as essential. These universal values are:

• Honesty
• Responsibility
• Respect
• Fairness
• Compassion

Sociopaths violate all of them.

Perhaps that’s why those of us who are ethical, who care about others, who want to live cooperatively among our neighbors, feel so shaken after a collision with a sociopath. These predators take the qualities that people all over the world consider essential to the social contract and stomp on them, run them through a meat grinder and then pulverize them.

Editor’s note: This article was submitted by Steve Becker, LCSW, CH.T, who has a private psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and clinical consulting practice in New Jersey, USA. For more information, visit his website, powercommunicating.com.

You really need to admire yourself for surviving an exploitative relationship. I say this very seriously, not flippantly. We all, of course, hope to minimize our involvement with exploitative individuals. But in the course of life, as we know, that’s not always possible. It is vital, therefore, if you’ve been victimized by and/or are recovering from involvement with an exploiter, to fully, genuinely appreciate (and remind yourself constantly) that you are indeed strong, impressively strong, because only the strong survive exploitation.

Saturday night, the Lovefraud reader “rriinnaa” posted the following under Heeding the Exploiter’s Earliest Warning:

Editor’s note: The following story was submitted by a Lovefraud reader.

There was something odd about his intense gaze. Even though I felt funny about the way he stared at me the first time we met, I ignored my discomfort. I met my former boyfriend after I had been attending services at a Unitarian Universalist Church for several weeks. We engaged in small talk for a few minutes then swapped numbers. Even though I felt somewhat uncomfortable, I ignored my gut feeling and gave him my number anyway. I was very needy and desperate for friendship.