He’s messed up. It’s easy to categorize him as crazy. His story is so exceptional, it’s hard to believe it’s really true. He flat out defined himself as a sociopath in early conversations with our lady. 

Wikipedia informed her that sociopathy was otherwise known as “Antisocial personality disorder”. Characterised by “a pervasive pattern of disregard for, or violation of, the rights of others”, she read. He laughed and teased when she didn’t respond immediately – he knew she was googling. 

He was intense and broken; so broken. “Beyond repair” as he kept reminding her. 

She is kind and loving. She thinks everyone is worthy of love. She wanted to prove it to him everytime he talked about how he was unlovable. She knows that is a terrible reason to get involved with someone. 

He was the quiet boy at primary school. She was the girl that really saw who he was inside and did not judge, like the others. There was something between them then. Unrequited. Now, 14 years later, they’d come back into each other’s lives, fully formed adults with back stories at completely different ends of the life experience spectrum. 

For all intents and purposes she had lived a very comfortable, normal life with all the expected trials and rites of passages that any young, white woman may encounter growing up. She had loved deeply and lost spectacularly, grown as a person and learned how to be a friend. She had worked on becoming more independent,  and mostly won that game. She’d lived alone and with housemates, dated, had her heart broken again and broke some too, completed a university degree, traveled a little, had crises of confidence, loved and hated her body, flirted shamelessly, gotten fit, developed her career and spent much too much on social pursuits. She worked hard, constantly to be a better person.

He had earned his money dealing drugs. He’d been involved with extensive violence and crime, spent countless hours and dollars on therapy to deal with being physically abused and neglected as a child. He’d worked hard to build muscle and get fit – he structured his life around workouts, protein shakes and bulking meals. He then discovered he was going to die of cancer, imminently, at age 23, and after some time, came to grips with his impending death. He fell in love, walked away from love, spent time in and out of hospital, did physical therapy and had surgery after surgery after surgery and got fit once more, despite new disabilities. He now faced a life ahead of him filled with intimidating possibility after learning that he was in remission. 

They talked online for some time before they met again in person. She was a little frightened of him. They began as friends but she knew that she would jump into bed with him soon and she wanted to delay that. She always jumped in too soon. 

There was an intense physical, spiritual connection between them when they did sleep together. It was probably the hottest, most passionate sexual experience she had ever had in her life. She thought that maybe this meant he was different to all the others – that maybe she was truly connected to and interested in this one. 

It was the first time he had ever felt a real connection to another person and the first time he’d felt someone truly understood and loved him. He didn’t feel uncomfortable then, to share with her that he was falling in love with her after only two nights and three days together. 

She believed him but knew that she wasn’t there at that point with him and probably never would be. She immediately realized how selfish and inconsiderate she had been. She tried to justify her actions with “it’s what I wanted at the time” but deep down felt that was a cop-out used by asshole hedonists. 

To her, slowly removing herself from his life was the right thing to do. She honestly thought she was doing the best for both of them by cutting things off where they stood before he became more attached when she knew she wouldn’t reciprocate. In hindsight, she regretted her actions as they were cowardly.

He called her out on her subsequent withdrawal from conversations and her reluctance to be honest about how she felt about him. He likened her actions to that of an embarrassed child who would hide a broken vase so as to not have to deal with the consequences of that broken object. 

She realised that while she might be OK jumping into relationships head first and with reckless abandon, it wasn’t just her emotions she was gambling with when she did so. 

She thinks now that perhaps it is she who exhibits the most sociopathic behaviour after all.