Dear Anita,

I am reading your response now and have alot of thoughts but will have more time to respond later. For now there’s a portion I want to reply to now.

““I don’t want to accidentally show him in a darker light than he is… he usually eventually understands, unlike my friends boyfriend who completely dismisses her”- Or.. N appears to understand and has better social skills than your friend’s boyfriend.”

This is interesting and perhaps this scenario can shed some light on this thought. So my friends bf is just very immature and yes bad people skills, he didn’t show up for our thanksgiving cause he was supposedly tired then my friend went home to find him absolutely drunk out with his friends. He has also yelled at her and shoved her out of the house, their relationship is very unhealthy and she is working on getting out of it and I am making sure she is safe, she does not feel he would be physical but anyways she needs out. Anyways, this bf of hers has done alot of things I have brought to N and N has very much understood him and explained his behaviors to me. For example, my friend called me one night panicked, saying her bf went to play basketball in a bad area, he had recently been stolen from there and wanted to confront someone, there are frequent arrests and violence in the area. He texts her at 7:30pm that he is wrapping up and on his way home. She calls me at 9pm terrified that something happened as gun shots were reported in the area, she calls and texts him and no response. Eventually he made his way home at about 10pm, saying he got caught up with another basketball game. She was absolutely furious and crying, she told me he had no idea why she would be upset, he said “I was just hanging out with my friends why are you freaking out.” When I told N about this he sort of laughed and said “oh [bfs name, he’s just a scared little boy. when we were younger no one cared where we were. I would leave home unnoticed, and if I was stranded no one was coming to save me, I had to figure things out on my own. Once you are stranded with a broken truck your dad got you and realize he is not coming to help you, you learn that in life no one will save you.” He went on to say “In our relationship I had to make the decision to allow you to care about me, and tell you where I was and when I would be home. My initial reaction was the same as [my friends bf], I would shudder at you caring about me and my whereabouts, but I learned you just cared about me and so I still to this day work on telling you against my instincts.” I found this all very interesting but psychologically made sense to me. What do you think about this?

Speaking of N, knowing how to act as a good person and when he is tired is his more real self is very concerning and I want to make sure I don’t accuse him of this (in my head, not to him) and it not be true. Because accusing someone of having these sociopathic tendencies is very serious to me. My dad has many sociopathic tendencies and I definitely want to avoid this in a future partner. But perhaps it is the reason I have had such doubts about N, yet it is hard to be sure of this.

Seaturtle