Return of the narcissist

[hotncold]

After 10 years of no contact... the narcissist is coming for me. Hopefully if I continue to lay low and not answer he'll find another warm blooded creature to pursue. He wrote me a message two years ago that was - you gotta hand it to them for their perseverance to hold on to their jerkishness - dismissive. And now he found a different email address for me by googling me and sent me the following message:

Hi hotncold, I was wondering what you were up to after all these years. I found this address, I hope it's the right one. ttyl, Narcissist.

A filter has been set up and his emails will head straight to trash without passing inbox.

[zachira]

As I read your post, I hear how you no longer want anything to do with your former ex, and even now after so many years of no contact your feelings have not changed. It can feel so right to be able to reinforce no contact no matter how long it has been. You must have been a very special person to him if he is still contacting you at this point.

[hotncold]

You must have been a very special person to him if he is still contacting you at this point.

If I had been a special person to him this is how the email would have read: "Dear HotnCold, I have been thinking about you recently. You were special to me and I am saddened that we have lost touch... "

I know what vulnerability, tenderness, love and kindness look like now. They do not look like his aloof random emails out of nowhere that say nothing about him or his motivation to contact me whatsoever.

I believe that his latest relationship recently fell apart and he may be looking for someone who will take his abuse, and he thinks I am such a person. I was discussing this with a friend recently, because I find it incredibly out of touch on his part that he would think that this kind of email could ever elicit a response from someone that he once had a very serious relationship with.

I imagine that he thinks his life is the only stage worth being on and that I have been deeply unhappy being offstage for so long, but now, now! he is inviting me back on to the stage - role unknown - and I will trip over myself rushing back. Except I've found a stage of my own, and it's much more beautifully decorated, with much better lights and better, kinder actors, and my role is better than anything he could ever offer me on his stage. I've come to realize his stage is covered in $hit and I don't want to step anywhere near it. I also know he loves a good a chase. Which is why it's best if his emails head straight to the trash bin. He is cruel and I went nc because when i indicated that he was hurting me, he simply continued on doing what he was doing. If he had changed at all, the recent message likely would have made SOME acknowledgement of the relationship we had...  so seeing he's the same selfish person, he may start sending mean stuff in my direction because I'm not giving him what he wants. So I'll be making good use of the "send to trash" function of my email service. We have tools to help us, we just have to learn how to use them without questioning ourselves.

[itsmeSnap]

because I find it incredibly out of touch on his part that he would think that this kind of email could ever elicit a response from someone that he once had a very serious relationship with.

Because it probably has?

They learned to do the things they do because they work, if only for a while.

Someone else will take the bait, be in a vulnerable spot themselves, needing company and excitement. Dysfunctional relationships need not be senseless relationships; they can be hurtful, traumatic and all sorts of other things, but they served a purpose for all involved at the time they entered it.

It doesn't serve a purpose for you anymore, and that's ok. You want something else, a different bait perhaps 

[hotncold]

Dysfunctional relationships need not be senseless relationships; [...] but they served a purpose for all involved at the time they entered it.

This was probably one of the most devastating relationships I've experienced. It was one of the most successful times of my life and the narcissist tore me down every single day for it. It traumatized me with respect to achieving success. I took from that that no man wanted to be with a woman who was successful, so since then I have consistently aimed for much lower standing in life. When gave everything up for him, which was what he always demanded of me, he lost interest. This was a senseless relationship. Often, dysfunctional relationships are senseless. My relationship with the uBPD had much more to it than this one.

[Educated_Guess]

Good for you, zachira!

[hotncold]

He can find all that out on social media. It's all there. So he does not have to contact me if he wants to know what I'm up to. So no that is not an explanation of why he contacted me. I know he is googling me because he did not have any other means of finding my email address.

If I saw that this person were different than the person I knew 10 years ago I would be open to being in contact. I don't have anything against talking to an ex per se. But given that he was selfish and cruel when I dated him I see no signs from this rather disingenuous and aloof message that he is any different than what he was. Therefore no, I have no interest. Perhaps you are the type to write this kind of message to an ex ten years after no contact. I would say it's the wrong way to go about it if things did not go well in the end. People who hide the true motivations for their actions are in my opinion unhealthy. No one I know, either professionally or personally would write such a brief and aloof message and expect a response. It is extremely presumptuous to get in touch with someone you have been out of touch with, and ask for information of them without first writing something about yourself. The only kind of person who responds to this dark alleyway pssssssssttt is someone with poor boundaries and/or starved for attention. Perfect fit for a narc. I know what respectful communications look like. They tend to be pretty straight forward from the start.