You’d think I’d have seen it coming. I mean, there were subtle hints along the way, but I had a good deal going so maybe I just decided to ignore them. Either way, it turned into a fiasco that ended with me moving out of the apartment in the dead of night.
I didn’t meet her on Craigslist or any other site that my parents said would surely lead to my death. I met my crazy ex-roommate through a mutual friend, which seemed safe enough. She said she had a trust fund, was adopted from Korea as a baby, loved Scrabble, and liked to cook. Only the part about being adopted from South Korea turned out to be true. We actually got along great, but psychopaths and their superficial charm can get along with a can of beans if given the chance.
I moved in soon after we met. I was moving to Austin for an internship and didn’t know how long I would be there. I left most of my possessions at my parents house and, luckily, all I had were the necessities. After moving in I was introduced to her friends and their partying ways. It seemed they were all young, overpaid professionals who did nothing but go to happy hour and binge drink, only to go back to work in the morning and do it all over again.
My roommate would routinely pay for dinner, often totaling upwards of $300. This was a lot to be spending on dinner on a regular basis in addition to the alcohol they would consume later. Little did I know, it was part of her plan. She would gain their trust and become their confidant. She planned their parties, organized their get-togethers, and acted as their go-to gal. They would hang out non-stop and then, lo and behold, she would have the keys to their apartments and access to their important information. I found it strange that none of these relationships seemed to last very long. She cycled through friends relatively quickly.
She also had a few different people she slept with and each wanted to date her. She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t exceptionally attractive, and was overweight. She could definitely hold her own in conversation – maybe that’s what they saw in her. In addition, she would routinely lie about the most inane things. I noticed, but I wouldn’t call her out on it. I just found it strange because the lies were just plain stupid. Also, her sense of self worth knew no bounds and when I look back on it she never showed more than one emotion.
Things came to a head one day when I got a call from her saying she was being arrested. I told her to call her lawyer but she insisted on getting my phone number so I gave it to her. I soon got a call from a bail bondsman telling me her bail was set at $10,000. I asked what she was being held for. It was forgery of a financial instrument among other things. I declined to pay the bail, mainly because I wanted to find out what was going on and I thought I could best do it while she was locked up.
I started my Charlie Sheen-like search for violent torpedoes of truth. I called all her friends and one by one they confessed the wrongs that she had done them. The first friend was always missing money when my roommate was around. The second had $5000 in Louis Vuitton purses and wallets stolen; my roommate was on camera entering the apartment the day of the theft. This same victim discovered that my roommate entered her apartment while the friend was working out one day and the roommate made no mention of this visit when they met later that evening for dinner. There is absolutely no telling what she was doing there. Sniffing her underwear, perhaps? My roommate also stole some of her credit cards and used them around town. The third person I called had been hoodwinked out of $12,000 dollars when my roommate planned his fortieth birthday party. Needless to say, none of us wanted to bail her out. Meanwhile I was still getting calls from different bail bondsman who said that my wife, girlfriend, or whatever, needed to be bailed out. I told them she was none of those things and they then refused to deal with her.
I hightailed it back to the apartment and got some of my friends to help me move into my aunt’s house. Why I wasn’t living there the whole time, I don’t know. She only has three EXTRA bedrooms. But I digress. While I was moving out I decided to do a quick run-through to make sure my roommate didn’t have any of my personal information or credit cards in my name. Fortunately, I had kept all my important documents either on my person or at my parents house and all she had was a $300 sign-up bonus I was supposed to receive for our cable. I also found many forged checks a la Catch Me If You Can. I also found a list of people’s personal information and even found her third victim’s will. What would she be doing with a will?
I dropped everything I had found and got the hell out of there, and not a moment too soon. I had called everyone except one of her paramours. I didn’t have his number or any way to contact him except through The Book of Faces. Apparently he had bailed her out and not even thirty minutes after I left the apartment I started receiving a never-ending stream of calls from various numbers. I didn’t answer because I was pretty sure it was my roommate. I was correct. She left a message acting like nothing was wrong and she was at the apartment wondering where I had gone. I decided to not call back and have not had contact with her since.
Some time later, I was running around Town Lake one day when I saw her aforementioned paramour. He recognized me and began running towards me. I wasn’t sure what she had told him about me so I prepared myself for a punch to the face. What I got was a million times better. I’d sent him a Facebook message telling him I needed to speak with him while she was being held in jail. Apparently she convinced him I was in the wrong and he un-friended and blocked me. So here we were a few months after the incident and he was coming up to talk to me. He proceeded to tell me the following: She never paid him back for bailing him out and had stolen from several people that lived in his building downtown. She also used his company credit card to purchase about $6000 worth of goods and services for which he was fired. I felt bad for him, but I had tried to warn him. He said that he should have listened to me but hindsight is always 20/20.
In retrospect, I am certain she was a legitimate psychopath. My sister and I consulted on this and decided that she fit many, if not all, of the textbook traits. Sure, neither of us is a psychiatrist, but my sister was taking a psychology course and studying psychopaths at the time. From what I understand 1-3% of the general population can be considered psychopathic.
So let this be a lesson to all you Crasstalkers. You may think this can’t happen to you but it most certainly can. I’m not sure where my ex-roommate is now but I have a feeling she is still grifting her way around Texas. So if you are here, be warned and keep a sharp eye out for my ex-roommate, the psychopath!
