As we all know, e-mail gives those good with language the ability to wrap a relationship around with such intimate text that soon nothing else matters but an intense one-to-one filling every waking minute. You might pretend to be several different people to several different lovers, with some identities sustainable offline, others not.

Thus, when I first met my lover, he was a female grad student called Cindi. Also a professor in a virtual classroom. Also a man called Rhyys. Also a top-level university administrator. Also a cyborg called Plex. Also a devout Catholic. Also a sadist called Gandore. Also a devoted husband and father. Also a very sad, very frustrated small-town inadequate person with a need to exploit and control.

The story of what happened to me in cyberspace is, on the surface, pretty similar to the familiar tale wherein net user No. 1 pretends to be something s/he is not, thereby tricking net user No. 2 into falling in love with her/him. What's different in my case is, first, the number of people who were deceived; second, the fact that the perpetrator is a respectable, high-ranking academic who, one would think, has no need to pretend to be a female chemistry student wearing dangly earrings; and third, the fact that the man seems to prey specifically on artists and writers.

So what did this rather plain, little-traveled, only son of an upstate New York Polish grocer actually do to ensnare so many intelligent men and women? Well, he identified our creative passions and used them as a template to form himself into what we most desire. He is an emotional tourist warming his hands on the fires of other people's lives, focusing his attentions on artists and writers because their imaginations are so near the surface that it's easy to plunder them. For example, since I write about computer technologies, he did his research, read all of my books and articles and made himself into what he knew would fascinate me most: an ungendered cyborg. With another woman who writes vampire fiction he became a vampire slave master, a persona that, though pathetic, would probably raise hilarity among his students.

For more than three years I was mesmerized by him despite the open bewilderment of friends and family, who couldn't imagine what I saw in such a homely character. But none of us guessed the truth: that I had given three years of my life and promised the whole of my future to a sociopath who preys on others for his own gain without regard to the consequences for his victims. Another description would perhaps be "succubus," a demon who assumes female form to have sexual intercourse with men in their sleep, though in his case, it is in order to have sex with men online. He is a shape shifter who molds himself into whatever is needed and constantly searches for new forms to take. Although a familiar type in the flesh, his ease in setting traps online makes him something new: a cybersuccubus. And the peculiarities of his practice make him very hard to accuse.

While I have no idea why he did what he did, I can at least outline the story.

Private Life Romance, relationships, and the personal side of Table Talk