Diary of an Oxygen Thief (The Oxygen Thief Diaries, #1)

by Anonymous

I liked hurting girls. Mentally, not physically, I never hit a girl in my life.

I’d wait until they were totally in love with me. Till the big saucer eyes were looking at me. I loved the shock on their faces. Then the glaze as they tried to hide how much I was hurting them.

Then as one went onto the scrap heap, a new one would take her place. Nothing unusual about my method, everyone did it. But I enjoyed it so much. Not the sex or even the conquest, but the causing of pain.

They say the sea is actually black and that it merely reflects the blue sky above. So it was with me. I allowed you to admire yourself in my eyes. I provided a service. I listened and listened and listened. You stored yourself in me.

The more they confided and invested in you, the deeper the shock and the more satisfying the moment at the end.

When I spoke, she turned her head toward me and seemed to abandon herself to the meaning of my words.

Why would anyone set out to break the heart of someone he loved? Why would anyone intentionally cause that kind of pain?

Hurt people hurt people more skillfully. An expert heartbreaker knows the effect of each incision. The blade slips in barely noticed, the pain and the apology delivered at the same time.

I began to hate you for not having the courage to tell me what you really thought of me.

Romance has killed more people than cancer. Okay, maybe not killed, but dulled more lives. Removed more hope, sold more medication, caused more tears.

My nervousness made Lizzie more comfortable. She thought it was because I was unsure of her feelings for me. The truth was less endearing. I was an alcoholic who needed a drink.

What you do comes back to you with twice the force—fuck it, three times the force. We are not punished for our sins, we are punished by them.

The pain involved in a premeditated broken heart would easily compare with a case of assault, and yet no court of law would recognize it as a crime. A broken arm heals.

I suspect. It’s the other stuff I find hard. Like trusting people. Foreign concept. Just ask any of the billions of girls I haven’t dated.

They say you’re not punished for your sins, you’re punished by them.

Where was I? Suicide. Yes, suicide comes like an old friend.

At one stage I was going to write a screenplay all about my right hand, a love story.

I don’t have to do whatever it is forever, I just do it today. It makes even the heaviest shit bearable. But then later when I look back and see just how heavy it was, I exhale.

You can’t hurt a man with a pinprick when he’s already got a spear in his chest.

Of course, I’ve since attributed every little nuance in that evening’s conversation to her devilish manipulative skills, but the truth is that when someone outshines me, I hide my anger by putting them on a pedestal. This makes me seem generous so that when I want to put the knife in I’ll be trusted. Yes, sometimes I even scare myself.

She was very attentive. That was it. She knew how to handle a guy. She made you feel like it was okay to be a guy. To be yourself. This, it seems to me, is the most devastating weapon of all in a woman’s arsenal. If you can encourage the man to be himself, to reveal his character, his ways, then you know how to navigate him, and therefore he will never be able to hide from you.

I had to resist the temptation to call her. A lot. Physical cravings. I was in a bad way. I mean, I hadn’t even looked at a girl for five years, and now it was all over me. I didn’t even know what it was. I’d never really had those feelings before. I wince now to look back on it, but I was really in love. Or infatuated.

She could never accuse me of not listening. If anything, I listened too much. I was trying to soak her up into me. I could have written a book about her.

I enjoyed hurting them. I wasn’t aware of the depth of effect I was capable of achieving. I knew how much they liked me only after I’d hurt them, by which time it was too late. Correction. I knew. That’s exactly why I hurt them. How could they like me? I was punishing them for liking me. I also knew that even after I had hurt them, they would continue to like me sometimes even more, because of their well-meaning nature.