What She Knew How to Take

She had short blonde hair that looked almost like straw and the instincts of a killer.

Not violent.

Strategic.

She could walk into a room and figure out remarkably quickly who mattered, who had money, who had influence, who wanted her, and most importantly, what any of them might be able to do for her.

She had been doing it most of her adult life.

She learned young that beauty had value.

Men would pay for proximity to it.

Sometimes directly. Sometimes with dinners, apartments, trips, gifts, introductions or opportunities.

She never thought of herself as someone who used men.

She thought she understood men.

Then she met him.

He was older. Successful. Established. He had already built the kind of life most people were still trying to create.

More importantly, he could do things for her.

And he did.

Not because she asked.

She rarely asked.

That was one of her gifts.

She knew how to make a man want to give.

A problem became a phone call he could make.

Something she wanted became something he wanted her to have.

A professional obstacle became a door he could open.

He advised her.

Protected her.

Introduced her to people.

Helped her make more money.

When she stumbled, he caught her.

And when she wanted more, he helped her get it.

He thought he was taking care of the woman he loved.

She loved him too.

Probably.

But she was always watching.

Always calculating.

Always moving toward the next thing.

She was a killer.

Give her an opportunity and she would extract every ounce of value from it.

Give her access and she would turn it into leverage.

Give her an introduction and she would turn it into a relationship.

Give her a relationship and she would figure out what it could become.

For years, he mistook this for ambition.

Maybe some of it was.

The problem was that eventually he became part of the calculation.

He just didn't know it.

• • •

Then, for the first time in their relationship, he needed something from her.

Nothing financial.

Nothing complicated.

He needed her to show up.

He needed patience.

He needed reassurance.

He needed some of the care he had spent years giving her.

And suddenly the relationship became expensive for her.

Not in money.

In effort.

She began pulling away.

The things she once loved about him became the things she complained about.

His intensity became exhausting.

His confidence became arrogance.

His desire to fix things became pressure.

He suggested they get help.

She refused.

He tried harder.

She moved farther away.

Eventually, she left.

For a long time, he couldn't understand how someone could accept so much love and then disappear when asked to return some of it.

Then he understood something about her that he should have understood years earlier.

She had spent her entire adult life learning how to obtain. Money. Attention. Access. Opportunity. Security. Men.

She was exceptionally good at it.

He had simply believed he was the exception.

That was his mistake.

He wasn't angry anymore. She hadn't stolen anything from him. He had given it willingly.

Every introduction.

Every opportunity.

Every rescue.

Every time he made her life easier.

Those were his choices.

He had simply made one terrible assumption.

He believed that if you loved someone generously enough, generosity eventually came back.

It doesn't.

People don't necessarily love you the way you love them.

They love you the way they know how.

And sometimes the person you would have done absolutely anything for was never learning how to love you.

She was learning what else you could do for her.

Perhaps she loved him.

He actually believed she did.

But when he finally had nothing she needed and instead needed something from her, the relationship changed.

She did what she had always done.

She looked around the room.

Figured out where the next opportunity was.

And moved toward it.

This is a personal experience with a woman I once thought I loved. Clearly love was a transaction to her.

Paul Harkins