I am in the process of counseling a friend who has been dating a sociopath. For months this man strung her along, making her feel like there might be a future with him, all the while he was dating and sleeping with multiple women. She would later find out that he has been arrested dozens of times and has a long history of domestic violence. Even after she found out, she didn’t leave right away. The one-sided relationship would eventually end–when he dumped her via text message to pursue a relationship with yet another woman. In that same text strain, he asked if my friend would like to “make love” one last time, just for kicks.

Before you turn your nose up at this girl I want you to understand something. This could have easily been you. In fact, I’m willing to bet that many of you have had something like this happen, but you’re too ashamed to ever admit it. This post will not be about judging my friend. This will be about how a sociopath can come into your life and convince you that up is down and down is up and will suck you dry and leave to latch on to the next victim. They will not miss you. You are an object, and objects can be replaced.

So many of us get sucked in because as women, we want to fix these men, and falsely believe that we can change these evil men by sheer force of will, or if we love them enough, sacrifice enough, give enough. But what many of us do not realize that that for these Takers of the Soul, nothing, I mean NOTHING, is ever enough.

I won’t get into detail about the events that unfurled, but I sat witness to day after day of my friend experiencing some new fresh hell that this man wrought. As crazy and dysfunctional as his actions reflected, my friend continuously questioned her sanity. He could explain and lie his way out of everything, and for a time, she desperately wanted to believe him. But don’t think she’s some poor, lost fatherless child who was raised in the hood and didn’t know any better–quite the contrary. She’s well bred and is a graduate of the Ivy League. The man at the center of this was not your typical thug raised by wolves–he came from enormous wealth, went to the best schools, and never has to work. I make this clarification so that you will understand that dangerous men come in every shape and form–rich, poor, educated, and ignorant, black, white and all shades in between.

Some research suggests that 1 in 25 people are sociopaths, so there’s a good chance you’ve been up close and personal with one of them at least once in your life. You might have seen one, but you might have missed it. Sociopaths are masters of disguise and students of deception. And while they lack any depth of higher level emotion, they make it their business to observe it in others. They are brilliant masters of reading others’ emotions and mimicking them however it suits them.

And before I go through the list of traits of these types of men, I want to make it plain that no amount of love, patience, money, housing, commitment, back-bending, and magical golden vagina can ever change them. Men like this can not be cured through science or healed through prayer. You WILL NOT BE ‘THE SPECIAL ONE.’ You will NOT be the one to love him enough to change. They are beyond hope. They can not change. They will never feel sorry or guilty for anything terrible he has ever done, because in the mind of a sociopath, NOTHING, I MEAN NOTHING, is ever his fault. He cheats? He did it because you didn’t give him enough sex. He hits you? It’s because you can’t keep your fucking mouth shut. It will always be your fault, even if you end up penniless, or worse, six feet buried in the dirt.