Russian. Father was a Soviet/Russian military officer. She was a fashion designer (had at least one runway show with her clothes). She married a 20+ year older U.S. defense contractor before we met. Had at least one secret phone. Had no full-time job besides occasional Rover, but lived in a nicer area of D.C. than me, ostensibly on divorce settlement money. Ruinously and unrealistically good at sex. Thought we were headed toward engagement, but there was another man who clearly believed the same (not a fling, she'd met his parents just like mine, the whole deal, claimed it was to avoid deportation). Her username on at least one platform was a reference to her birthday followed by the word Spy. I met her shortly after spending several years working on Ukrainian policy issues in Congress and while I was working for a firm that handled prominent federal workforce/whistleblower/union matters. Before I was fired from that job, the partner said, but said I "didn't seem to understand that there were a lot of people interested in the data they had, including state actors." Didn't register in that moment, even if that is what the partner meant. She admitted to changing her OKCupid profile so we'd have a higher match percentage. Her demeanor would perhaps best be described as fucking worshipful--including literally comparing me to Jesus and freely offering many things most partners have not freely offered in my other experiences. I guess I mean to say it always felt too-good-to-be-true. Pretty difficult thing to walk away from, but the craziness was just off the charts, sadly, because we were a really great match, if you could ignore the cartoonish narcissism, the gaslighting, the blatant personality mirroring, the infidelity, etc.

It's possible she was just a kinky, broken Russian girl and I'm grasping at straws. But there's more. Suffice it to say the timing and motion of it all felt really off. I'll never know and would find it difficult to accept even with a smoking gun. It ended on my birthday when she finally admitted to the other relationship and began hitting herself in the face with both fists for a long time, which led to my calling 911, and her never showing her face again despite having just moved completely across the country to a new state to be near me after ~1.5 years together.

Good times. I should definitely call her.