A brief glimpse inside the hate-filled mind of a con artist:

My friend Kyria Lydia Abrahams, author of the very funny book, I'm Perfect, You're Doomed, just sent me a blog post she wrote titled, "Never have dinner with Susan Crain Bakos." Much to Susan Crain Bakos' dismay, I'm sure, I had never heard of Susan Crain Bakos, but a Google search tells me that she's the author of several books about sex, she's got a hard-on for black dudes (but it's not cuz she's ugly and white guys won't fuck her - which is not a racist assertion or anything) and that she hates to pay for lunch. Or dinner, so it seems.

Susan Crain Bakos is a con artist who has admitted to sticking several young women with the check after various meals meant to be networking meetings. (Bakos recently tried to make Kyria pay for a very expensive meal after a business meeting arranged at Bakos' request.) In a post on her Open Salon blog - which she has since tried to delete (as you can see in Google's cache) - Bakos writes, "I say I didn’t bring my wallet and hand [the check] over—usually to the woman who wants to “network” with me, i.e., she’s younger, full of herself, very ambitious in the sense of wanting to get somewhere fast and be somebody NOW but not in the old-fashioned sense of: Willing to work hard to get there." Bakos is a classic con, possibly a sociopath, who is filled with hatred toward the women she is taking advantage of, even as she admits that sometimes she needed money from these women when she found her "cash-flow constricted." (Here is a PDF of the post as it originally appeared. I will reference it throughout.)

Bakos' anger stems from the assumption that these women see her as a has-been, an "old achiever on way out," despite the fact that they "gush over her work" during dinner. I understand the tumultuous cycle of "self-loathing-turning-into-burning-hatred-for-anyone-who-loves-you-slash-all-humanity-on-a-base-level-catalyzing-more-self-loathing-which-in-turn-fuels-anger-against-every-asshole-out-there-who-thinks-they're-better-than-me" phenomenon very well, because I was in an intimate relationship with a man afflicted by it. The effect of a one-time con on a victim is very different than the effect of having a long-term relationship with a con artist, but either way, it's best to avoid these people altogether.

And that's what Kyria is suggesting young women do with Bakos - avoid her. "Beware, young up-and-coming female writers in New York! There is a raging 'Dine and Dasher' who is preying on women at some of the city's finest restaurants. She also happens to be a 60-year-old grandmother and a well-known sex columnist," Kyria writes. Bakos, like every other con artist, is hiding behind the public persona she has created. "But a well-known, accomplished and presumably financially solvent person has no reason to steal," we think. "Why would a grandmother take advantage of a young girl?," we are forced to ask ourselves. Simply for the thrill of it. That is all.

Bakos literally doesn't care about people, and views dealing with them - us - as a waste of time. We are pathetic, she is mighty. Bakos says of those who have accused her of victimizing them, "If I don’t care about people, I don’t care about what they think or write or say—even if I am the subject. Anonymous internet trolls and mean girls, snarky jealous people and the poor little marks who didn’t get all that free help they wanted? Time-wasters. Watching a syndicated episode of “Friends” is a better use of time than reading them." (One has to wonder who helped Bakos ascend from the bottom rung of the sex columnist ladder, but that's neither here nor there. Maybe she made it alone, masturbating the whole way.)

Bakos goes on in her post to examine her own sociopathic behavior, which proves to me that these people do have some level of self-awareness. She writes, "This check-dodging is relatively new behavior for me, a new category in a series of bad behaviors that is—at least I can say this much—declining in severity and intensity to the point where it is an errant stream, not a river sometimes overflowing its banks."

As Martha Stout revealed in The Sociopath Next Door, the lifestyle of a con artist is so taxing, eventually these people run out of steam. They just burn out. And this is where I have to say, in struggling for two years now with my own feelings about sociopathy and the people who are afflicted by it, despite everything I have been and continue to be subjected to as a result of the disease, I do have sympathy for these people. Not pity - pity is a sociopath's tool - but some level of compassion. I can only imagine how hard it is to live one's life in such a horribly burdensome way, to be filled with such sad rage and to feel a need to use whatever bit of power available to take others down. Frankly, that has to suck.

The worst part of sociopathy is that people are reticent to call it out and diagnose those who suffer from it, most especially mental health professionals. In fact, sociopathy isn't even listed in the DSM anymore, and is instead lumped in with Anti-Social Personality Disorder (euphemistic language, paging George Carlin!) along with psychopathy and a host of other afflictions. Some say the term sociopathy is being bandied about too much, that it is becoming part of the pop-psychology pantheon. That may be so, but as I see it, it's out of a need to recognize the many sociopaths and narcissists in our society, wreaking havoc in ways large and small.

In the Open Salon post about her recent cons, Bakos writes extensively about the different therapists she has seen and the various diagnoses and treatments she has received, pin-pointing just how important it is to research and diagnose these ASPDs and to get those that suffer from anti-social behavior - which is all of us in the end - the help they need. Bakos says:

For much of my life I have been struggling with psychological issues. Following a suicide attempt seven years ago that was very nearly successful, I began hearing a new diagnosis from a succession of therapists. Programs run out; new ones open up; everybody has their own diagnosis and treatment concept; nobody ever put me on drugs which should have been a clue to Borderline. When I was out of those options, I saw a semi-retired therapist who had a sliding fee scale fee. I paid her in lump sums when writing checks came in. Some therapists said Borderline Personality Disorder; others did not. My first therapist following the attempt labeled it “reactionary depression to a series of life setbacks.” My current therapist, an expert in the field of personality disorders, describes me as “on the borderline of Borderline,” not quite putting me in, not quite taking me out. (“BPD is an umbrella term, covering a range of symptoms and behaviors, manifested differently in each sufferer; and in the majority, the symptoms are treatable, the behaviors can be changed but it takes time which is why insurers go for the ‘untreatable’ label*.”) Her treatment plan includes dialectical talk therapy and Buddhist meditation. (Google the research, people. It works for many of us.) Brain scans prove that Buddhist monks have been able to change their brain patterns through meditation. And brain scans of Borderlines also show abnormalities in certain regions of the brain**.

*sociopathy is considered untreatable as well
**sociopaths and psychopaths show brain abnormalities, too

Miraculously, really, for those of us that have been involved with con artists, Bakos describes exactly what goes on in the mind of a con and details the aforementioned roller-coaster of self-loathing attached to conning someone.

Bakos on identifying a mark:

We are street hustlers, small players for petty cash or the equivalent. A hustler or a con artist works on the same basic knowledge of human nature: The greedy, the self-involved, the dreamer with a romantic vision of her future success that doesn’t include a trail of blood, sweat and tears—he and she can be conned and hustled. It takes but a tiny amount of leverage to use that greed or lust for fame against her.

Bakos on how it feels to pull a con:

Applying the leverage, pulling the hustle, feels good at the time—really a high—but awful afterward. I imagine binging/purging must feel like this in the mind and soul. Or shoplifting.

Bakos on the turmoil cons experience:

I am trying to understand and explain the behavior—and recognize the trigger points, usually major life events out of my control—to stop it because Jesus is not there for me (but Buddha is.) Looking back, I see that I risked months, years of stability and happiness on a big gamble (or, in this case, in little crimes) that let out some of the emotion, like blood-letting. The street hustle as pressure valve.

Bakos ends her post with an anecdote about a friend, a fellow con who "has done it for the same reasons I did: for the high and out of contempt for the mark." She adds, "There’s a lesson here for you too: If you go out looking for a free lunch, you will probably get a check, payable now in your case, or later with interest in mine."

That last part is revealing, to say the least. Bakos' cons have taken a toll on her, clearly. But what about those girls who didn't go out looking for a free lunch, like my friend Kyria? Kyria says that Bakos contacted her about meeting, not the other way around. Kyria writes, "You contacted me first and claimed that you had a business opportunity.... you lied and said that you needed me to take photos for an article you are writing for Playboy.... I told you I wasn't hungry (to be kind, I had eaten before the restaurant) but you INSISTED we order huge swathes of food, telling me multiple times 'It's on me.'"

It seems there is no way to rationalize that type of victimization, even through a lens of contempt for a ruthless up-and-comer unwilling to pay her dues. Bakos' con against Kyria doesn't fit that mold; Kyria wasn't trying to get anything from Bakos. In this instance, Bakos is just another sharky female looking for a free meal - exactly what she accuses others of being. Funny.

Since I'm not a psychologist, I can't diagnose Bakos or anyone else as a sociopath (and, thanks to the current DSM, neither can psychologists anymore, which is a problem), but I know the signs of a con artist - and so should you. Good luck out there, ladies. Don't forget your wallet.