This past month has been an odd one. I almost thought I had gotten an opportunity to work, though it was not a real job. I thought I’d at least get some money and maybe would even be able to sustain myself in a year or two. But the opportunity turned out to be false, with my life fell back as usual.

I won’t say it was all a scheme, since I fell for it willingly, if not fully. There wasn’t a whole group of people trying to lure me in either; there was only one guy (but this is nothing romantic). The guy was soon out of a job and he wanted money. He looked around and thought I was the perfect target, because I was far away on the other side of the Pacific, and truly, I knew nearly nothing about him except for the occasional online interactions in the past few months due to my part-time teaching job. He reached out to me and asked if I was open to collaboration. I responded yes at that moment because I thought he was just going to work for another school. It was only when he started to drive everything with force and speed that the whole picture was revealed – he treated me as his sole “artist,” and him my “agent”; it was as if he was representing me. By advertising both of us to students, he was essentially starting a new business.

This wouldn’t have been such a bad idea if he hadn’t sexually assaulted his female colleagues in his previous job. He didn’t try to hide most of what he thought from me, and it didn’t hurt for me to earn some money. But among all things, I certainly wasn’t so desperate to work with a sexual assaulter. I called the whole thing to a stop and started winding down my collab with him. I wonder if he had any idea that I learned about his misbehaviors at the workplace. He should know what kind of person he is, no?

I’ve lost nothing in this incident, maybe only some time. But even so, the shock of learning about his terrible deeds left me questioning my own judgment. I had thought he was okay. I knew he wasn’t the person with the highest morality as he likes to call his female students “babies,” yet he didn’t say or do anything improper to me. What made me think he could “pass”? If I – somebody who is well-educated and believes herself to be “cautious about everything” – could fall under prey, what about other people? No wonder there are so many preys out there for all the manipulators. The past month has solidified my belief: everybody can be prey, given the right situation and the right predator. Being cheated or manipulated isn’t an identity, it’s a circumstance.