My Funny Valentine (pssst! s/he's a psycho! - part 2)

As promised, here's the second part of my semi-scholarly dissertation on Narcissists and Psychopaths and how they so easily con even pretty smart folks - maybe even YOU!

Now class, you may recall my statement that N's and P's really have no true self, no ability to feel empathy, and view the rest of us as incomprehensible because we have all these things we call emotions and feel something that we call "love."

N's and P's are absolutely incapable of putting themselves in another place. Its kind of like if you or I were to sit in our living room and try to imagine how our TV set felt about life. The idea would never cross our minds in the first place because a TV is an object - useful when it works, an annoyance when it doesn't, and easily discarded in favor of a newer model with better features and a bigger screen. We don't wonder if the TV feels pain when it goes on the fritz, we don't wonder if it misses us when we call someone to have it hauled away.

N's and P's realize early on that if they make their true attitudes about other people known, this will not win them much favor in human society. They think the rest of us are stupid and they play the game in order to be accepted and win the bennies that come along with human status - having a sex partner, getting admiration, getting money - whatever it is that the N or P is looking for at the moment.

A human being who lacks the capacity to feel empathy lacks a soul. Their emotional repetoire is severely limited. A cat has a wider range of emotion available to it than a narcissist does. A cat that is treated with kindness will probably remain with its owner, come purr on their lap, greet them affectionately when they return home, and sulk and become forlorn in the absense of the person who normally cares for it. A dog will most certainly do these things.

Without empathy, there can be no love. Without empathy there can be no sudden feeling of delight in seeing the swoop of a nighthawk or the beauty of the stars on a clear desert night. Without empathy, one cannot share in the sorrows of one's friends or be glad for their happiness. Without empathy, you are a reptile, a stem brain and nothing more.

So N's and P's feel lust, desire for material possesions and comforts, the drive for freedom from hunger and thirst and to be safe from the extremes of the elements. That's it. Pretty limited, eh?

Yet they are forced to fit in with a human society where people commonly feel passion not just in its sexual sense but also a passion for being alive - a passion for words or for music or for painting or for doing crossword puzzles or arguing politics or... Plus individuals have all kinds of individual quirks that set them apart - one may love the color blue and wear nothing but shades of that color, someone else hates tomatoes, a third is fascinated by arrowheads and has a huge collection of them. Most of us have our own unique intrinsic being - a baseline that we can turn back toward, a concept of what defines us and what values we hold in highest regard.

N's and P's have none of these things.

A narcissist can only mirror those around him. There's no self in there, remember? N's have been practicing the fine art of mimicry from age 2 on. By time they are teenagers, they are master's of the con. They have to be in order to survive in human society.

So here you are - Sally or Sam Single and let's say you have been invited to a coffee shop by some friends to go hear the local musician's open mike. You chat with your friends and glance over the motley coffee shop crowd, maybe not even seriously looking, but checking out the scene in a casual way. The narcissist in this case has arrived before you did. Most likely he's signed up to perform or maybe she's there as a groupie, dressed to kill accompanied by a mesmerized lover she's already become tired of. Unlike you, the narcissist is watching ever person there intently, like a predator watching a group of wildebeest on the plains of the Serengetti.

A single glance tells the narcissist much - that one is too confident - hard to take down; that one is too mousey - nothing to offer; that one is a possibility - nicely dressed, cell phone, perhaps a bit uncertain, new on the scene. The narcissist strikes up conversations easily - s/he has no inner censor holding them back. The narcissist will easily say whatever he thinks his possible prey might want to hear. Are you carrying a copy of "The Fountainhead"? The narcissist will pause as s/he HAPPENS to pass your table and comment that he hopes the local Libertarian candidate will win that seat on the City Council. If you had been holding a copy of "Das Kapital", the narcissist would have remarked with equal sincerity that he hoped a socialist would win the up-coming election.

Narcissists and psychopaths are masters at the art of flirtation. They often have a compelling gaze and will hold your eyes should you chance to glance their way. They seldom are crude or over bearing but will let you know in a thousand small ways that they find you attractive. Their hand will accidently brush yours as they reach over to pick up your copy of "The Fountainhead" (having politely asked your permission to see the book, first). If the narcissist senses you are responding in a positive fashion, he'll up his attentions slightly. Glance back at you and smile as he returns to his table, look over at you to see if you are watching when it comes his turn to play and let his eyes rest on you for a long moment before returning his gaze back to his own hands on his guitar.

You begin to feel that perhaps this person just might be simpatico - s/he seems interested but not forcing the issue, and you return that interest. The trap has been set....