If your new romantic interest exhibits all or most of the following behaviors, be careful. He or she might be a sociopath.
1. Charisma and charm. They’re smooth talkers, always have an answer, never miss a beat. They seem to be very exciting.
2. Enormous ego. They act like the smartest, richest or most successful people around. They may actually come out and tell you that.
3. Overly attentive. They call, text and e-mail constantly. They want to be with you every moment. They resent time you spend with your family and friends.
4. Jekyll and Hyde personality. One minute they love you; the next minute they hate you. Their personality changes like flipping a switch.
5. Blame others. Nothing is ever their fault. They always have an excuse. Someone else causes their problems.
6. Lies and gaps in the story. You ask questions, and the answers are vague. They tell stupid lies. They tell outrageous lies. They lie when they’d make out better telling the truth.
7. Intense eye contact. Call it the predatory stare. If you get a chill down your spine when they look at you, pay attention.
8. Move fast. They quickly proclaim that you’re their true love and soul mate. They want to move in together or get married quickly.
9. Pity play. They appeal to your sympathy. They want you to feel sorry for their abusive childhood, psychotic ex, incurable disease or financial setbacks.
10. Sexual magnetism. If you feel intense attraction, if your physical relationship is unbelievable, it may be their excess testosterone.
For more on this topic, see Donna Andersen’s book, Red Flags of Love Fraud—10 signs you’re dating a sociopath.
Libragirl, this is what you want……..
“What do I want from him? Great question. Normalcy. Kindness. Love. Friendship. Respect. Companionship. All the things I’m not getting..lol. And, I’d like to recoup a few of the thousands of dollars he’s taken from me and my family. That’s what I want in a nutshell.”
LG, this is what you get……..
Chaos, cruelty, tantrums, manipulation, grief, lies, hurt, hate, disrespect, anger,
confusion, stress, unhappiness, loss.
Girl I have been where you are. Putting the phone down on me because he wasn’t getting what HE wanted. Then not calling back ……waiting for me to run
after him! Which I did ….for too long. I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through
that experience.
I particularly agree with what Henry said
“Libra ”“ I relate with what your saying..I felt soo responsible for my X..and in some ways he freely gave or pushed that responsibilty on me to take care of him, he wanted me to be in control..but he was actually controling me by letting me be in control and responsible for every good and bad thing that happened. Did that make sense?”
Perfect sense Henry
Well this blog is encouraging. My on/off again bf is most likely a sociopath.
Met him over a year ago and it was definitely a whirlwind romance. I was not interested at first because he is a convicted felon. I grew up in not the best of places and an old friend introduced me.
I am a hopeless romantic and at the time was hurt from a past relationship that didn’t work out — I was vulnerable. I was 25, had a supportive family, great friends, good job, made decent money, had my own apartment, things were going great. I was just missing a person to share it with. After a year of dates that went no where and a short relationship that ended in rejection I found myself face-to-face with a sociopath.
After a month he told me he loved me, that he had never met someone like me — which with his background might be true but for different reasons. 🙂 He had all the lines “take a leap of faith” and “zone in” and “no one else matters” blah blah.
The first three months were great, he met the family and I met his. We talked everyday and I felt secure in the relationship. Then on the day my father had a heart-attack he went missing. I told him what happened and while I was worried and in shock for my dad he stopped responding that night. Since he was on parole still from being in prison I freaked out thinking that he had gotten into trouble. I called the county jail and looked through my phone bill trying to find his mom’s number to see if everything was okay.
After a week he called saying he had lost his phone and that he didn’t have my number until I called his mom. How embarrassing — it was going to be one of two outcomes; I was going to be there for him when he was in trouble or I was going to look like a fool because he went missing. I am sure everyone here can guess what happened. 🙂
After that nothing was the same and he would go missing, come back, need money, tell me that I was the one. One night when he stayed at my apartment he had a panic attack in the middle of the night and had to call him mom in order to stop shaking. He was embarrassed but said that it has never happened when someone else was around.
He is a rapper, tattoos and cuts hair in his free time, and works as a cement mason. He makes good money but I end up paying for most of everything and then he begs for presents and will buy me perfume, or one time two brand new pairs of UGG’s which were probably taken off the truck but he said he bought them.
After we were together for 5 months I found out that he had given me HPV. After testing I ended up having severe dyspasia and needed to have a colposcopy and chemo treatments to stop the growth and get rid of normal cells so that it wouldn’t turn into cervical cancer. I confronted him since I hadn’t been with anyone and was tested before him anyways and he took the blame and said that we were going to get through it together and how sorry he was. He admitted he had been with around 100 different girls which I did not know before.
Around 8 months of dating I was tired of everyone putting him down and decided to prove everyone else wrong. A friend recommended I hack into his Facebook, I was able to get in and then found what proved everyone else right.
I remember trembling, shaking at each message to another girl saying the same words “take a leap of faith” and others. It was like he threw out lines to see who would bite. Most didn’t but some did…about 20 girls bought it. One in particular was a model and sent him pictures and I believe fell in love with him. I wasn’t upset with the girls, I was so mad at him and felt bad for all of them because of what this monster was doing. I sent out a mass email to the ones that seemed to like him and told them to run and to run fast.
I confronted him, he met me with my his family and returned all of my stuff. He told me he was a player and that he DID love me but not anymore. I asked him why and he said because he “could”. I drove away that day, sought medical help. I was put on Zoloft for depression and anxiety and it was my way of coping.
I lost everything and moved back in with my parents. I was broken and my dreams shattered. I changed my number, deleted facebook…anything that had to do with him was eliminated.
Then after 4 months of no contact I went out drinking, caved in and called him. I spoke to him. We talked and it’s been 3 months of talking to each other again.
I know he is a sociopath, I know he talks to other girls, I know that he will never get better. I still hang out with him and his family but my family and friends do not know I speak to him. They would disown me.
It’s been over a year and he has been emotionally and sexually abusive…he has only been physical once and it was grabbing. I have bailed him out of jail once, had him blame me for every little thing that happens. He completely flips out over the little things to where it is the end of the world and he is completely irrational. I tell him that it’s all in his head and he ignores all of it, he will hang up and not respond.
I am still on my medication so I don’t have the anxiety and depression anymore. I just don’t care but I still feel like I love him and don’t know how to cut him loose.
I enjoyed reading about all of your experiences and it helps when trying to accept who he is and know that I am worth more and that there is no saving him.
Forever used to sound so clever.
Dear Forever,
You had me at “convicted felon.”
Hugs,
Star
P.S. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard the old “I lost my phone and couldn’t call” excuse. My spath used it on me too.
Forever,
since you have already come to the realization that he is a spath, you are probably here to find support in getting rid of your addiction to him.
It won’t be easy since it is an addiction. The addiction is to drama.
What helped me the most, was using a hidden digital recorder to record our conversations. I wore it when I spoke with him and also recorded our phone conversations. The lies and the evil manipulations are all on tape. When I had doubts or began to forget how evil he was, I simply played back the tapes. I got all the drama I needed from those tapes. It repulsed me immediately to hear the evil way he spoke to me.
You don’t need to share the recordings with anyone or tell anyone about them. Just use them to remind yourself of why you need to go NC. Consider them like booster shots of a vaccination.
After you have obtained as many recordings of his evil machinations as you think will do the trick, you should confess to your friends and family that you have been talking to the spath. They will be shocked but ask them for help resisting. They can be your support.
Keep reading here and find books on the subject, it all helps.
You will go through drama withdrawal. It takes time to find your baseline again after a spath encounter.
I agree with star, at the Words” convicted felon” they are out of my book of “possible dates”–what is learned in prison in order to survive doesn’t play well outside of prison. Keep in mind too, that 25% of all prisoners are 30+ scores on theh PCL-R and the average score of all prisoners is 22. NO convict or ex convict is going to be a good bed for a partner. Dump him. Don’t look back.
Oxy, you said “a good BED for a partner” LOL Freudian slip.
Forever
I’m sorry. Your story sounds very familiar.
Welcome to lovefraud. Get away from this guy. He’s bad news and you know it.
Can you find yourself a therapist in your area? Do you have access to that?
And come here and read and learn.
Your ex is a sociopath.
Athena
Libragirl
Screw this guy! He’s a loser!
You deserve so much better than that!!!!
Variations on the “I lost my phone” excuse are:
1. I dropped my phone in the toilet. (So there are no landlines within a 20-mile radius?)
2. My battery died on my phone and all my numbers got wiped out. (So someone who has been dating you for a YEAR wouldn’t know your number?).
I don’t even have a cell phone. And I still manage to stay in touch with my contacts when I need to. Imagine that!
Okay, so now it is my turn to ask for advice. My New Year’s resolution this year was to only have quality people in my life. That means that people who disrespect me, even in small ways, need to go. I have already cut off one friend I was hanging out with a lot.
So….I have this female neighbor who is 63. She and I have been friends since she moved in 4 or 5 years ago. We bonded over our dating experiences with men and just like to chum around sometimes. She is really a very sweet person. She will often invite me over when she cooks, and she is a good cook. But often when we have gotten together to do something, she cannot stay off her cell phone. I have mentioned it to her a few times, but she doesn’t seem to think of it as a problem. So I started distancing myself from her. I don’t go to lunch with her or for walks any more. I have turned down all her invitations. But last night I ran into her and invited her over for an update about my male neighbor that I ran into at the gym. She knows the whole story, so I really wanted to give her an update and also to hear about the questionable guy she’s dating. I really should not have done it. So she comes over. I have a big sign on my storm door that says: GUESTS, PLEASE REMOVE SHOES BEFORE STEPPING ON CARPET. I have a house rule that all guests take their shoes off. I don’t allow dirt from the outside to be tracked in on my carpet. Even after 5 years, I always have to fight with her to take her shoes off. It’s very annoying. She came over in her slippers which I asked her to remove. She said, “But they’re slippers, not shoes.” I explained for the umpteenth time that I don’t want anything that was outside tracking dirt on my carpet! She continued to talk and kept forgetting to take the slippers off. Finally after raising my voice, she did. She came in and sat down. While we were talking, I noticed that everything I told her that was going on in my life, she pursed her lips and gave a sideways glance, as if she was judging me. She is one of these people who lives in a lot of fear, so I haven’t really taken it personally before. But I noticed it did tend to deplete my energy. I am a very high energy person.
Then when she got up to leave, she put her slippers on and then absentmindedly started walking on the carpet again!
So I have decided to totally distance myself from her this time. But here is the problem. I just can’t seem to let go of the anger! I’ve been pissed off about it all day. Usually when I’m mad at her I just let her know. I usually send her an email or something. In fact, I’ve probably sent an email about the carpet thing before. She always apologizes. She is really kind of spacey and forgetful. It’s hard to tell if it’s passive aggressive or just her flakiness. She also smokes pot, so this probably makes her more spacey.
I don’t know why I’m making such a big deal about this. My healthier friends could just let it go. I need a little advice, though.
Thanks in advance.
Any ideas on how to get rid of this anger? Do you guys think I should have it out with her again? I’d really rather not if I can avoid it.
Edit: I just got an email from the rock star neighbor asking me if I’m going to the gym (which I am). Gotta go. Will check back later.