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.
moving past the facade says: When I felt something was ’off’, mine would appologize and tell me that things were fine. Even when I first confronted him about my suspicions that their was someone else he was so kind and reassuring and swore there was no one else.
It wasn’t until I confronted him angry (I was also slightly violent, and crazed o_O !) and had proof that he couldn’t lie his way out of, that he started to show the the slightest bit of a negative reaction/defensivness towards me.
BINGO! Mine exactly.
Dear Sunflower, you said:
“When I went into my relationshit I was very clear of what I wanted. I did not want a man to run and clean after, being his little obedient housewife. I’m very tired of honkey donk men beating their chests thinking they are the king of the world while they have no clue how to operate two simple buttons on a washing machine. I’m sick of men who wants me to be Dramalama dingdong and cry each time I break a nail so I can attract his heroic self to me. I wanted a man to SHARE life’s experiences with, to grow and develop toghether as EQUALS. However I tend to end up in relationships where my boys are trying to dominate me into those gender roles. Once I will not submit all hell is loose. I’ve never run after a man like my ex “made me” do with his abuse and violence. Love is a choice and I want a man who chooses to be with me without any social games. I want him to choose freely.”
I concur most strongly. Indeed, I could not have put it better. It is very sad that I have spent so much of my life waiting on these types of men. I intend to change that and endeavour to never again allow myself to be under the “cosh” of an abusive, disordered man.
Towanda to you Sunflower
Darwinsmom,
The spaths are very attuned to the “discard” and they always want to beat us to the punch.
I think that I also sped up the process by making certain comments. Like when he “realized” that we had missed our 25th anniversary and neither of us had mentioned it, he said, “What are we supposed to get after 25 years, anyway?”
The answer is “silver” but my response was, “Parole?”
ROTLMAO!!
The look on his face was PRICELESS.
Like you, there were several choices and comments that gave him the indication that I was no longer “enthralled” by him. In fact, come to think of it, he even asked me, “When did you stop respecting me?” He was curious as to what he had done that ruined his facade.
Moron, I never respected him. How could I respect someone whose main hold on me was the pity ploy? I pitied him. Pity is not the same as respect.
My boundaries were never as good as yours though or it wouldn’t have taken 25 years to wake up.
Daisy / Moving –
I swear the three of us are talking about the same man! Unbelievable how identical our situations were – when I would ask mine if things were “ok” and if we were going to “make it” he would tell me “Of course, babe, quit analyzing things so much.” He would then reassure me with sweet texts (for a minute) then be a bit withdrawn – when I would ask him why he seemed different, he would tell me he wasn’t being different, he was just really busy. Um, okay! Busy = busy with another woman!
When i would confront him angrily or even crying becasue it was so hurtful finding out the truth each time, he would just look at me and tell me “I wish i could go back and change what happened, but I can’t – I didn’t mean to hurt you and you deserve so much better” Every single time he got caught, I was the one in TEARS BEGGING HIM to please let’s just work things out – what the hell was wrong with me??? I begged/pleaded with him, over something I didn’t cause — he really messed with my reality/thinking overall!
Skylar!! Thanks for the Friday Laugh — loved the “Parole” response! Wish I could have been a fly on the wall to see the look on his face! Awesome!
Daisy – I too have been manipulative, I think in some degree all of us have been; but in our case (since ours is so similar) I think it was because we needed to find out the truth – We both knew we were getting played/lied to but couldn’t quite get out hands on the info needed to confront the bastard!
Anyhow, I do not feel one bit of guilt for playing some games with my ex spath – of course, I’m not nearly as good at Mind F’ing than he is but I held my own at times — one time I was actually able to manipulate him into telling me the truth – it was AWESOME – becasue he sealed his own coffin on that one! I never told him the truth either — that I actually got one over on him – why would I want to let him know that I too can get into his head if I tried hard enough to figure out how…..Either way, i didnt enjoy having to play a game and try to be one step ahead of him – even when I thought I was ahead, I never was — Of course, my mind tricks were harmless and nothing like what he did to me — bottom line, being in a relationship where there is so much drama, games, lying, betrayal, me having to live in fear and watch what i say and do so I dont piss him off is no way for anyone to live –no one deserves to have their minds toyed with!
skylar says: The spaths are very attuned to the “discard” and they always want to beat us to the punch.
Thank you Skylar, that right there is some validation I have been needing in my situation.
I had gone out to dinner with a guy friend who my spath perceived as a threat and that night he begged me not to go out with him again, even as friends. I then told him that I did not see a future for us anymore and he got upset. Not really angry but I sensed a little frustration which he apologized for later in the same conversation. When I ended things 6 days later after confronting him with proof of all his lies, his only response was “I’m seeing someone, please don’t contact me again”. He had lied to me for years about there not being other women and all of a sudden he decides to be honest? That really threw me for a loop.
I had always wondered what his purpose/motive/reasoning was behind that move.
You mentioned them being attuned to the “discard”, do you mean them “discarding” or being “discarded” ?
Hey Denver,
I was thinking that same thing last night. They do sound like the same man. I’ve gone back through some of your posts to make sure you’re not the new woman in my spath’s life~hahaha
Denver,
What you describe is for me that broken picker: I’m a highly extraverted woman, adventurous, independent, and quite dominant (in an initiative taking way), caring, helpful, intelligent, etc…
The initiating thing, combined with high extraversion and adventurous spirit make it so that when it comes to being attracted, chemically, I will either feel chemistry for an introverted, adventurous man or I feel chesmistry for a man at least as extraverted as I am myself (combined with adventurous). A less extraverted man will soon give me the feeling that I’m taking initiative more than him, and thus that I’m dominating him. I don’t like to be dominated, nor do I like to dominate. The problem with introverted men is the communication. It’s easy to lead to miscommunication and basic misunderstandings of one another. And the higher their degree of introversion, and thus risk of misunderstanding, the more chemistry I feel. That leaves the high extraverted men. The higher they are extraverted than myself, the more I’ll feel chemistry. However, since I’m already highly extraverted I run a great risk of feeling chemistry for a man in the disordered levels of extraversion, amongst them narcissists, borderliners and spaths. The ex-spath was the first extraverted man I had a relationship with… it were all introverts before that, two of those being good men, but one with commitment issues and with the other – we were just not the right people to make each other happy long term… security was everything to him, he hated traveling, socialising, no ambition… He’s a good man, but we were too many opposites on every important issue. I did date some extraverted men before, but there simply was no chemistry for me, nada, zero. So, the ex-spath was the first extravert I was actually attracted to, and he was extraverted higher than myself, and in the disordered levels.
(I came to understand this because of the book “Women who love psychopaths”)
Another issue is that I’m adventurous. This makes that I’ve started to confuse the gut instinct of feeling anxiety with a sign of attraction. So a man I’m anxious about, is someone I may mistake myself attracted to.
Spaths will actually often initiate and do stuff in the early stages of simply interacting and meeting them that will trigger the anxiety instinct. But they then don’t follow up on it… that is they’ll take you into a dark street with no people, or move really close without warranty by surprise for example, but then they don’t do something bad. So you’ll feel a spike of natural triggered anxiety first, then it eases off to a safety feeling (nothing happened), and you end up attributing the safety feeling to them. That’s actually a tiny first trauma-bond.
Because of the spath and the recovery from it, I’ve come to realize the above and also recognize it doesn’t have to be that way. Attraction does not have to be necessarily combined with anxiety, nor does it have to be sudden and instant (as I used to swear by). And with the extraverted men I used to think of as solely friend material, I have started to look at them from other possible angles of attraction, including their kindness, their adventurous spirit, their intellect. They’re just not as loud about it, nor as brooding. I haven’t dated yet, so I can’t say anything about it longer term, but I must say that I actually consider some men attractive, interesting and sexy that I previously wouldn’t have.
I’ll be 39 in March. So, it doesn’t have to hopeless, Denver.
Although I do notice that they can’t imagine me being attracted to them. I can’t blame them. I’ve been a friendly acquaintance with some of these men for years. I fear they think like fixerupper: she couldn’t be interested after all this time in a normal nice guy like myself… I’m not bad-ass enough.
fixerupper, realize how your present opinion of women you’re attracted to and who once or twice chose a bad-boy/man possibly isolates yourself from them too. If these women are normal people (on the mental level) they have growth potential and have the ability to learn of their earlier mistakes, and might actually learn there are other way to become attracted to a man.
PAROLE!!!!! ROTFLMAO CHOKE SNORT SNARF ROLL SOME MORE! That is priceless, Skylar! TOTALLY PRICELESS… best laugh I’ve had all day.
I can’t add much to the good advice in this discussion…being risk takers ourselves adds to our RISK of falling for a psychopath. But I’m LEARNING what are acceptable risks and what are NOT acceptable. Makes life safer all the way round.