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.
I have been reading through this recent thread and mine did these very things that have been discussed here…not wanting to be dumped so he got me back and then dumped ME…not giving closure…I begged for it and I mean begged and he wouldn’t do it. And even with that, he dangled the carrot…he would say yeah, we can meet and then ignore me when I would ask him when or even set up a meeting and then just not show up. Horrible being.
Daisy, lol, I ended up being a toy not totally broken altogether willing to pine and lie for ure decorative reasons, but one with teeth. It was better to rip me absolutely out of his blackbook altogether, than anything else. I simply refused to play by his expectations or his rules. That usually was his problem with me: he could manipulate me when he played the pity party or was loving to me… but threats, anger drama scenes, put-downs usually backfired on him. His discard backfired, because the first thing that came to mind was,
“Wow! I never deserved any of this and he just proved he’s totally undeserving.”
I then called his family to inform them of the break-up, and wished them a cordial goodbye, especially those who were guarding his inheritance money that they expected him to use for his papers to marry me and move finally to Belgium.
In that sense I did have good boundary reflexes. Of course, it could have been presented and seen as revenge actions. But it was mostly taking back as much self-esteem as I could at the time. I knew one of my main purposes to him was status. He had gained not respect but some goodwill from others to believe him reformed, because I believed in him. And I decided it wasn’t his to use anymore, more – that I never had the right to extend my own credibility to compass his.
I know he has tried to discredit me to plenty of his fellow villagers, even those who live somewhere else in the world… especially with regards to the warning profile I had made once. Apparently the majority laughed about it and thought it was well deserved, even though they never even knew me.
So, that was my “backspath” so to speak. Of course, I’m sure he wouldn’t care much anyway. I’m just a blip I’m sure on his memory. He’s still continuing his same shinanigans with tourists, male and female, and cheating on his wife, making her waste money on rooms for him that get robbed empty, going out as late as he wants, making her despair over his no-show, his drug use, etc…
The most significant I could do was to signal “I take my hands off from this man, and wish nothing to do with him anymore,” and that for my own self-esteem. He isn’t worth anything else.
There are some very good resources over on Skylar’s site including the following:
http://www.yorku.ca/rweisman/courses/sosc6890/pdf/meloypaper-psychopathy.pdf
“Although the conventional belief is that a neglectful and abusive environment is central
to the development of the psychopath, research has begun to call this into question. Marshall and Cooke (1999) found a negative curvilinear relationship between such family experiences and
8 psychopathy. In other words, if we measure psychopathy on a unidimensional scale such as the PCL-R (Hare, 2003), as adult psychopathy increases into the mild to moderate range, we do see a historical increase in neglect and abuse while growing up.
As psychopathy increases into the severe range, however, we see a decrease in neglect and abuse while growing up. In related research, Raine, Stoddard, Bihrle and Buchsbaum (1998) found that functional deficits measured by radioactively tagged glucose activation (PET) in the brains of samples of murderers with extensive criminal histories were more pronounced among those from good rather than poor home environments. The suggestive findings of these and other studies (Raine, 1993) is that the more severe the psychopathy, the more psychobiologically rooted is the cause.”
My x-spath is what Steve called the “sort of sociopath” — callous, without empathy, manipulative but at the same time not violent nor habitually callous and lying. His background is consistent with “mild to moderate” psychopathy, indicating a environmental root.
Interestingly, more severe psychopaths seem to come from good homes indicating a biological root.
Behind Blue Eyes,
Ex-spath falls in the biological root cause, though I’m not sure where in the family he got it from. Certainly not his father, who had a keen feeling for right and wrong, and put up boundaries against his son. His older half-brother was a lazy bum though (same father), but aside from that an otherwise kind and caring son and father to his own children. I’ve considered his mother, but she was the first to decry her son for being an irrepairable bad human being as far as I learned from other ex-es of his, took in his son and the single mother, as well as once took in her sister together with his cousin (who enables him). Maybe it skipped a generation.
Daisy/Laura19
So sorry i missed chatting with you both – i would have really enjoyed a more in depth conversation with you both- I actually went out to the movies w/ some friends this evening and saw Jack Reacher ( pretty good movie).
Maybe we can get together tomorrow evening if you’re around?
Darwinsmom – my exspath is is still friends with all of his ex-es except for three of us who saw right through his BS –
Denver…we’re still there now…come on over
I logged in but didn’t “see” you gals. Not sure if I logged in incorrectly or am in the wrong location? Thoughts
denbroncos007:
You said something a few days ago in one of your posts about not feeling worthy of love. You talked about your ex husband who was a great, kind, loving man, but yet you let him go, he was boring, etc. Let me say, I can relate totally. But something you said really struck me. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it was something about your childhood (I think) and the reason that you don’t feel worthy of a good man. Deep in my being, I think my spath feels like this. I think no matter how much love he gets, he feels worthless.
By the way, I think it would be really nice if you could get back with your ex…that man who sounds good for you! 🙂
Happy Saturday Louise! Hope you’re doing well! I’ve thought about my ex a lot ( husband & spath). I’ve also been thinking about extrovert vs introvert. In my previous posts I said my ex spath was an extrovert but really looking at things I think he’s more of an introvert. I think he WANTS to be an extrovert and was something he despised. His ex wife was a lot like me- he was married to her for 26 years, she’s an extrovert and he hated that – every time they went camping or had BBQ and stuff she would invite all their friends and he despised that. He doesn’t like people but he is adventurous. When he is around his own elements / comfort zone he is completely content. Take him out of that element he is squirmy. But he can strike up a conversation with just about anyone so long as he FEELS more “superior” to them. In my “world” especially professionally he is very uncomfortable – I sensed that when we went to my gala at work. But again the exspath is adventurous.
Now looking at my ex husband who I consider an introvert doesn’t mind having all my friends over for events, he is a bit more quiet, doesn’t try to be an “alpha” he is simply quiet when compared to me. He too is adventurous. So when I say he was boring, really I think it was boring to me because it was DRAMA FREE.
I’ve been so used to being in relationships where there was constant drama, so when I met someone who was “normal” the situation wasn’t anything I’ve experienced and is why (looking back now) I felt “bored.” My ex hubby (2nd one, first hubby was my first real exp with a spath and set the pavement for what a “normal” relationship to me was supposed to be) is perfect, aside from your typical nuances people have when they are in relationships, like leaving your snack crumbs on the coffee table.
Right now my ex spath still weighs heavily on my heart, even though he screwed with my mind so bad and I know I’m way better without him… I want to get to a point where I can recognize a healthy relationship versus a toxic one…. Let me rephrase that, I know what’s healthy vs toxic but I seem to gravitate and desire the toxic relationship, so I want to work on my inner self to resolve my childhood issues that I think make me feel I’m not worthy of healthy love….
I think my exspath is like your ex spath, Louise; in a sense of not so much to the degree of NOT feeling worthy of love because I think he feels like it’s owed to him but he doesn’t know how to give it back- as a child I think there’s something quirky that happened with his mom…. Now looking back I wish I had asked more questions while I was with him; when I asked him about his childhood all he would say it how perfect it was, so naturally I wouldn’t ask anything further.
I do know that he doesn’t have a close relationship with his two sisters at all; an occasional phone call here and there, but nothing else. He isn’t close to his family at all and even with his kids- he has a relationship but I don’t think it’s very close….
I wish I knew more about his childhood that’s for sure….
denbroncos007:
Everything you described is really how I feel about men. The ones who are normal and good…it’s not that it’s really boring, but because it’s drama free, it seems boring. For myself, I am introverted so I seem to be attracted to the extravert…because I am not “exciting,” I seem to need that stimulation from someone else. Spath was a mix of extravert and introvert…he was playful and social yet brooding, if that makes sense. I actually think that combo he had was very attractive. Not a good thing…