A Lovefraud reader recently asked the following question:
If the sociopath is not in it for money (he pays for everything with no access to my accounts) then what are other reasons to stay in a relationship if he doesn’t live with me nor do we share anything financially? Many of the posts I have read involve financial fraud.
If a sociopath has targeted you, it’s because you have something that he or she wants. Often it’s money, but not always. Here are 10 more things that the sociopath may want:
1. Sex
Sociopaths crave stimulation, and sex is highly stimulating, so they pursue it. However, sociopaths are not slaves to their physical urges. They often use sex primarily as a tool of manipulation to get something else that they want.
2. Services
Sociopaths may want you to do something for them that they don’t want to do for themselves, such as cooking, cleaning and taking care of children.
3. Housing
Even if sociopaths don’t directly ask for money, they may suggest living together. They may say it’s because they love you, when, in fact, they have no place to go.
4. Entertainment
Perhaps you’re part of an exciting social scene. The sociopath may want to be with you just to gain access to the people you know.
5. Status
Hanging out with you may be good for their image, especially if you’re rich, famous, successful or competent. Your status boosts their status.
6. Image
Perhaps the sociopath needs a partner like you to complete the image that he or she wants to present to the company or community.
7. Cover
Your presence may help them get away with a hidden agenda. You may be providing cover for the sociopath to pursue a double life of sex, drugs or crime.
8. Connections
Sociopaths may use you, your skills and your connections in order to pursue their grandiose dreams or entrepreneurial plans.
9. Duping delight
Sociopaths enjoy getting over on people—this is called “duping delight.” They often manipulate, deceive and use people just for the fun of it. Some will seduce targets just so they can break their hearts.
10. Domination
Sociopaths feed on power and control, so they sometimes pursue domination for its own sake. They want to prove themselves more powerful than you, perhaps even powerful enough to destroy you.
If a sociopath targets you, it’s because he or she sees you as useful in some way. Once you are no longer useful, you’ll be dumped.
Skylar, Did you have breakfast in my work-place this morning? LOL.
Oh well. It’s an honest living. I don’t get to chose what to where…no greasy, matted hair, no cement splattered shirt, just a red collard shirt, black dress slacks, and an apron….a greeting and a smile…..gotta work pretty hard for that dollar….
Do you remember the guy who tried to make me feel ashamed about the hole in the floor underneith the lunch counter…tried over and over to make me take on some kind of responsibility and feel BAD…I didn’t…gray rocked him, but, before that happened I gave him a cue….I know I did…I was busy, trying to do 20 things at once, trying to remember everything that every customer wanted, trying to stay focused…I put on a pot of coffee, but, forgot to put the pot in place, and coffee started flowing out onto the burner….no real big deal, I caught it before any real catastrophe, but, he was sitting at the counter, right behind me, and I turned around, a little sheepish, and embarrassed, and immediatly he pounced…I was easy…I could be shamed, I would be apologetic, feel responsable…he could be an authority and I would suck his A@.......@. Nope. He was a geranium, and I don’t care much for them. I would give him coffee, but no water….poor thirsty spath.
But, you know, Skylar, even though I work in an environment that caters to a lot of blue-collar workers, a lot of them are pretty good to me, and they are just making an honest living, and they know I am, too. If they come in with cement splattered on their shirt, it’s because it’s their job, and they are hungry…it’s lunch time. I work in a blue collar system…..I don’t think I am superior to them…they sweat, they work hard, as I do….I can respect someone who works hard, even if they have dirt under their nails…..one way to tell a spath is the “waitress test”, how do they treat the waitress……..just sayin’.
Kim I agree with you entirely about the “waitress” test, or the “cleaning lady” test, or the clerk at the store.
Now, if a wait-person is rude to me, or is not over worked with customers but lets my glass get empty or me have to get up and go get her because she is on the other side of the huge empty dining room chatting with her friends—s/he AIN’T GONNA GET NO TIP FROM ME and when I go out I will ask to speak to the manager and I will tell them about it. But if a waitress is working her arse off to take care of a bus load of senior citizens that arrived all at once, then I ain’t gonna complain if it takes her a few minutes to refill my glass. And, s/he will get a TIP and a THANK YOU.
Makes me sick to imagine that being the daughter, sister, ex wife and mother of these THINGS allows me to say check 1 through 10 on all of these with utter contempt, disgust and most of all number 9 making me just want to round them all up and put 1 through 10 bullets in their *ss. (sigh) Well 2 of them are dead, the brother THING and mother THING (but I’m sure they keep the furnace burning at full blast down below).
Skylar…..holy mackerel, what a valuable character study!!! I’m being quite serious, here. I have often wondered about people who make that hole in their faces to issue a constant stream of noise. To be fair, I’m typically “outgoing” and enjoy making people laugh, so I work a lot of witty humor into my dialogue with people that I feel a sense of safety and comfort.
But, what you’ve described are patent examples of “Glib” talk! Okie dokie – I think that this bit should be under the definition of “glib.” And, I say this because “glib” remarks and statements are one of the “red flags” that we’re supposed to recognize. But, what “glib” really IS makes it somewhat difficult to define.
Absolutely – spaths and ppaths don’t simmer down with age. They just alter and evolve their tactics.
Brightest blessings!
Sisterseven, I completely agree that it may be a very good option to check out other AA meetings and find one that you are comfortable with. The best way that I found to determine the relative “safety” of a meeting was to just listen for a few meetings at each location. Of couse, many AA members attend several meetings each week – sort of like what we do on this site. It’s our safety net, so to speak. But, listening to who’s doing the majority of the talking and comparing the talk to the walk is the best “tell” of all.
Even in support groups, there are predators. AA, in particular, can be a potential feeding ground for predators who are not, by any stretch of the imagination, alcoholic. My brother’s ex-wife is a prime example. No need to go into her behaviors, but she was not a true alcoholic. She just drank and drugged because she wanted to. Once she saw how much attention my mother got during meetings, she wanted IN on that, very badly. That constant “feed” on supplies by calling fellow members and her Sponsor at every opportunity gave her precisely what she wanted.
So, visit various meetings and listen. Hear what is helpful to you and apply it to your own recovery. But, also, WATCH. As OxD pointed out, the best way to observe a potential spath’s “tells” are by observing their behaviors in their “natural” environments.
Additionally, Sisterseven, you’re in transition, right now. Transition can be painful – sort of like the process of birth. It’s a “natural” process, but there is some amount of pain and discomfort involved. Be patient with yourself. “This, too, shall pass,” and you’re going to be okay.
Brightest blessings
Hi Kim,
I totally understand about being to easy to shame. I would have reacted in the same people-pleasing, self-effacing, manner as you did when the coffee spilled over.
We need to train ourselves not to react that way because it makes spaths take notice. They choose victims who take responsibility and blame. They choose victims who are too polite to tell the truth because they don’t want to hurt feelings. They also choose people whose face will show a lot of emotional expression because they feed off that.
Keep practicing that gray rock face.
Truthy,
yes, lots of people like to talk your ear off. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are spath. It’s the emotional responses they elicit from us, that gives us a heads up.
Admittedly, I tend to attract the spaths’ ire, so they are most likely to show their colors when I’m around. lol.
maybe I need to practice being a gray mouse. lol. Maybe when I ordered my eggs and hashbrowns I did it with too much authority. who the heck knows what makes spaths be spathy? They can certainly read us though. That’s for sure.
Thank you so much to all of you. For listening and for your support. I will now block her from my phones, etc. A part of me was fearful of doing so..fear of fueling her fire. I cannot live my life in fear, and I won’t. I do live carefully, and now I am on very high alert at all times. Is that an oxymoron?? No fear/high alert? Ha! At least I haven’t lost my good humor.
The AA thing is tricky. I live in a small town surrounded by equally small towns, and about 27 miles from a fairly good sized metro. Soooo, I did begin to make meetings in the other small towns. However, so many people attend these other meetings that I know word got out that I had been seen. How do I know? Because she began to attend those as well. Word flows. Frustrated, I made a couple of meetings in the metro area. I’ll be damned if she didn’t show And joined a lesbian group of outside activities that I was thinking of joining. She always would tell me that she could find me, read my mind, and I would never get away from her. Now, I myself have not laid eyes on her. But people talk. She herself does not have a FB page but some of my friends on FB are in AA so every now and then I see comments about what group members are doing what. Anyway, she can’t possibly make every meeting. I catch what I can, and even attend online meetings when I like. More importantly, and put this in the small world department, a former childhood friend of mine has made contact and offered me free therapy thru phone or skype. He is gay (out) and a triple degreed family therapist. I held my breath and shared with him what I had been through. He told me he understood and that spaths have certainly screwed up his life in the past. Between the blogs here, all of Donna’s books (which I read and re-read) and this lovely guy, I feel like I’m on the right track. Thank goodness I have a strong spirituality and over 25 years of recovery.
I am so humbled by all of your generous and loving comments of support and understanding and guidance. It really does make a difference knowing y’all are here. As I continue to heal and get stronger, I hope I can also be a voice of recovery from my experience. Oh, as an aside, I did not meet “crazy” at AA. In fact, when I met her (at a workplace) she refused to go to AA around here. Said the members were sick and stupid. So, isn’t it a pisser that because she can, she has in essence infiltrated my home group and other meetings…only because she is trying so hard to run into me.
Many blessings of love, Elizabeth
Story about “glib”, and an opportunistic narcissist:
I was at work. It was slow…the restaraunt was empty. A van pulled up, and the cook and I waited…and waited. A man and a woman got out, and puttered around, opening up the hatch-back and rearrainging things…they puttered and puttered, and the cook and I waited. The woman seemed to be directing the putterering, and the man was simply complying. Finally, they come through the door. She is carrying a lime green wash tub sort of thing with a multitude of varying colored artificial flowers. OMG. Red-flags flying too close to the ground.
I go to the table and ask what they’d like to drink. He wants coffee, but she’s not sure yet.
I get his coffee, and she’s gone to the bathroom.
When she comes out I’m doing something, can’t remember what, but she flags me down (no punn intended ) and I see that she has a purple silk flower from the ladies room in her hand and asks if I’d mind if she used that flower to make me a pen. Ahhhhh, ok. Sure, I guess.
So now, I am beseged by a bunch of mindless chatter, no matter where I am in the restaraunt, or what I am doing, about how she is making me this pen, and how many people she has made them for, and how many people comment on them, and much people like them. All the time I know I am being manipulated. This is a histrionic, at best. I also know the pen is my tip, and I need to gush at her how very grateful I am for this pen.
A man walks in and sits at the counter. He’s a blustering fool, too. He takes in whats happening. She gets a call on her cell-phone and loudly displays her center-of attentionness. He gets up and plays the juke-box….we hate the juke-box. It is TOO LOUD. The juke box people won’t fix the problem. We either have to unplug it or live with it.
After playing the juke-box, the man at the counter smirks…”I hate being forced to eaves drop on someones phone conversation….guess I took care of that.”
Then a woman walks through the door, and is very put off by the noise…she makes it clear she’s going somwhere else. In the mean-time, the bosses daughter, also as employee, has come in, sat down in a booth and answered the land-line, but has had to stretch over the side of the booth to do so. She’s talking to her mother, the boss.
Later, my boss gets a call from the disgruntled customer, and said customer tells her, their was all kinds of partying and hi-jinx going on in her establishment, including loud rock-and roll, and a young girl in black-panties dancing on the table.
I got my pen out of the deal.
The lady has been back in since, and has eaten with plastic utensills, demanded a splath of lemonaide in her nasty city water, used coupons, to get a buy one get one deal, asked me to get the manager, twice….so she can check up on what action the manager took about the hi-jinx episode….asked who owned the franchise, and generally just took the whole thing to extremes, as if she should be the one to answer to.
Oh, the guy at the bar left a dollar.