UPDATED FOR 2024. Sociopaths tend to use all the same tactics while reeling in new romantic partners, as if they were all working from the same well-known reference manual. If you were able to find this playbook, written by an alpha sociopath for the benefit of the trainees, here are ploys it would include.
1 . Listen intently to your targets, staring into their eyes and hanging on their every word. This encourages them to keep talking — and everything they tell you can later be used as ammunition against them.
2. Call, text and email your targets frequently. They will interpret your constant attention as a sign that you are smitten with them, and will not notice that you are establishing control over them.
3. Mirror your targets. What your targets really want is to see their own images reflected in your eyes. Convince them that you like everything they like and share all their values, and they will believe that the two of you are soul mates.
4. Proclaim your love quickly and loudly. Because most normal people hesitate to talk about their feelings, your targets will assume that you are head-over-heels in love with them, so much so that you must express your emotions. This will smash their defenses.
5. If your targets at first rebuff your advances, pursue, pursue, pursue. When you keep at it, the targets will eventually believe that you are genuinely interested in them, and wanting to be fair and nonjudgmental, they will believe that they should give you a chance. This will be the opening that you can exploit.
6. Create a whirlwind romance. When you keep your targets spinning, they lose their balance and become easier to manipulate.
7. Give your targets gifts, no matter how small. This will make your targets feel the need to reciprocate, which will increase their investment in the relationship.
8. Make your targets feel sorry for you. The juiciest targets are empathetic people, and empaths must respond to pitiful stories. Their empathy will keep them hooked.
9. Bed your targets as quickly as possible. Sex floods your targets with oxytocin, a neurotransmitter and hormone is called nature’s love glue. Oxytocin makes your targets trust you. The more sex, the more they trust you, and the more you can manipulate them. Plus, you’ll probably enjoy the sex.
10. Find your targets’ vulnerabilities. Discover their deepest needs, fears and desires. When you set your hook firmly into their most private vulnerabilities, they will not be able to escape.
11. To win your target back, employ the grand gesture. If you do something that hurts or angers your target — hey, nobody’s perfect — you may need extraordinary measures to get back on track. Perhaps an extravagant gift (steal it if you have to), or an extraordinary date (figure out a way to get them to pay for it), or get on your knee in front of their friends and family to propose. They’ll succumb, and will be more bonded to you than ever.
12. Ask about your targets’ hopes and dreams, and promise to make them come true. This has the effect of making it very difficult for the targets to leave, because if they give up on the relationship, they also must give up on their hopes and dreams.
It’s scary to think that there might be such a reference manual floating around, teaching disordered people these strategies to seduce their targets.
The truth is even more frightening — sociopaths just do what comes naturally.
Learn more: Sociopathic seduction — how you got hooked and why you stayed
Lovefraud originally posted this story on Aug. 13, 2018.
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Thoughts about All Alone
13. They will try and make you believe that you are their soul mate, and that you are meant to be together, and you will have everything in common, and will make you feel very special. If you don’t fall for his nonsense and give him what he wants, then he will turn very passive aggressive.
Yeah that soulmate comment got me good, was a terrible time for me Thank GOD its all behind me and he is dead (OD)
Does this apply to female sociopaths seducing a man? Many of these things would appear needy and desperate to a man if coming from a woman.
Infinity, you nailed it. A man would run from that.
A woman sociopath would “customise” her approach to a man in such a way that he would not even know he is pursued.
Infinity – Yes, women employ the strategies also. But you bring up an interesting point. Yes, when you see the tactics in written form, characterized as seduction strategies, they look desperate. Sociopaths in action are totally different. They are charming, convincing, sexy and magnetic — while they are using all of these strategies. When you’re in the midst of all the attention, you feel flattered and excited. So you don’t see the scam.
I’m with you on that Donna, looking from the outside in, it is desperation, they need to find a new victim!!
In the Lesbian community, women sociopaths employ all these techniques. Sadly, I was vulnerable when I was lonely or isolated. Thanks to you, Donna, and my friends here, I am not as vulnerable, and I am able to warn others in the Lesbian community.
A woman sociopath would do the same thing, with a few minor changes.
You would be surprised at how many men love being pursued, showered with sex, and told they are the woman’s ‘dream come true’.
“An adulterous woman consumes a man, then wipes her mouth and says, “What’s wrong with that?” ~ Proverbs 3:20
Since my ex husband did all except the ‘dreams come true’ promise routine, and was perfect for 7 years, I still think he just fried his brain smoking pot. Or doing something worse.
And then there are always females who consider breaking up marriages as an always ‘in season’ sport
YES Absolutely, I can check off everyone of these!! Mine is dead and buried Thank GOD, he cant attempt to ruin anymore lives!!! It was a wakeup call for me to get help and find out what was in me that I would allow such abuse. Doing so much better these days, its like it was a lifetime ago, still scared to death to even attempt to date…
Number 7 is spot on, except it’s almost always gifts that you don’t actually want or need. Flowers when you’re allergic, chocolates when you’re on a diet, a new phone or iPad when you like the one you have. The gifts are never thoughtful or purchased with the recipient in mind. They’re designed only to impress, and make the victim feel obligated to care about them.
LOL! That is so true! Or they buy you something they want for themselves.
My ex partner scored a full house but I’ve been told by an experienced and very well qualified counsellor that he was probably a narcissist, I’m not very good at recognising the difference as another counsellor told my daughter that her father (my ex husband- a different man) was a sociopath, he also ticked all the boxes, confusing or what?
Hafren, My way of looking at this confusion about a narcissist vs. sociopath is that it does’t make one bit of difference in how WE are going to take back our lives, maintain no (or minimal) contact, and move on. I have been entangled with both sorts. The differences are pretty hard to discern. But getting away from both of them involved the same basic process.
The narcissist was more aloof when it was over, and just moved on to a million different new sources of goodies. He tried to re-engage but I never responded and he didn’t try again. The sociopath stalked me for a long time, but thankfully was not violent. He also sabotaged by vehicle. I finally had to involve the police to get him to disengage.
But basically it was still no contact. No response. No emails. No texts. No calls.
It’s not the label as much as your feelings about the evildoer that are critical. Psychiatrists and counselors have a handful of DSM-5 diagnoses to choose from, and some of these people fit numerous labels. Since my ex has never contacted me – in fact, threatened me if I contacted his daughter, who was a casual friend — I assume the label narcissist fits. The damage he left behind was just as bad if he were a sociopath, psychopath or serial philanderer. And my emotional recovery would have been the same – NO contact, NO guilt, learn how to be strong enough to avoid a next time, and hold my head high and proud.
I agree with you and Slimone, Emilie. I think the reason that these a**holes fit/do not fit a precise diagnosis is because they have features of more than one disorder (comorbidity, as the medical community calls it.)
In my non-medical opinion, all of the predators that we discuss here have some placement in the category of Cluster B Personality Disorders, and may have features of two or three branches: Narcissistic PD, Borderline PD, and Anti-social PD.
Added on to that some of them have additional mental disorders in other Clusters, and/or substance abuse issues. And as you both said, the main thing is to get these toxic people out of your life and keep them out for good.
‘nobody has EVER made me feel like YOU do’..mine did NOT flood me with gifts, expensive bling of ANY kind..his idea of a ‘date’ was a bottle of cheap booze and a bag of cheap snacks and a quiet (alone) place with me, far away from people. THE ONLY gift I ever got was a new sewing machine , of all things. Only later, did I realize WHY a sewing machine (so when we were married, I could endlessly patch and mend HIS clothes, as his loving farm grandma did), so I wouldn’t have time to do things I wanted to do, with any spare time I did have.
First, the big “Interview.”
Then, “He Molds Himself To Be Your Perfect Person.”
Our first phone call he talked to me for 3 hours….. then became exactly what he knew I would want.
I was able to see him do it to his victim after me. He actually had her write a “Lisa List.” 50 Things that were important to her in life. Honestly, it was probably a shortcut for him, he wouldn’t have to converse as long.
Makes you feel special when someone wants to know all about you. Ohhh how I wish I could go back and warn my sweet 22 year old self!