Lovefraud recently received an e-mail from a reader. Her company had hired a new guy and she was tasked with helping him learn his job. The guy immediately made her feel extremely uncomfortable. Here’s what she wrote:
I can’t look him in the eye or even stand to talk with him. He is very “nice” and has never shown any angry tendencies. I can’t explain my feelings but my intuition tells me to be wary and afraid of him. He exhibits self-important behavior and is glib and overly polite. Just the thought of him makes me shudder.
He’s never given me any concrete reason to dislike him. However when I very first met him, he was too familiar and presumptuous, calling me by my nickname on the first day, which only close friends and family do. He also pestered me to go to lunch with him every single day or would manipulate it so that he’d be alone in the office with me at lunchtime. He never made any type of sexual advances to me, but would ask me off the wall questions that were not work related and that I couldn’t possibly have an answer to; and once offered me $20 to buy myself lunch because I wouldn’t go with him. I reported him to HR twice to get that harassment on record and had his desk moved away from mine. Everyone who comes in contact with him describes him as creepy.
He has a wife and three kids and his wife is rumored to be well off. He is at work on time every day and doesn’t take time off. On the surface he seems to excel in his work but if you look deeper, you’ll see that it’s all shell with not much substance. He appears to excel at his job but some of us have caught him in borderline deceptions at work but I firmly believe he is manipulative and knows exactly what he’s up to. Others don’t detect that; they think he’s a really nice guy who just doesn’t fit in. He acts kind of like the dumb Southern nice guy next door but my intuition screams that there’s a sinister quality about him. Some of us joke about the target on our backs, don’t piss him off, that sort of thing. Dane Cook’s “Creepy Guy at Work” comes to mind.
I’ve done some minimal Internet investigation on him and extensive investigation into the behavior itself but can’t seem to pinpoint it. I have read so many books, including Robert Hare, Martha Stout and Gavin De Becker. A lot of things fit from the sociopath’s profile and your Red Flags page, though some really don’t; he doesn’t exhibit aggressiveness, hatred of authority or anger at work.
The presence and mere thought of this person causes me tremendous physical and mental stress. So I avoid him and his gaze at all costs. But why is this? I’m so curious to know what quality or element he possesses that repels me. I’ve never in my life felt this guarded around another person. Is there a textbook explanation? The experience has caused me to have a deeper look inside myself as I don’t like feeling this way about anyone.
Intuition at work
I congratulated this woman for listening to her intuition. She was receiving abundant warning signs, by her own physical reactions, that there was something wrong with her co-worker.
Read the symptoms she describes: She can’t look him in the eye. She can’t talk to him. She shudders. Her body knows that she is in the presence of evil. Her intuition is telling her that the guy is a predator, and if she is not careful, she will be road kill. The woman’s co-workers even joke about having targets on their backs.
And that gaze that she avoids? It’s probably a predatory stare.
Yet he hasn’t done anything to cause problems. He is not overtly hostile or aggressive. In fact, he is overly polite.
So she asks, is there a textbook explanation?
Range of behaviors
The answer is yes. The explanation is that psychopaths exhibit a range of behaviors, and some are worse than others. If this woman’s co-worker was tested with the Hare PCL-R, his score might be too low to be officially considered a psychopath. That doesn’t mean he is not dangerous.
The common perception of a psychopath, popularized by the media, is a violent, manic-looking serial killer. In a few cases—very few—this is an accurate portrayal. But the vast majority of psychopaths never kill anyone.
Instead, they do things like create problems on the job. As our Lovefraud reader noted, the guy “seems to excel in his work but if you look deeper, you’ll see that it’s all shell with not much substance.”
Psychopaths at work typically get other people to do the work and then take credit, figure out whom they need to brownnose in order to get ahead, and sabotage anyone who gets in their way.
Executive psychopaths
Some psychopaths, ruthless and cutthroat, claw their way to the top, and then turn into tyrants. Dr. Robert Hare and Dr. Paul Babiak wrote a book called Snakes in Suits about psychopaths in the workplace.
Here’s a statistic that knocked my socks off:
Dr. Hare believes that psychopaths make up one percent of the population of North America. (Other people, using different criteria, believe the number is higher.) However, Dr. Hare writes in Snakes in Suits that three percent of corporate executives are psychopaths.
Did you get that? There are three times as many psychopaths among corporate executives as there are in the general population.
So that’s what happens to psychopaths in the workplace. They move into the corner office.
Listening to vibes
The Lovefraud reader was not comfortable with how she felt about this guy. I think she should be grateful to her intuition for being so vigilant. I also think she should acknowledge herself for listening to the vibes she was picking up.
I feel sorry for the people at her company who “think he’s a really nice guy who just doesn’t fit in.” They will probably find themselves as either victims, or unwitting accomplices, of workplace treachery.
By the way, chapters three and four of Snakes in Suits explains how psychopaths manipulate their victims. It is chilling.
“She can’t look him in the eye. She can’t talk to him. She shudders. Her body knows that she is in the presence of evil. Her intuition is telling her that the guy is a predator, and if she is not careful, she will be road kill.”
She’s on to something subconsciously and isn’t really even aware of what it is. How many of us who’ve been duped by the S’path does the above quote describe? When mine reappeared from the ether after five years, this is exactly how I behaved. Couldn’t figure it out, either.
At first, it seemed that maybe I’d just been away from dating for too long. Of course, taking it on my own shoulders, like so many of us here do, assuming the “fault” lay inside of us.
I felt…choked. Thought it would get better, in time, being around him more. But it didn’t! I still avoided his stare and gaze, still felt this malevolence when he was so uber-polite and well-mannered. I just thought he was repressed, maybe, or shy or had this big secret sorrowful life-changing event in the time we were apart that he couldn’t discuss, but that consumed his heart and soul.
Ha! He had secrets, alright. Stuff that would probably curl hair! But they weren’t noble or poetic or sad or the least bit loving.
And I couldn’t shake this image of myself slowly becoming a mute, or a mime. Never before have I been at a loss for words, or intimidated by someone’s mere (superficially benign) presence — and here was a guy I thought I loved more than anyone else, ever, whose gaze I could seldom meet and my thoughts would just not come out of my mouth.
Subconscious self-protection. It’s amazing.
My X and I were having lunch one day in the beginning of the relationship. All of a sudden I had this horrible, dreadful, ‘doom and gloom on the horizon’ feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was looking away from him into space, and he noticed it. He said, “what is it? you had a dark look on your face….” I knew what it was. It was my fear of being hurt. But that is the first time it has ever hit me so hard. I rationalized it away in my own mind. Weeks later, it happened again. He noticed it, again. I didnt want to talk to him about it, but he continued to pressure me until I did. I told him I was afraid of getting close and being hurt and losing the friendship. He said, “i thought we already talked about his. I WANT this. I WANT you. As long as we have that ‘open line of communication, even if it doesnt work out, we will always at least remain friends.”
His ‘open line of communication’ conveniently left out the fact he is HIV+.
The feeling of ‘doom and gloom on the horizon’ was dead on.
That was my big mistake. My intuition was telling me, my bad dreams were telling me, but I was waiting for proof – all the time giving him the benefit of the doubt and believing his excuses. My first impression of him was that he had a sense of cruelty and a bitter mouth (I am into face reading). Even his work friends and family kept telling me he was a decent bloke. I gathered all these bits of information and over rode all of my senses. If I had listened to everything I was being shown, I would have ditched him probably after the first 6 weeks and would have saved myself alot of grief.
I knew noone that knew him. He just moved to town. So, all I had to go on was what he showed me. I knew something didn’t feel quite right the whole time. I knew it wasn’t right. But I let him talk me into believing his love (manipulation) for me. Once we were telling each other what we liked aobut the other. I said all my things about him. He said, “you forgot one thing.” I said, ‘what?”
“I’m LOYAL.”
Some loyality to not tell someone your having sex with that your HIV+.
Once he said, “I’d do ANYTHING for you”, and “I’d never do anything to hurt or disrespect you.”
I have never in my life met anyone that projects themself to be so honest, caring, loyal, and trustworthy- while at the same time- decieving me and putting my life at risk.
It is the most hypocritical, twisted, sickening thing (him) that I have evel dealt with in my life.
Dodged-
I can’t believe he’s not in jail.
What he’s doing is tantamount to attempted murder.
Yes, I do know that. I sure do.
Having worked with several psychopaths and seen the devestation that they can do in the work place, to other employees, and even to the companies, I applaud this woman for LISTENING to her intuition.
I worked in a speciality hospital for head and spinal cord injuries once. Our director of nurses moved on to a new place and they were having trouble finding a new one, so took on a woman who was unsure of herself. She hired a psychopath to take her place in her old joy and this P-woman immediately started a campaign that eventually after six months resulted in half the nursing staff leaving (at a time of acute nursing shortage) The rest of us could not believe that no one else higher up saw what was going on, and we hung in for another six months, but eventually, all the nurses from this hospital, some had been there 20 years, left en mase. Only one nurse, who was emmployee health remained. At that point, corporate realized that “something was wrong” and the new DON was fired, the P was fired, and even the hospital administrator was fired, but the place eventually closed because they could not hire enough speciality nurses to replace those that left.
I didn’t realize at that time what was going on, or that this woman was a “typical P” in the work place and had taken advantage of a new director who was unsure of herself.
I have directly and indirectly worked for and with manipulative people, and a few other psychopaths. Some of them actually do a decent “job” in advancing their company, but still leave bodies litered in their wake of people who were “sacrifices” to their power plays.
What does surprise me though, is that so many people don’t detect anything wrong with these people, the “excessive politeness” and at the same time the excessive and uncalled for familiarity do make some people uncomfortable though. But the majority of people don’t “get it” that there is a predator in their midst.
The analogy of Ps being predators is shown in so many real life predatators who disguise themselves among their prey.
Animals who are primarily prey animals (cattle, antelope, rabbits etc) avoid anything that looks directly at them. Their instinct is to run from direct gaze. When I am working my cattle, I make sure not to look directly at the particular animal that I am singling out of the herd, but to watch them from my perpherial vision so that they don’t realize that it is THEM that I am after, otherwise that animal will make every effort to avoid me.
Predator animals also disguise their “look” if they can to appear benign to the designated prey animal. They try to get close enough to strike while appearing not to be direcly targeting that particular animal. They may try to blend in with the surrounding areas, or hide themselves from view of the prey, or move slowly so not to spook the prey, or appear to be after another animal rather than the one they have actually targeted.
In the work place, the predator humans use many kinds of tactics to approach their targets, and to put them off guard. Like the prey animals though, we should not ignore our gut instincts when spotting a predator. If we do it will be to our regret.
I think the socialization processes we are given as children that “there is good in everyone” or that “everyone deserves a second chance” and “it takes two to fight,” “there are two sides to every story” etc frequently put us in the position of ignoring our instincts.
I have also observed that many people who have no malice or guile in their hearts, truly sweet good people, have a total disbelief in the EVIL aspects of anyone else unless they are an ax murderer screaming and swinging an ax at that moment. They become so “nonjudgmental” that their instincts totally die, so that when they are hit blindsided by a P they don’t realize what hit them. Many times, as well I have observed these people being hit again and again, and still hanging stubbornly on to their “there is good in everyone” theory, in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
I remember once my my x and I were talking, and I remember a comment he made about himself, which was actually his mirroring a characteristic of me:
“I’m an open book.”
A book that left out a very important chapter. A chapter that could have killed me.
Here’s a link to a series of FREE articles on Psychopaths:
http://cjb.sagepub.com/content/vol35/issue2/
Psychopaths: What were they like as children?
Research published by SAGE in special issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior
Beginning with the question of whether psychopathy is a stable disorder throughout life, the researchers attempted to trace its development back to its roots. In studying it over time, they found that child/adolescent psychopathy looks quite similar to the adult version but there did seem to be some areas of instability in the young version that could provide hope to those hoping to mitigate it before it’s too late. The articles in the special issue examine many different aspects of psychopathy in the young and over time, including such variables as:
Genetics
Temperament
Parenting styles
Environment
Internal and external symptoms
Peer relations
“By conducting such investigations, possible points of intervention can be pinpointed in an effort to prevent early psychopathic characteristics in youth from leading to persistent deviant behaviors that have severe implications for the individual and society,” write guest editors, Randall T. Salekin and John E Lochman in the introduction. “Although considerable work remains to be done, this special issue serves as a starting point, providing the groundwork for future research in this area.”
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The special issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior, the official journal of The American Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology, entitled “Child and Adolescent Psychopathy: The Search for Protective Factors,” and guest edited by Randall T. Salekin and John E Lochman of the University of Alabama, is available at no charge for a limited time at http://cjb.sagepub.com/content/vol35/issue2/.
Ugh! ‘I’m an open book’ – vomit! Oh I know that feeling. Mine would often say ‘I’m a very simple creature.’
It’s like they always say stuff that you wouldn’t need to say if it was true. Like the bizarre ‘I’m a fan of your personality.’ What?!