Contrary to a prevailing myth, sociopaths are really no smarter than the average individual”¦probably dumber. Sure, a good one can dupe you, but as I’ve written elswhere, this is no great shakes, as most of us can dupe each other if that’s our goal.
That’s because we enter relationships risking trust and faith in each other, which makes the exploitation of our trust and faith really easy. It takes no genius or particularly smart, crafty person to exploit this trust and faith. It’s as easy to do as it’s wrong.
And so, most sociopaths aren’t really that clever, or ingeniously bright. Most make messes not only of others’ lives, but their own too. Many end up in jail, and those who don’t are often finding trouble in other areas, exercising poor judgement all over the map, squandering friendships, family, and all sorts of meaningful opportunities.
By most standards of a successful life, sociopaths live lives of abject failure, accomplishing little more, at the end of the day, than having produced plenty of havoc and pain. None of this indicates that, as a group, sociopaths are smart.
Sometimes the media sensationalizes the sociopath as the dark, brilliantly predatory monster, especially in classic cases of psychopaths like Ted Bundy. But Ted Bundy wasn’t so smart. In the end, he was nothing but a vicious, sadistic murderer who managed to lure young, naïve girls sufficiently into his proximity to then viciously murder them.
How much of an accomplishment was this? To be able to lure naïve girls near enough to his car to then kidnap and kill them? Otherwise, OJ Simpson style, Bundy was ambushing dormitories at night and butchering innocent, sleeping college kids. Not exactly a genius, or courageous guy, at work here. Just a perverse, murderously violent, cowardly man.
Sure, Bundy was reputedly charming and articulate (video of him bears this out). But this didn’t make him “smart.” He was, clearly, adept at “masking” himself. But again, effective maskers aren’t smart; they’re just good maskers. And nonsociopaths routinely are good maskers.
Good masking, good self-disguising is a type of social skill, and not the purview of sociopaths exclusively. Also, many sociopaths are terrible maskers, just as many nonsociopaths are.
My point is that the “mask” is not an indication of “smartness.” It’s merely the case that some sociopaths, and some nonsociopaths, can mask aspects of themselves and their agendas effectively; but bear in mind, just as many do this very poorly.
In the end, sociopaths, as a group, have a poor track record of living effective lives. Rather, they live disruptive, unsatisfying lives”¦fraught with pathological attitudes and empathic deficits that bring misery to others and, correspondingly, much trouble and, at best, empty satisfaction, to themselves.
Sociopaths simply are not successful people. They may (or may not) skate along under the radar for some stretch of time, but this is not a “game” that smart people play, and that smart people get off on.
Only dumb people play this game. Only really dumb people live this way. Only really really dumb people derive satisfaction, for however long they can swing it, from pulling the wool over others’ eyes.
It’s just no great shakes to do this, and it doesn’t make you smart.
LL-mine was married and lied to me and he dumped me a week before our one year anniversary. His wife had found out about our relationship and kicked him out and supposedly filed for divorce. He was living with me and planning our lives together-talking about having a child with me and everything and was supposed to help me out financially while I was in the police academy because the paycut was huge and he talked me into getting into it before I was financially ready. He promised he would be there for me and then dumped me 3 weeks before my police academy started. I had to move out of my apartment cuz I couldn’t afford it on a polic recruit salary on my own. He moved back home and conned the wife into cancelling the divorce. When we did a background check later I found there was no record of the divorce being filed. The city records meant that it was either cancelled of never filed at all.
I am so glad to be rid of his stupid lying POS sociopathic narcissistic ass. Thank God I didn’t have a child with him. What if the kid turned out like him. I watched the old movie The Bad Seed last week and it reminded me of that-it freaked me out. I found out that he has a 92,000 IRS lien on him too and evidentally, his wife has him on a choke chain. His coworkers say that he has been nothing but a completel psychotic monster to work with since he broke up with me in 2009. They never liked him to begin with, but he was much nicer to everyone when he was with me. Now he’s like Satan mean all the time.
I had never dated a married man until I met the spath, and I believed he was separated and soon to be divorced. His story was SO convincing and he seemed like such a sweet guy, that somehow it seemed all right to date him. Mostly I was waiting for him. The first time he had to cut our weekend short because of family drama, I flipped out.
I never dated a married man either until I met the spath. He lovebombed me and lied to me to the point where I abandonned by morality and accepted it-the whole time feeling tremendous amounts of pain. I still can’t believe I did it. I didn’t think I would ever forgive myself and one day it just went away. I still feel bad about it though.I still feel like how could I do something so terrible to myself. I could I devalue myself that much and treat myself like shit enough to subject myself to that? It was SEVERE self hatred that I had for myself since I was 10 years old. I actually believed that I deserved pain, unhappiness and horrible things. But guess what, I don’t!
Stargazer –
Just read your story. You clever girl for working it out so quickly – and what great friends you have! I’m so glad for you that it didn’t go longer than it did AND that he was a “runner”. I can’t tell you how many times I have wished that mine would “run”….
Like yours, mine faked a disability. I now know what my “uses” were to him –
– a place to live (often parasitically without contributing his full share)
– someone to cook and clean for him and launder his clothes (as well as buy him new ones because he would never do this himself)
– someone to do all of the same things for his son who lived with us full-time for 4 years (while he pretended that his ex-wife, the child’s mother did not send any child support; spath was getting it and spending it on hookers, while married to me)
– someone to champion him and give believeable evidence on his behalf in his fraudulent workers’ compensation case (I was convinced it was true, so I spent 7 years washing the bastard’s feet in the shower, helping him on with his underwear and putting on his shoes and socks for him, chopping wood, cleaning gutters, maintaining our home which he still lives in with his new dupe, running around after his son, driving him 100’s of miles for doctors’/lawyers’ appointments, using all of my own sick leave from work on him and his many crises, typing up and preparing all of his legal documentation, and on and on…)
– someone to pay for any holidays or outings we went on (he always claimed to be broke)
– someone to have regular sex with (until he tired of me and told me he “couldn’t” any more, due to his “injury”)
– someone to present the image of a “white picket fence” and play “happy families” with, so that he would look to all the world like a regular guy
As soon as our case for Property Settlement is finalised, I am going to the insurance commission and reporting the things I have since found out – including the fact that the alleged “workplace injury” was a 14-year pre-existing surfing injury.
His ex-wife and I have have compared notes and will go together to take him down. It’s so close now that I can almost taste it….
Aussie-that really sucks. He’s a POS. Hopefully you’ll get to take him down soon.
Hi nolarn!
I know – I can’t wait. For 3 years I just never wanted to see him again, but then a year ago, he sued me over a property settlement deal that we had already done privately, out of court 4 years back. I was so determined to live the rest of my life without ever having to deal with him again, but he has given me no choice now but to fight to defend my home, or have him take it away with his lies.
BTW – I have found websites with the legislation applicable to your job (I emailed someone in Louisana for the info and they just got back to me).
I will now attempt to copy and paste them here for you. (If my post ends here, then we will know that I am an absolute techological failure…) 🙂
http://www.lsna.org/legislative-links.html
http://www.lawserver.com/law/state/louisiana/la-laws/louisiana_revised_statutes_title_23
http://www.employmentlawhandbook.net.au/2010393/dismiss.html?gclid=CJmPwM6AvqcCFQXybwodHUOT_g
Okay – if that worked, all of the information you need to research whether or not you have a case against your stinky former employers should be available through these sites. I think that the handbook is worth getting a hold of, because it tells EMPLOYERS what they HAVE to do when they terminate someone WITHOUT being able to be sued by the employee. So, if yours didn’t do all of the things listed in their “checklist”, you probably have a case.
Anyhow, see what you think.
Aussie-thanks very much. I’ll look at those. I am trying to get an attorney. I contacted one here that I think will be good but she hasn’t returned my email yet. But, it is Mardi Gras and everyone basically shuts down. I’m sure I won’t hear from her until Wednesday. It’s sick that I’m running out of money and hoping I don’t lose everything. I don’t know how they can get away with what they did-especially relating to the slander accusation involving workplace violence. They have made it impossible for me to get a job. Getting fired in nursing is like a dishonorable discharge from the military. They also are refusing to give me a copy of my performance evaluation from January, which was good, btw. It showed no indication that my job was in any kind of jeopardy. I signed it and wasn’t given a copy and that’s against the law-especially since some of the jobs I’m interested in are asking for it as part of the employment application. They are preventing me from making a living and trying to deny my unemployment as well
nolarn –
You are absolutely right that refusing you a copy of your evaluation is against the law. I did a little reading through some of the stuff that I sent you and I distinctly remember reading something about that issue.
In my experience, if you can do a lot of your own research and identify all of the ways (because in your case, there will DEFINITELY be more than one) they have screwed you over illegally, you can type it all up into a summary of your complaints against the employer. This will save you $$$$ paying the attorney to do the same research. Naturally, if the attorney is aware (and they SHOULD BE!!) of any OTHER laws they have violated, then they will let you know about those as well.
My source in Louisiana has said that other than “Louisiana Revised Statute title 23”, your labor laws are mostly federal and apply to every state. I have not looked up the federal laws yet, but if you type in “Federal Labor Laws USA” (or similar) you should be able to access them.
BTW there are provisions under Title 23 of the Lou. revised statutes for warnings to be issued about particular “offences” prior to dismissal by an employer. You got none of these, so already they are in trouble.
Unfortunately, the state discrimination and harrassments laws specify only the things like race, gender, religion, age etc – nothing about being unfairly targeted otherwise. I would imagine that this scenario would be covered by federal law, as it is here in Australia.
Aussie,
I can’t wait til you take him down. Score one for the good side!
I also did all the wood chopping and maintenance and even some remodeling because the spath couldn’t be bothered. My hands were permanently swollen for years. And the spath didn’t even have to fake sickness. I did it anyway.
Then one day he decided to say his back was injured. He layed around moaning. I didn’t NOT believe him but I noticed that he would use any excuse to demand money. So he demanded money for a chiropracter, I said no. Then he saw this infomercial for some gadget the will cure your back problems for 3 low, low payments of $29.95! He was getting ready to demand money for it, I could tell. So I said, “Let me be a subsitute for that gadget, I can do what it does.” So I told him to lay back with his feet up. Then I sat in front of his butt with my back toward him and he put his calves on my shoulders. My job was to grab his ankles and bend forward in little rocking motions like doing crunches. This is one fat man and he’s heavy. I had to really use my abdominal muscles. I asked him, “am I doing it right, is it helping?” He said, “yes”. I replied, “good because it’s really great exercise for me too, I’m going to have rock hard abs and you’re going to get well.”
After a few more seconds he said, “I’m better now, you don’t have to do it anymore.” LOL.
He loved to see me suffer, but not if I was going to benefit from it. THEY CAN’T STAND TO SEE US GAIN ANYTHING. Their ENVY is all encompassing.
Aussie-that sounds great. I will definitely get into that. I appreciate it. I would think that I would have a case regarding the firearm issue. They made a false allegation about me saying that I was going to bring my gun to work and shoot everyone. It was assumed that the whole thing was made up to fuck with my head. They tried to pin it on this one guy for starting the “rumor” but he denied that he said anything like that at all. I had a police report made on the issue. The police department was not told anything about the “allegation” from management or HR-only from me. The police chief said that it was handled completely wrong because they should have been notified before I was told about it. He also agreed that an officer should have been present when I was questioned about it-not me alone with this supervisor who wanted to get rid of me. Then when they knew that I made the complaint and refused to drop the issue, I think they were afraid, knowing that I would go to great lengths to prove my innocence on something that serious that was an assault on my character and good name. When they decided to drop the issue, I was told that no one was to ever speak of it ever again. By doing that, they denied me the chance to file a grievance. I didn’t know that I had a right to do that and that I only had 7 days to do so.