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.
Dear LL, and Eva,
Thanks for the hug, the sad spell didn’t last long…a woman on face book that i don’t know (she’s a friend of a minister friend of mine I was chatting with) and she comes on with this snarky thing about “abuse is not the same as violence” that physical violence is much worse than verbal and I about LOST IT. I answered back and darn near flamed her (nicely of course I say as I sharpen my cat claws) Heee hee that verbal and emotional abuse not only kills the spirit and the soul but causes stress that is DEADLY and much harder to heal than a broken leg. I got like 20 “likes” from that and several “atta girls” comments from folks who work hard against DV that the minister and I correspond about! so anyway, I let that snarky witch make me sad and trigger me and then I thought about his BD being today and I just went into a weepy fit! I got up and went for a walk outside though and it was a BEAUTIFUL day here, perfect spring weather, and I even moved my duck’s rolling pen so they could have some spring weeds to eat and they were ever so happy to munch away. Since there aren’t many green weeds yet, I’ll go move them again here before dark so they will have a nice supply until I get out there in the morning. My rolling duck pen is really cool, has a built in water tub and feeder tub and no bottom, and wheels on the back, but a solid top over half of it, open air wire on the other top, and a shade around half the bottom which is about knee high and the solid top opens up to put in food water and pick up eggs and they are protected from predators —dogs, foxes, skunks, coons and possoms and hawks, and They are happy and I get enough eggs to keep me and son D running over with extra eggs from only 4 ducks (they are an egg laying variety and most ducks don’t lay many eggs a year, these lay more than a chicken, but they don’t sit and hatch any, that’s been bred out of them)
Dear Witty,
Thank you, we posted over each other… Ah yes, my son’s perspective exactly, everyone else was “boring” and he was going to live ADVENTURE and success not boring and hum drum like going to college or getting a great job or buying a great car, he wanted to be like that pedophile friend of Prince Andrew’s that had the hot and cold running under aged hookers giving him and his friends “massages” all over the world. Yea, that is the life style my son decided he could have by stealing I guess….not sure, I don’t think he ever made enough money peddling drugs or stealing to even buy a good suit much less live that kind of life style, but he wasn’t trying to impress the Duke of York after all, just his “friends” that he had met in jail or prison…just the scum of the earth that he ran around with but FELT SUPERIOR TO. LOL
Yea, I’m doing fine, it was just a “blip on the radar” nothing serious or long lasting. I think that woman on FB and her snarky comment about violence not being the same as abuse and vice versa…I wanted to biatch slap her—and here I was counseling Claudia the other day about not allowing ourselves to be triggered and CRANKY!!! LOL How about that for ME being a freaking hypocrite???? LOL BOINK OXY!!!!! LOL
When I was doing the spring cleaning a day or so ago (still at it, not done yet!) I found some photos of P son the start of his senior year in HS—and he dropped out before he graduated, he had gotten into a fight at school and had a BIG BLACK EYE and I took some photographs of it I was going to go to the school about it…never did and guess I might not have gotten the right story about what happened anyway, but this was before I knew what was going on with him. He was “Posing” like he was so tough in the pix…I threw them and a bunch of other stuff out, no sense in saving it…I kept two things he did when he was in second grade that were darling and tossed the rest of it. No sense in keeping it all. Kept a few baby and grade school pix of him, but tossed the rest….divided up some pix for son C when and if he ever comes and gets the box of stuff he has over here that he forgot when he left….I’m just sorting through it all and sure nuff down sizing. Fixinig to post a bunch of stuff on craigs list and e bay and take some to the goodwill.
Weighed this morning and I’ve lost 2 more pounds so that’s an upper, so it hasn’t been a total bummer of a day! Still got things to do and did make some progress on the house.
Tomorrow is the TAKE EVERYTHING OUT OF THE KITCHEN CABINETS AND THEN ONLY PUT BACK WHAT YOU **REALLY** USE DAY!
((( Ox )))
I’m SO GLAD you stuck up for those of us (Even if on FB) who have been subjected to emotional/verbal abuse!! I have MANY times felt that being hit upside the head was BETTER than what I endured with last spath. Makes exP look like a PRINCE comparatively. So much emotional/spiritual/sexual damage was done, far more than knowing what was coming at me that I could at LEAST put my hands up in self defense! With spath, I NEVER knew when it was coming. I never felt the anxiety in my marriage the way I felt it in this last relationship.
Ox, I want to share this with you. Your illustrations of your walk on the farm and your ducks is so beautiful! I feel like I was right there with you. I love ducks. LOVE them, other than the football team of course lol….there is just something about ducks that are just so cute! So fun! We lived close to a little duck pond once across the street from a place we use to live. I loved taking my granddaughter over there to feed them. She just SQUEALED with delight! There were geese there too, reminds me of the old bitty’s from the MSN site lol! Flamin one another and attacking people and the ducks to get the scraps of bread tossed at them. One of those old bitty’s went after my granddaughter. Scared the DAYLIGHTS out of her and out of me too! Needless to say, that was the end of THAT pond lol!
It must be just SO COOL to have ducks there on your farm. Where my parents live now, there are two cows (bulls) that are as gentle as gentle can be, along with two horses on the other side of their fence. The neighbor said they could feed them scraps from the house after dinner…apples from the trees my parents have….they are so fun to feed. The fence is long, runs the stretch of their property and we would walk with our apples and sorta “tease” them with it then feed it to them. It was such a great experience for me, them being there, and it’s so quiet at night. No street lights, just silence….
I can imagine your farm in some ways….what a peaceful gift you have there!
I’m so glad that you have that!
LL
Hey all! Prototype for a user-generated-content site is almost ready to go 🙂 Before I post it, does anyone have any ideas for categories (forum titles)?
I’ve found that when a site starts out, it’s best to begin with only a few — too much organization just makes it impossible to see all topics. Here’s what I have so far:
1. Introduction & Stories (for new members to introduce themselves and share their experiences)
2. General Sociopath Discussion (for members to discuss/question/validate their experiences with the sociopath)
3. Recovery & Healing (for members who have accepted what has happened and are ready to begin moving on and living a happy life– the ultimate revenge!)
4. Articles, Resources, and Links (self explanatory)
5. Off-Topic Chit Chat (everything else, to get to know each other)
Anything else you all would like to see?? I’m also working on a universal blogroll to make easy access to other sites like LF and PsychopathyAwareness!
Ox, yes those peoples that say emotional abuse is not a total aggression that leaves very serios scars are imbecile or hypocrite or insensitive or maybe they’ve been lucky enough not to have endured emotional abuse ever. Whatever the reason they’re unfortunately common.
New Winter, you’re a miracle worker! I’m very impressed you were able to get the prototype done so fast. My only suggestion was that the posts themselves be moderated/be held to some standards of quality, as they are here on lovefraud, or on The Huffington Post. I think people will trust more psychology information that is held to some standards in the field. But I don’t know if you want to do that if you prefer a website that’s completely open and unregulated, where anyone can post anything. It’s up to you.
New Winter – I like your ideas. I have often wished LoveFraud had a chit chat thread where we dont step on somebodys toes or comments . A few of us simply like the company at time’s and want to discuss our daily event’s. Some of us can get loud and act like seventh grader’s at time’s, so the chit chat thread could be erased or deleted once it reached so many comments, kinda like refresh the thread. Depending on the thread subject and catagory user’s can read and comment on that thread subject, offer support and welcome newbies.
My 2 cents for what it is worth is that there are plenty of “healing” sites out there already on the subjects of psychopathy, but whatever site you have if it is not moderated you will have flamers who push the limits….so if you are going to have one, I strongly suggest that you have some “rules” about conduct and someone to sort of monitor the posts—I wouldn’t have the posts have to be read before posting, but I’d have a “report abuse” button and some one person or group of people who were moderators and who could agree on what the rules were.
There are people who post here every once in a while selling stuff putting in links to sales sites, nut jobs and hate mongers and people preaching “hell fire and brimstone” and so on.
Not trying to be a downer but building a site as good as LF is gonna be a big job and lots of work.
A site about sociopathy as good as this one in Spanish language would be very useful. There are none, except one that it is just barely decent.
New Winter, I agree one hundred percent with Oxy! Without any moderation whatsoever, in terms of quality of posts and in terms of some limits to the comments, you can easily end up with a zoo of spammers, jokers and flamers.
But you can still have the user-generated website you’re envisioning, with all the features you mention, and include some limits too. For any kind of quality control or limits though, you’ll need trustworthy moderation (like the Wikipedia and The Huffington Post have).