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.
What also scares the cr@p out of me is my ex’es gay male cousin, who might still teach transcendental meditation in any number of cities in the US, Canada, or anywhere else in the world. I think on one of his websites..possibly previous, possibly current, one link on it said how he did some work with children of alcoholics (SOME OF THE MOST VULNERABLE OF CHILDREN!) I profiled him on the Net, too. I had some excellent profiles posted, previously, on the dontdatethisguy web site, but that web site has since been down (defunct? wonder what happened to it?) My idea in profiling his cousin, was, that if that gay male cousin did what my ex told me he did, what is to prevent him from doing same to other children??? Not that I think my ex was a pedophile, but he DEFINITELY, more or less told me that his niece told him that his father was a pedophile. What goes through my mind, again and again, was how my ex wanted to schedule an appointment with a nearby nursery school, so he could give away posters about rocks/minerals, possibly give a little speech “for the kids” (that didn’t happen..still..), and I recalled how, twice, I recalled he had these two young boys, looked to be under age 10, help him rake leaves in our yard, and I know my ex had to go into the “dark” garage, to get that tarp out..possibly asked those young boys for help doing so. OK, ya’ll might be thinking..what I’ve described is merely “good citizen” or “Big Brother” activity, but, I cannot help but wonder if he didn’t have more “deep dark secrets” than just his [I have to say “alleged” just to be safe] down-low activities [advertised himself as bi seeking bi, to “j/o”, etc, & advertised as much on a swingers’ site, revealed [I kept hard copies of that ad, plus more proof.] Understand? He also gave me this creepy feeling, across the years, that he worried if he would turn out like dear old dad, with all of his dad’s [again, I have to say “alleged”] monsters..hidden demons.
At one point, on that dontdatethisguy web site, I had a profile of my ex with those two young boys, holding rakes, in front of our home (same town where Lorena Bobbitt cut off her hubby’s thingy, was where we lived), and my profile stated “If these are your sons and you lived in or near the street of ****, and if your sons ever told you they felt ‘icky’ around this man, please contact me. I would like to talk with you, if so.”
Suddenly..it must have been under a couple of months, after I posted that profile, the dontdatethisguy web site was inoperable! Just seems strange to me.
I mean.. he told me how he wanted to give away rock samples from his rock shop, plus posters about minerals, to that nursery school just down the street from us. That conversation only came back to my memory after all was done with us, and after he FINALLY told me that, indeed, in his youth (I assume, during his teens or early twenties), he would meet gay men in theaters, public bathrooms & other places for sex, when, for more than EIGHT YEARS, whenever I asked “are you bisexual?” he would answer, “I don’t think so.” WHAT A DAMNED FRAUD! Adding to what I learned from him, his first wife & I, .. probably around six years later, talked at length, on the phone. She told me that not only did he have sex with their neighbor’s wife, but TWO of her gay male friends said they had had sex with him. You do the math.
I figured he probably thought, after my discoveries, he’d better leave town. I was totally in tears. I knew many of his business associates..jewelers, silversmiths, antique dealers.. One day, after discovering his ad for bi sex on that swingers’ site, I printed out copies. I went round to those business associates of his, who I’d met, again & again, because I helped shore up his failing business (2nd shop..like a postage stamp size) in the end, while he was going bankrupt. I worked there for NO PAY, between my high-paying contract assignments, in my own field. I showed them what I had found. One of those biz associates was a music store owner who moved to another location, in same city. My ex may have possibly tried to get hired as a guitar instructor (possibly to kids, too.) Man oh man, now it all seems like I was obsessed with outing him, but, I felt at that time, if I could save ONE woman or ONE child from any more pain from him, I would do so, whether or not I looked like a rabid dog with a bone who would not let go.
“Livid” was an understated adjective for how I felt. I felt as if I was riding on the back of the Hindu Goddesses Kali and Saraswati (not sure of spelling..the latter is the goddess of the Arts, sister of Ganesh)
I just recalled, all those years..all 8.5 of them, how, each time I saw his adopted son, at most family events, his son’s expressions always looked dour. His son seldom smiled. In all those years, I can recall only once or twice that son ever giving any presents (Christmas or Birthday) to his father. I did my best to help mentor the son. I took him to get his driver’s license when his parents apparently couldn’t or had no time to do so. I gave him a guitar lesson. I gave him a present now and then. Several times, he came to my home, to B-day celebs, where he ate. So, I think I never made him feel, overall, “unwelcome”, though, I was worried, since I heard from his half-sister & others, when I first lived with my ex, that the son was into drugs (starting BEFORE my ex ever dated me), so, being worried that I would be the (quasi?) stepmother, where the daughter would stay with us, almost every other weekend, for 8.5 years, I worried for her welfare. I allowed her to have a teen birthday party (not sure if it was her 16th or 17th) and invite whatever friends she wanted to our home. She invited one boy (handsome boy) that had this eery “stare”. Not too many weeks/months later, THAT SAME MALE, her former party guest, MURDERED A GIRL IN OUR CITY! I continue to try to protect my ex’s daughter, even after her father left me. That felon (murderer) wrote a letter to the daughter, that arrived at our home. I wrote, on the envelope, “No Such Addressee Lives Here”, and put it back in the mailbox.
Now..can you understand, all that I went through?
After years of his daughter & I hugging, gifts exchanged between the two of us, after I remembered when he first dated me, when I had my own apartment with a pool, his 10-year old daughter playing in the pool, swimming under my legs. A decade later, I curled her hair for some high school dance, loaned to her girlfriend, who spent the night, my fishnet hose (which I don’t think I ever got back), after he left…..probably within a month later, I got this “hate” letter from her, in reply to a letter I’d sent her, about how I wished her well in her life (by now, she was over age 18..old enough to be told some truths about her father, I think, including about his porn collection at our home, and about his “side” “bi” activities. He left me not long after she was no longer a minor, after that “7-year period” I heard about when many who file bankruptcies can finally apply for a new credit card) .. she returned my letter with a letter of her own, casting me as a “worthless piece of skin” (RIGHT. When, for all those years, I’d paid half the rent/utilities, for the ROOF OVER HER HEAD, in HER OWN ROOM, every other weekend, just about, for 8.5 years), telling me, more or less, how she thought being bisexual was “normal” (or that she thought her father’s being bi was normal..not sure how to interpret that one)..
Mine is a very painful story, considering that the first five years I lived with her father, I COULD have still born children..my final years for childbearing (ok, it might have taken some fertility treatments, but, nevertheless..), but I more or less “forsook” my biological parenthood to help raise or mentor his daughter, only to be dealt the blows she dealt. I now console myself with true biographies of women like the former wife of Eric Clapton (Boyd is the last name), who were left barren (allegedly) by the “choices” of their former spouses, even though they verily wanted children of their own.
My brothers..two of them..have beautiful sons (hey..they could’ve modeled for LL Bean, if you know what I mean), smart, handsome. Now, I must be content to be the “generous auntie”…
..and the Godmother to my best friend’s son..probably the benefactor to her two daughters. I am resigned that that is the “lot” in my life, as far as mentoring children. At least I have THAT to which to look forward, and we all must have that, at least. Right?
.
Zim,
Based on your description, your ex sounds like a character of almost unbelievable vileness. I understand the desire to “figure people out” – I’m the same way myself; but in this case it seems to me that there is just so much toxicity that one doesn’t even know where to begin: alcoholism, sex-addiction, pathologic lying, bullying, scapegoating, cheating, violence, self-loathing (he probably has a point there!), a likely sexual abuser of children himself – not to speak of the fifty or so other charming qualities that you listed!
Well, Zim, like I said, there is a fascination in trying to unravel such enigmas. However, by your own admission, he is a pathological liar, so again, I don’t see how you can selectively believe this or that aspect of his story. However, based on his father’s characteristics (who probably passed some bad genes to the son), he (i.e, your ex) might very well have been the one who abused his cousin (or perhaps it was a mutual affair?) And was the sexual confusion the cause or the result of the encounter (assuming it even happened, that is.) But who knows? That’s the problem with pathological liars – there’s no “getting to the bottom of things”, because there is no bottom: It’s a falsehood hidden behind a lie, wrapped in a deception! So as far as I’m concerned, it’s a fool’s errand to even make the attempt. At any rate, I’ve never met the man, so it’s almost impossible to say what constitutes the “root disorder” in his remarkably disordered personality.
Oh, and by the way, if he was actually in therapy (rather than just lying about being in therapy – many S.’s lie about that when it serves their purposes), I would suggest that that is rather out of character for a sociopath. Unless it’s court ordered, it’s almost unheard of for an S. to voluntarily seek out a therapist – because in their minds there is nothing wrong with them!
I guess the best answer I can give is that you could likely approach his “disfunctionality” from a hundred different angles and never come up with a single root cause. In a sense, everything seems to be feeding off of everything else by turns – the final result being a chain reaction of general human repulsiveness! Beyond that I don’t think there is much else one can surmise without closer observation. (And I think this is about as close as I ever wish to be to such a character! – haha)
If nothing else, Zim, I’m glad you finally got out of that mess! And don’t dwell too much on the spiteful daughter. With an upbringing like that, it’s hard to imagine how she could have turned out otherwise.
Best of luck.
C.