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.
I saw the header on this article and started laughing!!!
Yah: dumb like a fox…..
spaths who are forced into treatment only tell what they want to tell. Their vivid and overwhelming acting ability gets them through everything. Don’t let it fool you. Even if they are IN treatment, they will play the game for whatever they need to get from it. Dupe the professionals as well as everyone else along the way.
THEY JUST NEVER CHANGE.
Right on, Oxy! Clean house, dress up, you do it for yourself! It’s nice to show it off once in a while, true… but the best feeling is having the house looking like a hotel suite for yourself to holiday in!
My accidental visitors the past week have commented that my appartment does look tidy (well tidier). And then I proudly say, YUP, and it looks like that EVERY DAY, MORE AND MORE. Last week, I had my place lit with candles EVERY night now… including the bedroom and bathroom… just for MYSELF to enjoy! Totally LOVE IT!
That was why the entitled-feeling jerk who thought to suck up to my friend by comparing us and downplaying me backfired. As if any grown woman was just waiting to be talked down by a self-important guy about her hair and dress style and how much cleavage she shows or not, while he was an already balding fat oaf at 27.
Stargazer, I hope you enjoyed your clean an romantic lit house anyway!
I guess I should be more careful about my choice of words. 🙂 Everyone is thinking that I don’t feel I deserve a fire in the fireplace. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I pamper myself frequently. When it’s just me, I also wear my very soft robe and curl up with a snake or a cat and a good book. I take long baths every day, and lounge around in my clean home on the weekends enjoying the beauty and the orderliness (I’m a Libra – we thrive on that). I take myself out to lunches and dinners. And I cook healthy food for myself. Somehow being hit on the head with a skillet seems a little violent at the moment. No offense. I lounged around my house all weekend and really wanted to share the ambience with someone else last night. I would not, for instance, have made bread for myself because I don’t eat bread.
Dear Star,
Well, good for you!!!! The things we do we must do for OURSELVES! That was a hard lesson for me to learn! Putting myself FIRST in my life! Speaking of which, I need to go clean my own house as I have PLAYED all weekend and not done anything to keep up! LOL
One of my friends keeps her house so clean it is almost pathological! You could SAFELY eat out of her toilets! LOL She has tons of trees in her yard just like I do, and she is out there EVERY DAY rakiing leaves and as one falls she is there to catch it! My lawn/yard is totally covered with a carpet of leaves and there are many many more still just barely hanging on the limbs so the rain that is coming to Hens today and will be over us tomorrow will shake them all loose and put them on the ground, where in my yard they will decompose over the winter to feed the earth! I can’t read my friend’s mind, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she thought I was a lazy yard keeper to not rake my leaves….but you know, it doesn’t matter if she did think that…with or without her saying it…because I happen to LIKE my yard “natural” and that was one reason we moved back here inside the woods, so that I didn’t have to worry about a sodded yard and all that, because Ii love the look of the forest floor (oh, I do pick up the big limbs the trees drop so I don’t trip over them) and the plants I have are ones that I transplanted from the deeper woods, the wild ferns and wild flowers, and the walk way is made of native stones.
So each of us must make our environment how WE are comfortable with it, and not apologize to anyone for OUR ENVIRONMENT. It is our space….if they aren’t comfortable there, then they can LEAVE! TOWANDA!!!!
I read somewhere the smell of cinnoman or cookie’s baking is a turn on for men…
Oxy, I envy how close you live to nature. Your environment sounds absolutely charming and peaceful. I can’t imagine anyone judging you for having leaves on the ground!
Sometimes cleaning is a chore for me. I have to keep my home clean for my massage clients. But this weekend, I really got into it. I had all kinds of energy and did all my filing from the past year, pulled out my winter clothes, cleaned all the crap out of all my purses (I have about 10), cleaned my oven – it felt really really good to do it. I got it all completely done, and now I’m free today to go take a walk. I don’t ever worry about people judging whether my place is clean or dirty, except for my massage clients. I want them to come to a clean house, because part of what they are paying for is relaxation. Some people find it hard to relax in a dirty messy house. Other than that, I clean for myself. I love the way a clean house looks and feels.
Hens, I read that once too, that it triggers their nesting instinct. Oh well, that didn’t work out too well, did it? 🙂 It sure smelled good while it was baking.
Dear Star, I’m glad that you do your cleaning for yourself not for someone else’s opinion, and since where you do your massages is a “business” environment, you do have to care about how they perceive your place and I understand that.
When I lived in towns I kept my lawn and yard consistent with the neighborhood environment for grass clipping, edging, flowers and shrubs, but here in the woods, my yard (it really doesn’t qualify as a “lawn,” as grass is very sparse under the dense shade, is very “natural” and most of the plants are ones that either are native or resemble the native plants, and I used 50 year old cedar fence posts for “ground timbers” instead of “treated wood” which is toxic, and my front porch floor is made of huge flat stones laid on the ground, and my chairs are bent willow made locally in a pattern that has been used for hundreds of years to put together the rustic, but quite comfortable chairs.
I seldom spend the night in town any more since my trip to texas last year to visit my now-X “best friend” because the constant sound of car doors, and cars starting, honking, etc. is totally foreign to me now and it is difficult for me to relax with those unfamiliar sounds. They don’t seem to bother me so much in the day time if I go to a large town for shopping or for visiting friends, but at night when there is no conversation or company to distract me, I hear them even with my “deaf as a post” hearing deficit.
I really hope I am able to stay here on this farm for the rest of my life, it is a “perfect” place for me, but at the same time, I realize if my son Patrick gets out of prison and has money and support from my egg donor, I am in danger and will have to leave here, or realize that Either he will kill me or I will have to kill him in self defense. Four years ago when I realized that the Trojan Horse psychopath’s “mission” was to off me before my egg donor died so a provision of our family trust would have kicked in and Patrick would have inherited something, whereas if she had died first, he would have been SOL (sheet out of luck) as far as inheriting anything was concerned. of coarse like all psychopaths, everything you have belongs to them! He couldn’t stand the thought of me disinheriting him, and I had been SO UNWISE to tell him that I intended to disinherit him, and he knew the provisions of the trust, so decided to go around the trust by having me knocked off before she died, so the provisions of the trust would have given him half the trust ONLY IN THAT CASE.
If I do per chance outlive my egg donor, he of course won’t get anything from me or the trust, BUT egg donor has made provision for him and unfortunately about 22-25 years is the MOST people get in prison now for a single, though pre-planned and cold blooded murder, and since he was arrested in 1992, you can do the math…there is a chance he will get out in 2013, and a GOOD chance he will get out before 2017. Though looking at those numbers they seem “far away” in reality they are NOT far away at all….this is already 2011, so at most I can count on another 6 years before he gets out unless he gets unlucky and his cell mate “Bubba” shoves a shank in his gut for some perceived insult.
While I “love” my home and my funky natural yard and the peace and quiet back here in the woods, I also know that this is NOT THE ONLY PLACE IN THE WORLD that I can be peaceful and content. I was WAY TOO ATTACHED to something “material” (this particular piece of property) and you know, there is NOTHING MATERIAL in this world that we think we “own” that can’t be lost to one event or another. There is also no person that we love that can’t be lost—either through death or some other event. So in the end, Star, all we have for sure is OURSELVES, and our own happiness and peace within ourselves.
That thought used to scare me stoopid, but I’ve come to terms with it now. Dr. Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning” was the first thing that turned me toward realizing those things and not “losing it” in fear and anxiety about losing the things and people that were precious to me. I realize now that I’m all I truly have…that and my faith. But THAT’S ENOUGH. (((hugs))))
I wonder if higher IQ makes a sociopath more dangerous… or if the manipulativeness of a sociopath can be just as dangerous and effective, even if the sociopath is not “off the chart”.
My sociopath was intelligent, but didn’t finish high school or go to college. He did however learn auto-cad and introduce himself as an architect. He even managed to work for some well-known arcitecture firms in California and Colorado.
I mean, that’s a pretty amazing feat, but a sociopath’s confidence gets them a long ways… even if their lies are dumb.
I don’t think it’s the IQ… it’s the charm, the masking and having the gall to pose as something that will eventuall come out that makes them dangerous imo. The word salad though I expect to be more challenging, as well as the argument twisting