I do much couples therapy, and occasionally have had the interesting, if disconcerting, experience where one of the partners is a sociopath, or has significant sociopathic tendencies.
Unsurprisingly, it is always the nonsociopathic partner who is occasionally successful in dragging his or her sociopathic counterpart to counseling. The sociopathic partner, just as predictably, will have no collaborative interest in the relationship’s improvement. However, he or she may be sufficiently selfishly and manipulatively motivated to attend.
For instance, the relationship may offer conveniences the sociopathic partner does not want to see end. The nonsociopathic partner may have reached wit’s end and may really be prepared to end the relationship, arousing the sociopathic partner’s concerns that the gravy-train, as it were, may be over.
This can be the sociopath’s inducement to try to “patch things up with,” to “settle down” the nonsociopathic partner, in order to salvage the perks of the relationship. (The quoted phrases are meant to capture the sociopath’s condescending, self-serving thinking.)
The couples therapy environment provides little cover for the sociopath who, for this reason, will prefer generally to avoid it. The reason that sociopaths fare so poorly in disguising their sociopathy in a couples therapy situation is that, facing an aggrieved partner, the sociopath will struggle, and often fail, to produce responses of convincing sincerity and depth.
In other words, the sociopath’s fundamental defects of empathy and sincerity, in the emotional hotseat of couples counseling, are at risk of being flagrantly unmasked—sooner, typically, than in individual (court-mandated) counseling, where the sociopath, safe from the spontaneous challenges and disclosures of his or her abused partner, can more effectively misrepresent and deceive.
Couples counseling is inadvisable when a partner is a suspected sociopath for several reasons. Among them:
1) The therapist does not want to enable the belief (especially the nonsociopathic partner’s belief) that a nonabusive, honest relationship can possibly evolve with a sociopathic partner.
2) It is inherently humiliating for the nonsociopathic partner to make him or herself vulnerable to a partner whose only capable response to that vulnerability is exploitative. The therapist does not want to collude in this process.
3) There is the risk that the sociopathic partner, who is probably blaming and possibly vengeful, will use his or her partner’s complaints during the session as a basis, after the session, to punish him or her for having had the audacity to expose him or her.
This risk, incidentally, applies to any abusive individual in couples therapy. Narcissists’ abusiveness in this situation will arise most likely from their sense of entitlement—for instance that their partners owe it to them to always make them look, and feel, good (in private and public).
For sociopaths, exposure may be experienced as a sort of defeat: their mask is uncovered; their leverage as an operator—and with it their parasitical lifestyle—is threatened. Their game may be over. They may be mad.
One accidental benefit of stumbling upon a sociopath in couples therapy is the chance it affords the therapist (who recognizes it) to be a professional (and desperately needed) witness for the nonsociopathic partner.
The therapist may be in a position to provide the vulnerable partner, in subsequent individual sessions (after the couples counseling has been appropriately terminated), critical validation, information, and lifesaving support.
All of this presupposes the therapist’s ability to identify the sociopathic partner. When the couples therapist fails to identify that he or she is dealing with a couple in which one of the partners is sociopathic, the ensuing counseling process will undermine all of the nonsociopathic partner’s interests.
In failing to expose the sociopath, the counseling, by definition, will be abetting the sociopath. It will be structured on the false pretense that two reasonable clients are having problems with each other that they’ve co-created, which will not be the case. This false assumption will support the unequal, exploitative playing-field the sociopath has sewn all along.
For this reason—especially if your self-esteem has been battered in a relationship—I encourage you to explore assertively with a prospective therapist the extent of his or her experience with narcissistic and sociopathic personalities. Your inquiry should be met with absolute respect. A defensive response should rule the therapist out, as should vague, general responses, along the lines of, “Well, yes, I’ve worked with these kinds of clients. Is that what you’re asking?”
The answer is “no.” That’s not what you are asking. You are asking for a more substantive response, characterized by the therapist’s interest and patience to discuss in some depth his or her clinical background with the personality-disordered population.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2008 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Thanks Oxy and Stargazer,
Oxy, have fun this weekend! Stargazer, thank you for your comments. I have been let down by therapists too. I don’t deny there are bad one’s out there. The one I saw when first diagnosed with PTSD was not so great. But he was nothing compared to other horror stories I’ve heard. I have heard of others who didn’t keep very professional boundaries, who made it more about them than their clients. Yeah, I’ve heard a lot. It’s sad.
I understand what WB was essentially saying. But I still found some of their statements offensive. Whether WB intended to hurt my feeling they did. And at this point I am sad. If I didn’t like nurses and knew someone was a nurse by profession I would understand if they were insulted at my take on things. I would read what they had to say. I would even apologize hearing if I hurt their feelings which doesn’t mean that I’d changed how I felt. I suppose I should apologize to WB for offending them as well. However, they wouldn’t read my post I suppose.
Did I not point out what hurt my feelings and what I found offensive but agree to most of what WB wrote in that post? But, WB, doesn’t have to read my post. Afterall, I’m just sleep deprived right. Bet I wake up tomorrow and still feel the same way :)). I’m not emotionally in a bad way despite the rants or the details of my experience. Or being triggered. There’s a reason it triggered me. I didn’t like it LOL. They don’t have to like what I wrote either. But despite was some may think, I have a right to my opinion. The fact is if someone’s gonna post what they don’t like and make such statements as if fact then they need to be able to handle a response.
I just love how it must be me. Oh, yes, it must be me. How absolutely invalidating can one get? But thank you Stargazer for sharing with me. I do appreciate it :))
In my coaching practice, which is largely about effective communications, I’ve found it useful to educate people about “sociopathic interactions.” From a practical perspective of helping my clients deal with daily challenges, in work and personal relationships, it seems to help them with self-defense and also getting satisfactory results from an interaction, if that’s possible.
A sociopathic interaction, as I define it, is one in which one party wants to dominate the other person, weakening or obliterating his or her boundaries and sense of self. And I suggest that my client use a “follow the money” type of thinking. Who gets something out of this? Who loses? And if you are the loser, how critical is that loss to your sense of control over your own ideas, ethics, plans and integrity?
In these interactions, the dominator typically exploits “soft spots” in a person’s relationship with herself. (Most of my clients are women.) These are areas where she has internal arguments with concepts, feelings or imperatives that make her feel inadequate or less than she should be. Not sure if you’re attractive? Not sure if you’re accomplishing what you should be at your age? Not sure you’re work is acceptable? Not sure you’re a good person? Not sure if you’re really lovable. These are entry points for a clever dominator, who will offer “solutions” in exchange for you agreeing to abandon your own reality in favor of a “better” or “more useful” one.
As I am in a consulting mode with these clients, and they have come to me to expand their horizons and teach them new skills, it’s interesting for us to explore how our relationship is different from this description of a sociopath interaction. In a lot of ways, it’s the same. The relationship with any teacher or guide involves opening yourself to other realities with the goal of meaningful change in your life. So how is this different?
All learning relationships involve trust and vulnerability. The test of whether this is healthy at any given moment is how it makes you feel. Learning can be uncomfortable by it’s nature. Absorbing anything new requires a reordering that is often both intellectual and emotional. Discomfort alone is not enough reason to think it is unhealthy. But when that discomfort includes a sense of being disrespected, of lack of interest in who you are or how you feel, that’s a very good warning signal. And I find that, no matter how beaten down a client may feel about a situation or guilty about her part in it, the desire to be respected never goes away.
The opposite of sociopathic interactions are ones in which both parties are clearly aware that they are equally real as separate human beings, and equally deserving of maintaining their own realities. Statements like “this doesn’t work for me” or “I had something else in mind” can test the quality of the interaction. If those statements elicit a personal attack, rather than an exploration of why the feelings exist or what would work to relieve them, it’s pretty clear that one person is attempting to dominate in ways that are designed to loosen the other person’s grip on her own identity.
Nobody’s perfectly angelic. Most of us are socialized to be codependent or have issues that cause us to want to do a little manipulation of another person’s reality, In these discussions, people may recognize that their communications can be sociopathic as well. I tell them that you can flip over any sweetly adaptive codependent and find ruthless sociopathic tendencies. If safety or love is our drug of choice, then we’re going to behave like addicts. Which is, pretty much by definition, behaving like a sociopath, because we use our relationships to get what we want, caring only enough about the other person to make sure they want to give it to us. It’s more socially acceptable to hijack someone else’s reality in the name of love than it is to get them to lend you money for a drug fix, but if we don’t really care about what they want how or it diminishes their ability to make their own choices, as long as we get our fix, then there’s not much difference.
I’ve written here before about non-violent communication (www.cnvc.org) and how it tends to straighten out these kinks in communications. The premise of NVC is that we can easily develop respectful and mutually successful relationships if we are willing to recognize each other’s needs. Human needs are common — things like the need for appreciation, understanding, support, personal achievement, community, safety. When we find out how to express these things to each other — and NVC provides a discipline for doing that — we can easily get to the reasons for conflict and ways to get both persons’ needs met.
Sociopathic interactions are not like that. Either there is no interest in needs that don’t relate to the dominator’s objectives, or certain needs are magnified to create the illusion of weakness, or the dominator will analyze and judge and create great structures of theory and opinion about the other person, all designed to establish their “authority” in questions of what’s real. In the opposite of sociopathic interactions, people don’t analyze, judge, give opinion or try to fix the other person. They listen, check to see if they understand the other person, want to support the other person in articulating their feelings and the needs behind them. Because understanding each other is a prerequisite to anything else happening that is authentic, truly shared, and mutually productive.
This is basic communication theory, but it’s also a fundamental skill in taking care of ourselves. Paying attention and respect. Walking in your own shoes and understanding that other people walk in theirs. That kind of respect toward yourself and others is the cornerstone of love that comes from appreciation and celebration of another person’s presence.
Again, the difference between that and sociopathic communication is quite clear. Because the sociopathic communication is not interested in the other person, but what the other person can give. The real objective, the thing that is sought or valued, is always something other than you. And most of us can feel that, if not right away when we’re being recruited with charm and promises, relatively quickly when we discover that what the other person really wants is something we can do for him or her. The relationship, per se, has no intrinsic value. It’s just a tool to provide something else, and when that something else is given, the reason for the relationship is over.
I read a novel recently that pointed out the US is generating sociopaths at a higher rate than any other country in the world. I believe it, because I think our society is based on unloving principles, judgment and criticism rather than understanding and compassion. What it means to be human is increasingly a function of harsh standards associated with spending capacity and success in power-based systems. We have to work harder to love ourselves for who we are, to be actively compassionate to ourselves and others, and to hold onto our own reality against cultural manipulation of our self-esteem.
Being alert to sociopathic interactions — our own as well as other people’s — is part of the path to becoming emotionally independent, reducing needs-driven behavior, and learning to expect and foster mutual respect.
I started this, as usual, long piece in response to Steve’s very interesting post. And the questions it raised in my own mind about how you recognize a sociopathic partner, if you can only talk to the other person. When I was dealing with a sociopath in my own life, I went through a few therapists, all of whom saw that I was dealing dysfunctionally with relationships, but none of whom realized that my self-esteem and internal coherence was being manipulated by someone who viewed me as a means to his personal ends.
Looking back, I know that I was uncertain about myself and my perceptions, uncentered. These therapists were responding to what I said was wrong. That the relationship wasn’t working. That I was hurt and confused. But what not one of them grasped was that I was being targeted. That whatever weaknesses I had, and I had many at that point, there was something outside me that was just as important to my situation as what was going on inside of me. If I had come in with a cast on my leg, or a fire report about my house burning down, they would have understood that I was dealing with a real-life trauma. But my reporting about my relationship issues didn’t communicate clearly enough that I was dealing with a source of trauma that wasn’t all in my own head.
That was why I developed this effort to teach people to recognize sociopathic interactions. Whether or not you’re actually dealing with a sociopath is less important, in my mind, than whether or not you can get to a satisfactory result in an interaction or a relationship. Dealing on a real-time basis with communications that either do or don’t meet your needs, making a virtue out of staying in your own reality while respecting others, learning that true compassion and connection emerges from healthy self-interest and self-empathy, these are tools that both protect us and enable us to be fully human.
On the flip side of that, we can come to recognize that intensely seductive attraction is most likely related to a “soft spot” in our relationship with ourselves. That the pain of being misunderstood or disrespected or put down in anyway is really important, a big red flashing sign that something is wrong. And the healthiest response is to take our wounds seriously, and care for ourselves. Caring for ourselves involves both self-empathy and recognizing that the trigger for those feelings may not be our friend.
With that perspective, dealing with sociopathic interactions requires one thing. Stop feeling in any way, just for the time it takes to get it concluded. These transaction have their own logic, and it is all logic. Make your choices about what your willing to trade for what they have to offer, if you have to deal with them. Keep your mind on the outcome. Forget about being nice or kind or sweet or getting approval in any way. Remember the other person doesn’t care about you, just what you offer, and do whatever is necessary to get what you want out of the interaction or, if there’s nothing you want, just get away.
These are deals, not relationships. Deals in which the dominators plays basically without rules, except whatever it takes to win. It’s impossible to win in these transactions unless you play the same way, and even then the cost of winning may be more than you want to pay, in terms of behaving like someone you don’t want to be. It’s better to walk away, if you can. Being able to have feelings and compassion makes our everyday life easier and more satisfying. But sometimes we have deal with a sociopathic interaction, especially in work and business. If we understand that we’re basically dealing with a kind of robot eating machine, at least at that moment, it helps to unplug our feelings and keep us focussed on getting through it intact.
At the same time, there is great power is letting go of needing approval. In everyone’s life, there are times when we have to choose results over relationship, when what we want or need is so vital to us that we don’t care what anyone else thinks or wants or feels. At that point, we are being the socipathic side of these interactions. Understanding that we DO that, and why and how we do that is another thing that makes us more sensitive to what’s going on in our communications. It’s okay and necessary sometimes. We make these choices based on our values.
But if we feel the unmistakable signs of being targeted — the outrage of breached boundaries, the sinking feeling of wounded self-esteem, the confused feeling of losing control of our own identities — it’s time to make those choices. Dealing with someone who isn’t motivated by a desire to know you or to develop a relationship with you, and who is interested in using you to get something else, is a good and reasonable trigger for your own sociopathic behavior. Not in the sense of exploiting that person. But in the sense of looking at the person as a means of getting what you want. Which is to hold onto yourself, walk away with your integrity intact, and move on to something more rewarding. Sometimes, I joke to my clients, the universe sends us tests. These interactions are tests of how much we really like ourselves.
Dear Takingmeback,
I am so sorry you got so blindsided by this guy! What a creep. “Lucy” there’ s no way any of us can realize someone is not who they say and present themselves as until we see different. YOu did eventually see what he really was MEAN if nothing else, hateful at the very least, and dysfunctional, and when you did you got out. The fact that you had given him so much, trusted him somuch before you found out the truth is just what happens.
I sure as heck don’t “blame” you for not seeing. You were emotionally “blindfolded” in several ways. I also see that you, like I did, and like many of us did, “excused” the inconsistencies “he was tired” or “He was grieving” etc etc. We try to give the “benefit of the doubt” to people in general and for sure to those that we love.
I know I have made mistakes, I have made judgment errors, I have been irritable, I have etc etc and so I try to give others the “benefit” of the doubt because I know I’m not perfect, but I have been so “giving” that I got to the point I might as well have put “patsy” or “door mat” on my back or forehead and let them tromp all over me.
I’m still a giving and caring person, but I have wiped the “tattoo” of “door mat” or “patsy” off my butt and my forehead! I have drawn strict boundaries on unethical and hateful, abusive, disrespectful behavior. No more “second chances” for some behaviors.
I am working really hard to NOT enable anyone, and also to keeping my boundaries firm. To confront inappropriate behavior in a reasonable and calm manner and protect myself from involvement with anyone with red flags waving.
I have seen the red flags in every P relationship I have ever been in, and in some I didn’t realize they were red flags, or what they meant, NOW I KNOW–and I will respect my instincts, my feelings and my own dignity. My first order of business is my own self. Protecting and nurturing myself. Loving myself, accepting myself. I think if I were ever an “abusive parent” it was TO MYSELF, not my children. I took up where my mother left off, following her plan exactly.
Now I am not only not going to let her abuse me, I will not abuse myself. I don’t intend to let anyone abuse me, or use me any more. I recognize abuse now for what it is. It is nice to live in a P-FREE world, my own little world with only people that I love and that love me, that treat me with the respect I deserve. I think its the first time in my life I’ve been P-FREE. It is a heady feeling.
Now, my son will be waking up after his nap from his long trip and I’m going to go spend some time with him. You guys have a good weekend. I’ll check back in from time to time.
Khatalyst,
Wow…thank you very much for providing more valuable insight, more beneficial instructions on not only recognizing the mechanations of pdis and the preceeding process of dealing with their deceptions so to exclude them from our lives completely, but also the knowledge you suggest in learning better communication in all aspects of our lives in relation to every one we meet and are involved with.
I distinctly remember your last post a couple of months ago as I read it repeatedly. It was so riveting, compelling, brilliant and thought provoking that I consider it a must read for any person who is still reeling from the fallout of loving a predator. And for those of us who have recovered and have healed from the grief, sorrow, and devestation committed against us.
You mentioned in that past comment on how you viewed your x sociopath as if he was in front of a blue screen without you are any other person as part of the scene. He was “performing” to himself and by himself.
You said that it may seem awkward and unnatural, but when I followed suit with the various people who I consider to absolutely be personality disordered, it was astonishing how lucid I became after this most productive practice.
It wasn’t awkward at all for me as pdis totally believe that they are solitary entities unto themselves and that everything they do is considered satisfactory for them and their selfish ego driven desires and twisted logic and reason (or none at all as the case may be).
They are the purveyors of chaos and destruction. Oblivious to the truthful concept that we are ALL connected to one another, to nature, our beautiful planet and it’s critter inhabitants, and to the universe.
That every single act of kindness, compassion reverberates across the cosmos as does every act of evil.
Only the selfish, egocentric acts/deeds of evil wreak total havoc and allow for unnecessary tension, sadness, annihilation, devestation, obliteration to continually harm the ones who wish to be happy, healthy, loving and loved.
And the lovely acts/deeds of kindness, sincere compassion and love create positive, life affirming, harmonious proof of the innate goodness in many people which should never be dismissed and disregarded in this spiritual war we are all participating in now.
God bless, peace…love…and joy. 🙂
Henry,
I’m sorry that I missed your post earlier! You are so not out of line. You should be talking in therapy. Meditations may be taught to help you learn to reduce anxiety on your own, as needed, and to redirect thoughts but it shouldn’t take up the session. At least that’s my opinion. There needs to be time for you to share and process stuff.
I am confused about the self-disclosure with the Oprah thing and being an atheist. Did you ask her or did she just tell ya. Self-disclosure of personal info should not be happening often. It is only used when it’s somehow a benefit to the client. I don’t know how you can benefit from knowing her dreams about being on Oprah. Oh my!
I’m wondering if your psychiatrist can give you a referal to another therapist. As you said, he got it. I know I usually tesuggest that people address their concerns with the current therapist first. But it’s up to you. If you just don’t click, then you don’t. The therapeutic relationship is hugely important. I encourage you to make sure you let the next one know about the trauma/PTSD and abuse from a BPD. You want to make sure they have experience with both. And I do think it’s helpful to find someone to talk to rather than just to end therapy. If I’m hearing you correctly you just need to get it out!
Night Henry. It’s late for hopefully this makes sense. Hope it’s helpful.
“Lucy”
LOL…still loving the typos!
khatalyst: You make a lot of sense. And what you’ve talked about, in that many therapists, in many situations, approach relationship problems as being what I’d call “internal” is exactly the problem I have with therapy for fixing relationships. It’s something I see as this Dale Carnegie coaching ‘how to win friends & influence people’ approach. Or basically, how to make yourself more lovable, or less bad… or something like that. Not that a therapist would say that explicitly. Maybe not even that the therapist realizes that’s how the patient sees it. It’s a sort of change yourself to change other people strategy.
Or it’s all about, for example, how to work on YOUR anger issues. When, ahem, maybe there’s no anger issues internally coming from nowhere… you’re angry because someone is repeatedly hurting you. You’re angry because you live in pain & fear on a regular basis because of the situation you’re in.
It doesn’t really work to work on anger issues. I mean even if you’re not involved with a sociopath, but just a garden variety flakey person (lol) – someone who’s not invested in the relationship the way you are… Even working on your self-esteem isn’t going to fix the relationship, because it doesn’t matter how well you think of yourself, or how well you treat yourself… if you stay in a relationship with someone who’s mistreating you & obviously doesn’t think very well of you… you’re going nowhere fast.
It’s kind of like you get a cut, and you do your best to care for it. You clean it, you bandage it, you maybe put some neosporin ointment on it or something… and you can do all that, but if someone comes along and they’re allowed to rip off the band-aid, and mess with the wound with a dirty bristle brush every time you get it bandaged & soothed a bit… all the ‘self-care’ in the world, every day, is not going to succeed in healing that cut. You can’t convince yourself that intrusive dirty bristle brush isn’t a problem. You can’t just say, “I’m not going to let it bother me.” and feel zero pain. And you can’t do that with emotional pain causing things either. You have to feel the pain when something hurts. There’s no way out of it.
Most forms of pain serve a purpose – any medical doctor will tell you that.
It’s the old joke:
Patient: “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.”
Doctor: “Well, stop doing that.”
It’s the same thing with emotional pain.
A doctor won’t just prescribe pain medication to someone with chest pains from heart disease!
But I see that many an unhappy person with circumstances they could even fairly easily change to alleviate their emotional pain, instead be given anti-depressents… to basically mask the emotional pain.
That’s not to say I think anti-depressents aren’t helpful in a myriad of patients/situations. I do think they’re a viable tool, and in some cases necessary & very helpful. I’m NOT anti-medication per se.
But I think our culture (not to mention pharmaceutical capitalism) is breeding a situation where anti-depressants are seen as “happy pills” for people forcing themselves to live unviable lifestyles, more than theraputic aids for people suffering from true clinical depression.
That said, I think sometimes psychiatrists are put in untenable positions. A patient will point blank refuse to see the benefit in changing their situation, and the doctor is left with only the option of a band-aid medication, or risks looking like a sadist. “I’m living the American dream, I SHOULD like this. I don’t. So give me the pills.”
I also think a lot of the psychological and religious teachings on pain & suffering are misconstrued.
For example, people with a superficial understanding of Buddhism (and I’ve seen this a lot over the years!) will have this misunderstanding in that suffering is eliminated by not feeling pain. Which is a ridiculous impossibility. That’s just not the case. The Buddhist teaching is that suffering is eliminated by recognizing the pain, and then yes, feeling the pain. The suffering is avoided by a change of attitude and/or a change of circumstance. That’s putting it simply, of course. Point is, the Buddha didn’t claim he felt no pain from a physical cut, or an emotional blow. The issue is what you do with that pain, and with yourself (physically and/or mentally) in that situation.
I’ve seen this with Christianity too. The concept of “Love the sinner, hate the sin” is somehow misconstrued as disapprove of the bad thing someone does, but continue to have that bad person in your life. When I think that line is referring to the concept of staying away from revenge in your heart & in your action. It doesn’t mean let the dangerous violent criminals out of the prisons & invite them over for dinner. I believe there’s a place in the Bible where Jesus warns against taking meals with evil-doers. He says don’t hate them, he says don’t seek revenge, but he also says don’t invite them over for dinner.
I think you’re right in noticing that our culture today seems to not only breeds that power model of (anti)communication/interaction – it actually CELEBRATES it. All one has to do is look at the current climate in the political arena to see that. Political disagreements have been going on since the beginning of time – but I find the public divisiveness of recent years to be truly staggering. It’s not only socially acceptable to have a politcal discussion that is based on personal insults and even name-calling – it’s actually held up as the ideal public political discussion. Mud-slinging is a must. You don’t just say you don’t like the U.S. president’s political decisions, you say he looks like a monkey and that he has the intellectual capacity of one. You don’t just say you think someone wants to spend too much tax money on social programmes, you call them “a bleeding heart” (as if compassion is inherently bad).
Dear Khatalyst,
I just want to thank you for your post! It was a great help for me and was a very important central piece missing in the puzzle I am putting together since my early childhood. I could see the pieces and I am collecting them since age 5, since I discovered that my parents and our family are not like the others, but it all did not make sense. Especially the part of the universe that sends us tests. I redid the test repeatedly. It was like on the portrait of Samuel Beckett in the National Portrait Gallery in London: “Try again, fail again, fail better”. I wish to all of you my dear therapists a very nice weekend. Libelle
Henry DEAR!! I would say that if you dont feel right with the therapist you have – then dont go, or find another. I hope you doing ok Henry. I was just in town and the ex saw me before I saw him and he put his hand over his face to hide – the shameful b…….d.
Henry,
Clarification….loving my typos. I seem to be making more and more of them since you started coming here less often. Me thinks it’s because I miss you!