I was recently asked to comment on the sociopath’s “predatory stare,” and my first thought was to play it down somewhat. Not all sociopaths have this stare, or else it would be pretty easy to bust them for the “look.”
On the other hand there’s a form of the “predatory stare” that I want to remark on briefly in this short article that signals my return to the blog, again, on a more regular basis. It is really the “predatory stare,” but masked as the “romantic stare.”
Again, not all sociopaths deploy the “romantic stare,” let’s not kid ourselves. But some do. I’ve worked with many woman (and a few men) who can attest to it, and I’m sure many of you have had experience with it.
What is it? And what is its purpose?
It is an intense stare, a stare of very intense concentration the sociopath fixes on you, whose effect is at once unsettling and stimulating. It isn’t meant so much to be experienced as a “stare” as much as, well, an “experience.”
The sociopath wants you to experience him as experiencing you as the sole concern and interest in his universe. He is transmitting to you what he wants you to experience as his voracious interest in, and concentration on, you.
As I said, one is likely to experience this as both disconcerting and seductive. Why? Well, we are not used to experiencing ourselves as so totally captivating to another. So it’s a somewhat heady, exciting feeling to experience ourselves as engendering, seemingly, such a romantically hypnotic effect on another.
It is safe to say that the sociopath is in his grooming, seductive mode here. The imperturbability and fixity of his gaze is as if communicating, “I am totally into you. Totally. I can’t even take my eyes off you, that’s how totally into you I am.
“Even though what I’m doing, in truth, is a form of my manipulating and controlling you, yet I want you to experience this as a case of your controlling me!
“I want to you to experience me as so enthralled with you, with the magical effect your beauty, voice, face, style has on me, that it’s as if I literally can’t take my voracious, probing eyes off you!
“And so, as I gaze at you with this intense, almost unblinking, laser-like attentiveness, I want you to experience me as helpless to do otherwise. That’s how powerfully, helplessly attracted I want you to experience me as!”
I italicize “as if” because many sociopaths, as we know, are“as if” personalities—often acutely focused on creating the right “effects” to support the perceptions of themselves they’re seeking to establish.
Now this doesn’t mean you aren’t beautiful and don’t deserve to be looked at with genuine admiration, maybe even awe. But when that gaze is unbroken, sustained for too long, to the extent that you are feeling uncomfortable with, even if a bit excited by, its intense, probing scrutiny, take heed.
He may be staring into the face a very beautiful woman; you may be staring into the face of a sociopath.
(This article is copyrighted © 2011 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is strictly for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the attitudes and behaviors discussed.)
Superkid,
I’m sure that you are right. There is a third ingredient which I’m seeing more and more. They are everywhere and our culture is spathy too. It’s like we’ve been invaded by locust/spaths.
Welcome Reg. Sorry that you’ve been spathed like us, but good on you for having realized what happened. You can’t heal if you don’t know what hurt you in the first place.
There is lots and lots of information here. You’ll have one AHA-moment after the other. The more AHA-moments, the less likely you’ll think the heartless spath might have a heart after all, and thereby maintain No Contact.
You have a right to grieve, even if the person you loved never existed. I remember it was the first shock and ghastly horror I had to overcome 5 months ago: that I had loved an illusion, a non-existing person for 2 years. Just this understanding could make my head reel at times.
But the illusion was not of your making. It was the spaths. More, you were real in the relationship! Your emotions were and are real! Your dreams and hopes were there just as much if you had been in a relationship with a normal partner.
You have every right to grieve for the loss of those dreams and hopes.
Reg
I am glad you are here. I too have been struggling, seriously, with getting rid of my SPATH boyfriend. I figured out he was a spath after one year, and here I am, two years later, I’m still trying to get rid of him. I’m my own worst enemy, I don’t want to believe that it was all a lie – the love bombing, etc. I needed him and his lies to be true. I keep breaking “no contact” , I let him in my life, I end up hurting myself, and I try try try to get myself back on the path again.
I am so glad you are here. I hope you stay. I hope you ERADICATE this spath from your life. Welcome.
Superkid
BBE, Ox Drover, skylar Darwinsmom, & Superkid10
Thank you all for your posts. It helps to see how others have gotten over the spath in their lives. It is so difficult. I feel like such an idiot to have believed all the lies,lies,lies. But then again he is so/wasgood at it and I was so gullible.
Reg you weren’t an idiot. You were duped. My therapist today reminded me that yes I ignored and pushed away what I observed and started to figure out. But I was in love. And it’s a normal response to try to trust someone you are in love with, to look at the good stuff and ignore the bad stuff.
I once read an article on falling in love… and the neurological findings show that any person in love switches off their objectivity. It wears off after 18 months though for a partner. The non-objectivity remains lifelong for children. Nature figured out that if we do’t lose our objectivity we’d never stay long enough with someone to procreate in the first place. If love is blind out of necessity to ignore the defects of a normal partner, how much then are we blind to grosser defects by someone who lovebombed us into being addictively bonded to them?
Even objective professionals are hoodwinked by spaths at times. So, you’re not an idiot.
Let me add that we are also subject to mirroring, intermittent rewards and outright lies to present an image of what we seek in a partner.
Then, we dismissed their outrageous behavior as being due to our fault, not realizing that these outrageous behaviors are designed to distract us from their true nature.
Wow, what a great blog. I know the last comment was a year ago so I hope you still read your comments.
I have a situation that has been really eating away at me for the last 4 years or so. Feedback would be great if you can.
I started working for a company in 2007 and it was in early 2008 I kept noticing one guy staring at me all the time. He is relatively good looking, dresses well, very intelligent, comes from a respectable family, and is highly regarded at work. Of course I felt really good about myself when he kept giving me attention because I was just coming out of a divorce and honestly my self esteem has been in the toilet.
After a few months I actually asked a co-worker about the “guy” and that’s when she told me his background (stated above regarding respectable family and highly regarded) but also told me that he is married and that his wife works at the same company. My jaw dropped because I took his “look” the wrong way. I immediately dropped the idea that he might fancy me.
Well the stares did not stop. Every time he would see me he would stare so hard into my eyes I felt like I was falling into some kind of ‘trance’, hynotized, etc. He wouldn’t let up either. For instance, if I were walking down a long hallway and he was at the opposite end he would hold my gaze until either I looked away or until he passed me. As he walked past he would say something in a deep voice like “hello how are you?”
The stares are constant. Sometimes I will get this feeling like I’m being stared at and sure enough if I turn around it is him staring at me. Sometimes when I catch him he will quickly turn his face to floor or keep staring. Sometimes he will get really ‘blushed’ in the face.
One time during a fire drill at work I was walking away from the crowd to go sit on the benches – he was following me and as he past by he stared so hard into my eyes and gave me this ‘coy’ smile.
Sometimes if I say something in a meeting he will either repeat what I say and laugh (when it’s not funny) or he will joke around and say something in response to what I had just said.
Sometimes he will get on my calls and listen in but not say anything, nothing.
One time I was walking from my car to the building and there he was and as he was holding the door open for people all he did was stare into my eyes until he went in.
Sometimes when I am talking with others he will secretly listen in pretending to be doing something.
This has been going on for 4 years!!!!! I could list out other things too. I try to now not make eye contact, I mean it can be hard cause he’s my co-worker and I want to be friendly but for 4 years it’s bothered me cause I thought he was sending out “I want you” vibes but as soon as I found out he is married (and now with two kids) I got creeped out by it.
I think he sensed I was lonely, low self esteem and easy target to prey on. I think he most definately is trying to seduce me into the bedroom but I had never encountered the constant STARE -it’s really something off the charts.
So that’s how I landed here and you described it so spot on.
Do you think he is a sociopath? What does he want from me? Why would he do this when he has wife/children? Should I continue to try and ignore.
Help!
RUN!!
Annie,
If he’s a spath, he wants to make you nervous. He is enjoying the ability to affect your emotions.
If there is a way to set up a hidden camera in an area where you know he always stares at you, then you can record his behavior and take it to your supervisor. Make sure you get LOTS AND LOTS of evidence and that you, are not doing anything in these videos to elicit his attention, such as talking to him or wearing revealing clothing.
Also, before taking it to the supervisor, take it to a lawyer. You could have a case for sexual harassment. There is a chance that your supervisors will turn around and attack you as well. Spaths are everywhere and when they see one of their own doing an attack, they suddenly turn into monsters too. I’m not saying that will happen, I’m just saying be prepared for that by going to a lawyer first and getting his take on it. But don’t tell the supervisor’s that you did this.
Keep copies for yourself. Dealing with spaths can be dangerous. He may become vindictive. Remember, what they all want is DRAMA. Don’t give him any.
I wrote on article on the Gray Rock method of dealing with emotional vampires. look it up, in the archives, you will definitely need to implement it in this situation.
I have to clarify. Open drama is not what one has in mind.
It’s a good tactic to play it off. But as we learned from Frozen, there is a difference between not feeling vs occupying your attention. It is much more difficult to recognize what someone is feeling when they distract themselves with occupying thoughts.
Think of puppies.
Thank you Skylar – I will go read that article on Gray Rock. I am not sure I can video record cause we all have offices and it’s an open space and we have people that walk around looking for coffee pots, plants and things that shouldn’t be in the area; however I’ve kept a journal for the last couple of years with the details of each time he did this strange staring – it’s super creepy!!!!!