Aren’t sociopaths supposed to be rule-breakers? Isn’t this a main indicator of their sociopathy? If so, then what’s up with sociopaths when they’re following, not breaking, the rules?
Hmm. This appears to be confusing, but then again, is it really?
Perhaps it’s oversimplistic to see sociopaths as incapable of following rules? In the grand scheme of things, I think it’s fair to say that sociopaths will break rules; they will violate boundaries; they will hurt and violate others with a startling—indeed sociopathic—lack of accountability and conscience.
The sociopath, I think we can say reasonably, will inevitably transgress others, and he will transgress them heartlessly.
However, when we compress the grand scheme of things into something less grand—for instance, day to day, week to week, month to month, even for longer periods—things may be different. When we break down time into shorter periods, we discover that sociopaths, much like many individuals gripped by compulsive, addictive tendencies, often possess the capacity, at least temporarily, to suppress their inclinations—in the sociopath’s case, his inclination to violate and exploit.
Otherwise, how would the sociopath manage, as often as he does, to operate so effectively undetected, or under-detected? In other words, if sociopaths couldn’t, and didn’t, follow rules; indeed, follow many rules—social rules, legal rules, interpersonal rules, employment rules—then there could be no such thing as the sociopath’s “mask?”
Because the sociopath’s mask, ironically, is dependent on, supported by, his capacity to follow rules.
The sociopath’s mask, in a certain sense, is precisely this—the social, legal and interpersonal conventions and rules he follows between, or in simultaneity with, his violating, exploitive behaviors.
His mask is his capacity to follow enough rules, enough of the time, to “blend in,” to seem normal and well-adjusted, to cast himself as among the least likely suspects to be perpetrating the transgressions he perpetrates while operating behind the mask.
And so there is a certain irony here. Yes, the sociopath, in the greater scheme of things, is a rule-breaker, a transgressor with a seriously defective conscience. And yet, at least in many cases, in the smaller scheme of things, he is a good enough rule follower to abet the construction of the very mask behind which he unconscionably violates, or surely will unconscionably violate, his victim(s).
(This article is copyrighted © 2010 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.)
In the beginning they follow our rules long enuff to get us hooked, then they make their rules. So we change to conform because we have been brain drained and dont know our rules from their’s. This is called making us crazy, a game they like to play. That’s just sick, they are twisted monsters.
Is it just me or does it seems like they are born with this secret knowledge the rest of us know nothing about?
I say this because I used to watch my Soc ex, now and gain, looking at very specific other people of all ages and genders as if she was studying their body language in a way that seemed odd to me – looking back on this now, I think they might of been other sociopaths and it was almost like industiral espionage.
I seem to recall very vividly one time how another woman in a bar kept looking at me and her together in a way I have only experienced in her company, and another female sociopath I was NEARLY involved with, but who was ‘putting it out for me’ in a very advertising kinda of way. But nothing came of that. But one night we were in a bar and again another women was staring at us in the same “analyitcal” manner. I have never experience this with non sociopath women I have dated. Only these two.
My sociopathic ex used say she caught women checking me out all the time. And I replied “you mean like the woman in the airport that night who seemed very interested in us”? She replied” she was looking for another reason”. I never pressed her as to what that reason was – I thought she meant a lesbian thing for her, but it wasn’t. I am thinking not that the sociopath psychic network was in transmission.
So has anyone else while out with you sociopath ex noticed this monitoring of you and you sociopath in such a way that you could not make out why they were looking at a specfic other person, or another person looking at us and the Soc with such strange interest?
The only thing I can compared it to is some Gay friends of mine told me they can walk into any place in the world and their “Gaydar” can instantly suss out who the other gay men in the place are. They say it is like a sixth sense that gay men have to spot each other.
Could sociopaths have cultivated from their childhood a similar ability to spot each other? I am starting to think there is psychic aspect to the socipath the more I think about it. It goes much deeper than body language.
I would really love to hear people’s views on this as I think it could solve a lot of mysteries for me.
Frank-
Ill have to think about that one. But just today a friend told me that she met her college friend for drinks last night to catch up and take a break from summer school. She noticed a much older man across the bar “staring her down” she at first thought she was imagining it..but she was seated facing the door and he was in that direction so when people entered she would sometimes turn toward door and she said it felt like his eyes were piercing her. As the night went on…sure enough he walked over (nearly double her age ) and he said “I absolutely MUST meet you”…she said I was as pleasant as i could be without being rude..and said im here with my friends but very nice to meet you… he went away for a bit….only to come back later when she was with a larger group and he very loudly exclaimed to the two younger guys standing near her ” I would like you both to leave”…. she felt uncomfortable enough to ask the bartender to intervene….she chalked it up to him being intoxicated… but I said he sounded like a controlling sociopath to me. But yes, there is something about the gaze, the stare down they feel entitled to do – and also may find it actually works on some people who may at first be flattered by such attention.
This doesnt directly answer your question, but Im trying to recall if I ever experienced a situation like the ones you refer to..
learning, that is still an interesting story – I am starting to think more and more they can read minds. One thing I noticed on the first date with my ex Soc how SILENT she was. She kept looking at me in a funny kind of way like her head was tilted up slightly and looking down towards me at a slight sideways angle. Noticing my every move rather than listening to what I was saying. It was almost as it she was reading my mind now that I think back on it.
Even more creepy was when we were in Instant Messager and even without the webcam on she could almost predict what I was about to say next. She would then type LOL! GMTA! when we both typed out the same comment – but wow… I am really starting to think these crazies can read our minds. At least have a very highly fearl instinctual insight into us which operates on a level we can barely imagine.
Well…..I hope my weight doesn’t act as a hinderance with my water walking skills……. 🙂
The wine is a GREAT IDEA!!!! I’ll work on that!
I had breakfast with my old painter friend……he really was spooked when I walked out to his car to greet him.
What a FREAK!!!! As One said….a fu**tard!
Do they not think that maybe one day……the peeps he told I had died, just MAY see me alive? And then what…..what does HE look like NOW?
I just don’t understand this motive? WHY? What kind of control is this? Did he portray himself as the ‘grieving’ husband? What kind of attention did this provide him?
WHACKJOB!!!!
I think he’s gonna show up for the preliminary…..Oxy…..
I don’t know why….just my gut. Maybe, maybe not……
I do think that NOW that he knows I KNOW about his charges……and he doesn’t know HOW MUCH i know…..that might offer him the fright, not to run…..
I have ‘found’ him wherever he is……and he knows this…..so how does he think I woulnd;t tell the state officials where he will be ‘then’…….I think he doubts his abilities to hide now…..
But….time will tell!!!
Thinking more on the possibility that sociopaths are psychic – this would give a lot of validation to idea that they follow us through different lifetimes. This would explain how across vast distances they still find us.
The two sociopath women I was involved with, one from from Argentina the other from California. Yet I met one of them in New York and the other in Moscow and I live in Ireland just think of the logistical odds of that happening and yet it did – TWICE – Donna Andersen in the USA met that muppet and he was from Australia.
It seems that distance is no object to meeting these sociopaths? Like the know they have to travel to find us and they do every time. If many ture lovers can believe they have had other lifetimes together and meet under incredible circumsances aginst all the odds, then why not our predators also? Makes sense when you think about it.
OMG! I just recall that on least one occasion my soc ex said that she and I were lovers in other lives and would be again in the future. I had completely fogotten she said that to me more than once during the time we spent together. *SHUDDER*
Sorry, gone way off topic here as I think I might of had a revelation about my entire experience seeing it on a whole ne level. My apology.
I think more along the lines that they can hone in on empathetic souls…by watching them…looking at body language … and things they do and say in general…they look for/are drawn to opposites of them…they feed off , survive off of people who arent like them…
Interesting how she said “lovers in other lives” instead of friends ! ha
Whatever it is they all sing the same song and do the same dance– from country to country 🙂
They size us up in 10 minutes or less. Who’s nice, who isn’t nice. Who will give them a hard time, who won’t. If you take the time to talk with them … they just hooked their fish. How many more to go that night? That week?
The reason you meet them all over the globe is easy … they skip from state to state, country to country because they are conning people out of what they have (money, homes, stocks, bonds, cars, etc.). I’d move too if I just took you.
Peace.
Predators follow the prey. Just as lions follow the migrating herds. Just as a lion can watch a herd of 1000 antelope and pick out the ONE that is slightly limping with only a glance, the one that will be the easiest to take down so can a psychopath.
In that movie “I, psychopath” how many of us could catch the VICTIM out of the women that walked by? I could pick her out, and I wasn’t even sure WHY but it was immediate. I just KNEW which one. The announcer went on to say it how she swung her arms out of sync with her footsteps, but I didn’t know WHY I just knew she was IT. I think they do too. It may almost be instinctive with them.
Or when you see someone and you don’t know why but they kind of give you the willies? Apparently there were some studies done about professionals having a gut feeling when interviewing people who were Ps, a PHYSICAL reaction to them.
Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. I know several Ps I have NOT felt that way until they stabbed me in the back….then I knew, so maybe OUR problem is that we DON’T pick up on the predator-vibe, and they DO pick up on the victim-vibe we give off.
I think though that we can hone our skills if we work at it. I know one thing, “if a cat jumps on a HOT STOVE, it will give up jumping on COLD ONES TOO!”