obsession with the truth-- anyone else have this?

[vunil]

I've had a lot of boyfriends like this, too.  They would lecture me on my own fields of interest, tell me what I was saying was wrong before they had the chance to even know what I was saying in the first place,  and sometimes would even give me a long lecture about something that (they forgot) I had told them in the first place.

but here's the crux of the matter-- why did I choose them?  And did I sort of like competing with them and sometimes winning?  When I remember them I just remember wanting to strangle them, but there was obviously more to it.  

And something else really bugs me and I'd like some help with it-- I sometimes find people without the sort of arrogance that my ex-es all had kind of boring.  Is this because I don't have the chance to prove myself with them?  And because I sort of want to try to win, and if the opponent isn't a good foe then what's the point? Why do I still find narcissism kind of exdciting in a man?  Is that just cultural, or is it because of my childhood exclusively?

If all that is true it really pisses me off because it means I am still being led around by the nose by my ridiculous upbringing.  Bleah!

[bunny]

but here's the crux of the matter-- why did I choose them?  And did I sort of like competing with them and sometimes winning?  When I remember them I just remember wanting to strangle them, but there was obviously more to it.

Maybe you needed someone similar to your parents to consider your opinion as valid as theirs. And you were testing that out.

 

And something else really bugs me and I'd like some help with it-- I sometimes find people without the sort of arrogance that my ex-es all had kind of boring.  Is this because I don't have the chance to prove myself with them?  And because I sort of want to try to win, and if the opponent isn't a good foe then what's the point? Why do I still find narcissism kind of exdciting in a man?  Is that just cultural, or is it because of my childhood exclusively?

Narcissistic men are charming, exciting, and very seductive. They're alluring as all get-out. Their arrogance can be quite exciting and thrilling even. It's not abnormal to find them attractive and exciting. I do. The q is, can you tell whether the man is a big jerk N, or just kind of puffed up and basically not a bad guy.

bunny

[Anonymous]

vunil:

We are so drawn to N's.  They are charming, articulate, showering you with affection etc.  Classic narcs.  How you shake out the good from the bad still remains a mystery to me.  However I think we repeat situations that we are "used" to.  As someone pointed out you might be "recreating" how you were treated at  home, it feels comfortable and known.  Patz

[Portia]

Hi again Vunil, glad you started this thread

I'll never have the pleasure of just surrendering to the wisdom of someone's words (without this little voice inside telling me to find out if what they are saying can be trusted, and if they can). When I meet religious people who have fundametalist views, it's like meeting space aliens to me. But part of me envies them their ability to give in to something like that.

Recently I’ve been wondering why I look for people to look up to, to learn from, to admire. And when I find people I think are interesting (like authors), I listen and read until I find something I disagree with – then – I want more. I’m deflated. I want answers! Now I’m beginning to accept that some of the answers lie in the differences: not ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ but ‘different’. And accepting the differences as interesting and okay. Maybe trusting myself more too?

They were always very confident about their opinions.

What is this thing we call ‘confidence’? Self-confident. Like they have the answers and we want to know? I’m not confident in my terms because perhaps like you, I don’t think I ever have all the answers about anything. It’s always a fudge of some sorts (this person is a better bet for the country than the other, but none of them are really any good).

Confidence comes from having fixed ideas and beliefs about reality – which I think can be a very harmful way of being. God on our side and so on. And also, when unpleasant reality hits (like Vietnam) that self-confidence can be temporarily shattered. Isn’t it better to be continually ‘not sure’? Always learning? I don’t know why society admires ‘confidence’. Is it because we’re all lost really? (Fundamentalist religion is a great way of not thinking about life’s uncertainties. A cop –out. It might be cosy, but it’s a cosy prison.)

No wonder it's tough for me to just settle in and believe things on first glance

I think this is a gift! A trait to be celebrated!

What does this conversation mean? Why am I here? What is motivating all of these weird interactions? Why do I feel so incredibly uncomfortable?

Yep, me too. It was horrible. It was destructive, life-draining. Crazy-making. Cue drink and drugs to escape.

(they were feeding themselves off of everything including me and that's why I didn't feel like I was there-- to them I wasn't! Not in a way apart from them. I was just food.)

big *sigh*, I’m sorry Vunil, it’s awful, I know. Like we just don’t exist as separate thinking beings.

I mean it's just human to expect something that looks kind of like normal interaction!

Yes! This is what an interaction looks like to us? Maybe it looks different to others. My mother likes to monologue at me. Maybe she likes monologues. And I guess if you do, that’s okay. But monologues don’t require two people, just one. And maybe a pet, or a photo to talk to.   Cruel perhaps, but true to me. (Is it better to be kind or honest? Honest for me, at the last analysis, tell me I'm dying, I want to know.)

Bunny:

IMO truth is more of a shared agreement about reality. And honesty is being open with one's knowledge or information.

I like that about truth. I might go further. I might agree that your internal truth is true to you (delusions, hallucinations) but it’s not true to me. But that doesn’t make it true or not true in external reality……like seeing religious visions…I’d love to subject those milk-crying statues to scientific study. But then science is very limited. So truth is too. Absolute truth? – we’re not equipped to know it, if it exists. We are made (constructed) to live with uncertainty (partly because we perceive uncertainty)….if we weren’t here to perceive uncertainty, would it exist?...ha ha…sorry… getting ‘up myself’. (The second-order religious conversion comes when we think: uncertainty is only in my head, therefore certainty must exist externally, therefore God exists….nonsense, dangerous stuff). Less seriously, I like to think of my truth vs your truth (both are valid).

but here's the crux of the matter-- why did I choose them? And did I sort of like competing with them and sometimes winning?

Maybe because you’re hopeful of finding some absolute truth? You want the answers? I think that’s okay, striving for answers. But with a little balance – taking time to protect yourself against people who want to feed off you and also learning how to enjoy life as well, sod the truth kind of thing, just enjoy the colour of the sky without thinking about how it isn’t really, actually blue…

Hey and I want to say, maybe I sound entrenched in my views(?), and what I want of course, is disagreement, other opinions, more learning. It may not appear obvious so I’m saying it? Honesty also exists in saying this is my opinion now and I’m happy to hear other opinions and maybe change my mind…best, P

[Portia]

Patz,
about your graduation and the extended family not knowing or acknowledging: Is it - because your parents didn’t attend, it meant nothing to them? They weren’t there, therefore it didn’t exist kind of thing? This is like my mother and her family. I tried to reach out to them after decades, to find nothing there, like I don’t exist except as a story my mother might tell from time to time. I think that’s what I am, a story she can relate. And if she wasn’t there at my graduation, she wouldn’t be able to tell a story of how she did this and she did that (she tried on my gown and posed for a photo, saying she could fool people into thinking she’d graduated if she showed them the photo..). Hey, if they had of been there, it wouldn’t have been pretty.  Those expressions of love and acceptance that we look for, they don’t come I’m afraid.    P

[vunil]

May I just say that you guys are amazing?  Insightful and also able to articulate it.  I'm really enjoying this!

I think that if I am really honest, then bunny is right that I am secretly trying to once and for all win the big argument (not sure what that argument is-- "yes I AM SO someone worth listening to and not inferior to you!").    I don't want to spend my life on that dumb argument.

Just to add another wrinkle, too-- being a successful woman puts me in situations all the time where an arrogant (and sometimes full-blown narc) man "puts me in my place" or dismisses me.  It's just ubiquitous-- not every week, but certainly every month it happens.  The irony is I'm pretty good at fighting back, but BOY does it get tiring!  And I never stop getting mad about it (I stopped showing my anger a long time ago-- other techniques work much better).  It's just this button that keeps being pushed.

As I read somewhere "they are everywhere"!


I wonder if women are victims of narcissists more than men are.  Little girls on up to grown women-- my brother certainly had a cushy time of it compared to his sisters.  Sometimes when I first meet someone at work who has these clear narc. tendencies I can see him almost lick his lips-- I guess I seem like someone it will be fun to treat badly on purpose-- this young-looking female.    The road is strewn with many of these guys


How all of this can translate to my being able to have a genuine relationship with a great man, I have no earthly idea.  Does that competitiveness and mistrust always enter into romantic relationships between men and women?  Especially for women who survived a narcissistic family?  How can you ever let go and be ok with this person who society gives more power than you have (and who needs to feel some sense of power) when you have been treated so badly by those with power over you before?  Especially if, ahem, one sort of very much likes men with a little swagger in their step?  

Maybe that's a new thread...

[vunil]

PS  I was thinking about that poor guy and his mason-dixon line (where did he think it was?).  It reminds me so much of dates I've had when men "told" me the most outrageously incorrect things.  Here's the thing-- clearly it isn't that sexy to explain to them in detail why they are wrong.  I know this, because when I do that they don't call back  Also, at some level I don't care about what they know, as long as they aren't outrageously incompatible with me. (not sure that last statement is true, will need to ponder...)

But on the other hand it is just too irritating to nod and go "oh, my, really?  Whales are fish?  The world was made in 7 days?  Iraq is in Africa? WOW!"  Even non-narcissistic men act in this macho way sometimes (I think. Right?)  How can we tell when it's a narcissist at our table, or just a guy?   Even super-terrific guys love to be the expert in things, I think.  Unless they really are an expert, it's hard for me to let them play this role to any large extent, and if they are spewing utter nonsense it's really really tough.   Sometimes I might pick what's true over a really sexy guy.  How dumb of me.

(I sound like a total shrew.  Alas.)

[mum]

Vunil, you don't sound like a shrew, just a really funny, smart woman.  A lot of men get threatened by that and a lot of men like it as a challenge to make a show of their "power" (the jackasses....yes they do look like the majority, huh?).  If you are in a predominately "male" field, you might find a lot more of them (can't you smell the tesosterone in the air, ugh).

I married two such swaggering idiots before I woke up.  Magically, the calm,  quiet, secure, sensitive, strong,  feminist man who I dumped twenty years ago (not "edgy" enough) came back into my life when I finally decided I deserved true love.  We have exciting, flirtatious exchanges that I didn't realize could come as a side to true respect.  I guess what I found out what true love means for me...it is NOT "edgy" or any other semi-scary feeling.
The "flashy" guys don't even turn my head anymore (if you knew my past, you would know what a change this is).  

My second (ex) husband had a repetoire of "smart" sounding sayings that would impress people (unless they had to live with that for a while) and one of them was:  "A walk through the valley of most souls would scarcely wet the feet".  It was, as he is, rather negative, but the amazing thing is that under his facade, he was pretty much a void himself.  In our last ditch efforts to communicate, he told me he didn't believe in souls.  Then he went out to get drunk again and see his "public".... people who think the flash and witty banter are the real thing.

[bludie]

Vunil said:

Just to add another wrinkle, too-- being a successful woman puts me in situations all the time where an arrogant (and sometimes full-blown narc) man "puts me in my place" or dismisses me. It's just ubiquitous-- not every week, but certainly every month it happens. The irony is I'm pretty good at fighting back, but BOY does it get tiring! And I never stop getting mad about it (I stopped showing my anger a long time ago-- other techniques work much better). It's just this button that keeps being pushed.

I had a similar experience yesterday. Have been working on a long-term project that is in its vestiges. I have a big boss (woman) and a intermediary boss/supervisor (male). For the most part I get along with both. But lately the male boss seems to challenge me a lot and did so publically yesterday in a demeaning way.

I usually try to take this stuff in stride especially in the business world. It can be filled, I'm afraid, with narcissistic corporate types. I won't go so far as to say my male boss is an N but he does flex his superiority now and then.

Anyway, normally this would be a bump in the road during a working day; a blip on the horizon. But for some reason yesterday after we finished the conference call, I got very angry and then started crying. Mmmh...I am hoping this is progress. Because a year ago I would have internalized this or, at best, hopped on my bicycle and pedaled up a storm. Not to say that cycling isn't healthy. Point is I would not have dealt with the feelings in a conscious way.

So, vunil, when you say you're "pretty good at fighting back" how does that play out? What do you do and say? Do you feel okay afterward and how do others react or respond to this?

As for yesterday's business foible, I felt irate. In an effort to observe and honor my newly-found 'voice,' I wonder what is appropriate. As bunny has suggested these scenarios, perhaps, are a score I've been trying to settle with my parents for most of my life. I continue to wrestle with it in adulthood. I'd like to settle that score, so to speak, with my parents and not be so vexed by a$$holes sometimes.

Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble and share.

Portia, I always like hearing about your ponderings. Insofar as being introverted: How long did it take you to feel comfortable with preferring solitude to social scenes? I worry about a tendency toward reclusion and think that could really settle in when my daughter leaves for college in a couple of years.

Best,

bludie

[bunny]

Hi vunil,

Let's put aside the patriarchy issue for a minute. A man (or woman) on a date who is spouting a bunch of wrong factoids in a humorless way, and who will not be contradicted, sounds very boring and obnoxious. I'd be ending the date as quickly as possible and not seeing him anymore. Maybe there could be a non-negotiable, required standard of intelligence and sense of humor for anyone you would see romantically. It might weed out all these losers.

As for the higher-up N's at work, they will put down anyone, man or woman, in my experience. If it's a woman, they'll use that vulnerability. If it's a man, they'll find another vulnerability. These men are always demonstrating who is the alpha male. And I am around scientists.

bunny

[bunny]

How can we tell when it's a narcissist at our table, or just a guy?   Even super-terrific guys love to be the expert in things, I think.  Unless they really are an expert, it's hard for me to let them play this role to any large extent, and if they are spewing utter nonsense it's really really tough.

A nice guy doesn't bore everyone with his expertise. If he is excited about something and wants to show off his knowledge a bit, I see that as the little boy part of him and I cut him some slack. Unless I get totally bored and then I have to somehow block it. There are ways to interrupt someone's monologue or at least shorten it without totally deflating them. And no, you aren't a shrew. You just have a low tolerance for people inflating themselves. Seems reasonable.

bunny