Things to definitely expect when dating an actual narcissist

Been there, got the t-shirt. Never again

Much against the wise advice of my therapist, I stayed friends with my horrible narcissist entirely to satisfy my fascination. Here’s the thing: once you work out how they function, they stop being scary and start being incredibly, astonishingly, laughably predictable. Not sure what I mean? I will explain.

Were they your girlfriend, wife, husband, or boyfriend? Doesn’t matter, same story

All narcissists fall into this exact pattern. As in, they are all massive 13 stone toddlers with the same incredibly simplistic, selfish worldview, and every relationship they have will fail in exactly the same way. While it is initially deeply frightening and traumatic to realise you’ve been completely manipulated and conned into falling in love with someone constructed entirely to make you their prey (you exist to feed them dopamine), it does curiously also make them extremely easy to avoid again in future, and, where necessary, predict and outwit.

Much like knowing a Dalek can’t go upstairs, you too can know how a narcissist works and avoid getting tangled into their stupid, infuriating, lonely web again. Here’s what to expect:

Stage 1: They are super into you from the first phone call and can’t get enough of you. You’re perfect, beautiful, fascinating, and the way your brain works just thrills them. They’re everything you would ever want: loving, warm, charming, consistent, romantic, affectionate, caring, and passionate. They spend hours and hours with you and text you every morning. They will be your perfect lover: they’ll make plans to take you on holiday with them, buy you random presents, and say that they can’t stop thinking about you. They’ll mirror your wants and needs with uncanny accuracy and create a whole personality that they know will appeal to you. They write you lovely things, make love to you with a famished hunger and hold you tightly every night. It goes to 100 from 0 incredibly quickly.

Stage 2: They will suddenly change ‘the rules’ on the relationship or an aspect of their personality. The good morning texts or little acts of kindness will stop for no reason: not a gradual fade to a comfortable normal, or a pause after a big fight, just a totally cartoonish stop they refuse to explain. You see a weird outburst about something they suddenly don’t like about you, or paranoia and jealousy over someone else. They will find you vapid and needy for the things they said they loved about you a few weeks before. Your reasonable expectations are suddenly suffocating or irritating. They decide that they want an open relationship or a threesome with your friend. If you’re unlucky, the worst will be violent or abusive. Expect everything to be your fault: you’re overthinking, you’re being emotional, you’re being clingy, you’re being boring, you’re making a big deal out of nothing. This makes you anxious and eager to please them to get the stage 1 person you fell for: you try to appease them and blame yourself for the random U-turn.

Stage 3: Now they know that they can walk all over you, they will withdraw and lose interest. They’ve ‘won’: you want them desperately and they can manipulate you. They feel superior and better than you. No matter how horrible they are to you, you have proved that you will be there for them, to reassure them, love them, and care about them: you’re just an established dopamine source. They can feast on you whenever they want and they’re full. Now you’re boring and played out. They will be cold and remote: you will feel horrible and blame yourself for not being good enough to hold their attention.

Stage 4: They’ll pull all the way back and be unbelievably indifferent and cold to you: they don’t need you anymore and they don’t need to keep up the effort or illusion. You’ll feel crazy and wonder if you just imagined the whole thing. They’ll look for new sources of dopamine: your friends, your family, other women, and so on. Your distress and attempts to win them back irritate and annoy them, because in their head, love and care is weakness and makes you feeble and inferior.

Stage 5: You’ll try to move on and they will suddenly be in touch. But it won’t ever be because they care about you: they’ll need you to make them feel reassured about their insane egotism, help them through a crisis, find them access to a new source of dopamine (a hot friend, a new job, money, an opportunity) or they’ll want to re-establish you as a back up if they get bored or lonely again. It’s laughable how quickly ‘hey how are you I missed you, please forgive me’ will be followed up with ‘but can you do XYZ for me’. Nothing riles a narcissist more than being confronted with their awful behaviour, or losing you to someone else. Expect tantrums or an attempt to do Stage 1 again if you don’t oblige them. Again, they are emotionally undeveloped toddlers and only know how to wail or scream.

Conclusion

The important thing to remember is that you are not, and have never been, a real person to this man (or woman). You aren’t ‘real’ or as capable of pain, pleasure, and complex thought as them. They are the only person who matters in their head and their pleasure and self-image is the only thing that motivates them. They are God, and we are NPCs.

You’re an object who can do something for them: sex, support, affection etc. They will never care about you. They never liked you. They certainly never loved you. They can’t love: they are cold, lonely golems roaming the earth with hard clay hearts. You made them feel good about themselves. It was all fake. The person you fell for was totally fake. The romance was fake, the kindness was fake, the care and compassion was fake. It might have been super convincing, but it was all a trap to make you do what they wanted. Like a lantern fish, they lured you in so they could feast on what they wanted from you: your energy, your devotion, your love, and your beauty or charm.

Please know you cannot, and will never, get through to a narcissist. They don’t ‘do emotions’ or introspection because it hurts them way, way too much. Narcissists are deeply insecure and sensitive: long ago, something ruptured their sense of self so much that no one, no matter how loving, kind, or gentle, is allowed to see who they really are. They never developed a healthy range of emotions and self evaluation, only a shell. They aren’t capable of genuine guilt or compassion: they think “how can I convince her that I’m compassionate or kind”, not “how can I be kind”. It’s all acting. The mask never, ever comes off: you just see flashes of rage or fear in the sockets.

I know that hurts to hear the first time. But you are free, now you know. You’re not dealing with a perfect angelic man (or woman) who you weren’t good enough to be worthy of dignity, respect, affection or fidelity from: it was never you. It was always going to fail. If you don’t believe me, talk to their exes. I guarantee you will hear these phrases:

1. Cold and selfish: they stopped putting effort into the relationship
2. Totally self-obsessed and overly into their career/image
3. Emotionally immature and deeply avoidant of discussing their vulnerabilities, insecurities and flaws

It was never you.

You were always good enough.

And you’ll shake your head in amazement that you ever put up with it.

But you’ll never have enough blood in you as prey to stop the narcissist roaming away from your corpse to find their next victim. Stop being their willing prey.