Yeah, I mean, I keep getting these messages from women. Wow, you're handsome, you're sexy. They're offering themselves to me.
And I ask myself, what's wrong with these women? Are they drunk? Are they high on something? Are they legally blind?
No, of course they're not. They're lonely.
And the thing is, loneliness is the worst conceivable advisor. It pushes you to do things you would not have contemplated or countenanced had you not been lonely.
And yet people let loneliness push them.
You see, when you...
Yeah, I mean, I'm about as attractive as a desiccated lizard and about as irresistible as that... what's the name of that character in Lord of the Rings? Precious. Yeah, Gollum. I'm about as irresistible as Gollum.
Obviously, it's something to do with them, not with me. I just happen to be there, I'm an excuse. They idealize, they create a fantasy.
But you see, this is what people do when they come across narcissists. Women, men, doesn't matter. When they come across narcissists, they idealize the narcissists because they're so lonely. They want to overlook any shortcoming, any flaw, any misbehavior, never mind how egregious.
The truth is that you get all the information you would ever need about another person within a few minutes of a date. You're on a date. First 10 minutes, you know everything there is to know.
Does he monopolize the conversation? Does he, on the other hand, remains, does he remain eerily silent interrogating you all the time, as if he were assembling a file on you? Does he treat other people badly? Waitresses, cabbies, Uber drivers? Does he treat them badly, even as he treats you as a princess or prince? Does he micromanage? Everything you do, surveys you, follows you, observes you, asks you intrusive questions? Does he make decisions for you? Tells you where to go, what to do?
And I'm talking about the first date. I'm talking about the first date.
Does he, within the first few minutes, offer you marriage and then, you know, within the first few hours planning his future with you? Does he make awkward statements? Does he not react emotionally where he should? This is known as inappropriate affect.
I mean, there are so many signs, and research has demonstrated that people react to these signs. They develop something known as uncanny valley. They feel extremely uncomfortable. There's a gut instinct. There's an intuition that something's wrong, something is awry, something is off key.
And yet people deny this. They repress this. They repress it because they're lonely. And they want to delude themselves, to deceive themselves into thinking that maybe he's the one or she's the one.
And so they overlook things. They ignore things, warning signs, red alerts are all over the place, all over the place.
Does she lie? Did you catch her at a lie or a confabulation or a fib or, you know, some inexactitude or inaccuracy? Is there a discrepancy between what she says about herself, her values, her beliefs, her history and so on, and the way she behaves?
Exactly. Does she emphasize looks and appearance of a substance?
I can go on. There's like 20, 30, 40, 50 signs. And they're all visible and discernible and ostentatious and conspicuous on the first date.
And don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
People justify themselvespost facto. They say, you know, she's been a great actress. She was a great actress. He was wearing a mask. The mask didn't fall until many months later. I couldn't see through his acting. She had great thespian skills. He deceived me. He future faked. He lied. That's all nonsense. This is all self justifying nonsense in another form of self deception.
Because you knew damn well that something is wrong when you met this guy or this girl. You knew that something was wrong. Something was wrong about her personal history. Something was wrong about the way she talked about herself and about others. Something was wrong about how she handled situations. How she treated or mistreated other people. Something was wrong about her sense of humor. Something is wrong about her choices. Anything from entertainment to food. Something is wrong about the way she interrogated you after you went to the bathroom. Something was wrong about the alacrity and speed with which she was planning your life together. Something was wrong about the way he held your hand, took your purse, told you which restaurant you're going to and what you're gonna eat. Something was wrong about all this.
And you knew it and you damn well knew it and you didn't do anything about it.
Because you were lonely. You were sad. You were broken. And you wanted someone to hold your hand and to embrace you, to hug you. You wanted human warmth and human presence.
But the narcissist is not human. Not in any sense of the word.
So you fell prey not to the narcissist, but to your own neediness, to your own weakness, to your own spinelessness, to your own inability to enjoy your own company, to your own, in short, deficit in self-love.
That's what the narcissist takes advantage of. He supports this vulnerability and he offers you companionship and simulated love and a fantasy within which you can avoid reality, you can escape.
Because you don't like reality, you don't like your life. You just want a Disneyland.
And you would deny everything because of your loneliness. You would even find someone like me physically attractive, mentally attractive, obnoxious and repulsive and creepy as I actually am. And this is a lot. This is a lot of the state of people out there.
You see, aloneness, being alone is the new normal. Single is the new black. 63% of men and 34% of women are single at any given moment. And 42% and 38% of women are lifelong singles either by choice or because they can't find an appropriate partner.
Majority of people no longer even have sex. No longer even have sex. Majority of people are celibate. These are the facts.
Pew Center, not Sam Vaknin. Get used to it. Move on.
You are doomed to your own company. Enjoy it. Make friends with yourself. Accept yourself. Have your own back. Protect yourself. Trust yourself. Become your best friend. Because no one else will do it for you. No one else will do it for you.