So what would be those criteria so that someone, I know that you mentioned that you shouldn't self-diagnosed, you need to be clinically diagnosed?
They include, for example, lack of empathy, exploitativeness, envy, and so on so forth. They're widely available only.
Currently on screen is the DSM criteria and you can pause it.
In the DSM-5, in the appendix, in the text revision was published two years ago as well, there is something called the alternative model.
Alternative model sounds a lot like a text lifted from Dostoevsky. It's literature. It's written like literature. It's beautiful.
And it describes the life and the internal process of the narcissist.
And I'm kidding you or not. It reads like Dostoevsky.
So I would much rather adhere to the alternative text than to the DSM's list, bullet list of nine diagnostic criteria.
Because I think the alternative model captures the essence of narcissism.
Not the behaviors, not the way other people react to the narcissist, not the way the narcissist feels about other people. It captures what it is to be a narcissist and who is a narcissist.
That's the alternative model, not the diagnostic criteria.
Let's say that a woman is in a relationship with a man and it's all splendid. She loves him and he loves her. At least that's what she perceives, but something's off and she can't put her finger on it. She suspects he may be a narcissistic abuser. This has happened to her in the past.
What would be some checklist that this woman can use as a heuristic?
And then I would like to ask you the same question, but from the male perspective.
Let's start with the fact that today, nowadays, half of all people diagnosed with narcissistic personalities are women.
That did not use to be the case 40 years ago, when about 75% of people diagnosed with NPD were men.
So either the gender bias is disappearing, or women are becoming more narcissistic.
I believe it's the latter because women are also becoming more masculine.
According to studies by Lisa Wade and many others, women describe themselves now in strictly, exclusively masculine terms.
In 1988, eight out of nine adjectives that women used to describe themselves were identified as feminine, and today eight out of nine adjectives that women use to describe themselves are definitely masculine.
For example, competitive, ambitious, ruthless, and so on.
So women have become more male-like, more masculine.
And since narcissism has always been a men's problem, a men's mental illness, so it seems that masculine women are becoming more narcissistic.
Now, the first thing to understand is that your gut instinct and intuition are frequently wrong when it comes to the circumstances and the external world and objects and even decision-making and so on. They are wrong about half the time.
Your intuition and gut instinct, but your intuition and gut instinct are rarely wrong when it comes to other people.
We perceive other people correctly. We often perceive situations and decision trees and wrongly, but we perceive other people very correctly.
So the first tip is, if something feels wrong, off-key, not put together, not well put together, something doesn't fit, walk away. You are likely right.
This, by the way, has a name. It's called the Uncanny Valley Reaction.
In 1970, there was Japanese roboticist. His name was Masahiro Mori, of course. And he conducted a series of studies and he discovered that people react with growing discomfort, they become more ill at ease, the more a robot resembles a human being.
Exactly the opposite of what we would intuitively think. It's counterintuitive. The more the robot resembles a human, the more uncomfortable we feel in the presence of the robot. And this is known as uncanny valley.
When you're in the presence of a narcissist, a narcissist is an unfinished human, a work in progress that would never progress.
Narcissists lack critical elements that comprise human beings. Narcissists lack empathy. They have no access to positive emotions. They lack a functioning ego. They don't have a constellated self, etc.
In many respects, narcissists are therefore a kind of artificial intelligence, a kind of robot. But externally, they look like human beings. It's like a very good simulation of a human being, but it's not a human being.
So you would have an uncanny valley reaction in the presence of a narcissist. A voice in your head or in your gut or wherever it is would tell you, this thing looks like a human being, but it's not full-fledged, it's half-baked, something is wrong. It's not fully put together or rightly put together. I mean, something's wrong there.
You should obey this uncanny valley reaction.
Second tip, do not pay any attention to the way the narcissist behaves with you because the narcissist is trying to manipulate you, trying to charm you, trying to obtain outcomes. It's goal-oriented, like psychopaths, they're also goal-oriented.
Pay attention to how the narcissists treats other people, not you. How does he treat the waitress? How does he treat the cab driver? How does he treat, I don't know, the concierge? Pay attention, how does he treat his mother?
Pay attention to how the narcissist interacts with other people.
Because with you, it's an act, it's a show, it's a theater production, you can't trust it, you're not obtaining any reliable information from his interaction with you.
That's the second tip.
Third tip.
Alacrity. Speed.
The narcissist would offer you marriage on a second date usually if he's very slow. And he would suggest to have four children with you on the third date and he would ask you to move into his place or he would move into your place on the fifth date.
That's too fast. The speed is alarming, indicative of something that is wrong.
He is not interacting with you. He's interacting with some figment in his fantasy and imagination. And because he's already intimate with his mind, this intimacy, instant intimacy, carries over to you.
So it's illegitimate request from the narcissist to the partner to say, hey, would you like to be married? I want to do this. It's a legitimate request after two years.
It's not feigning something in order to be manipulative.
Oh, you mean if he means it.
Yeah, he means it. He means it.
That's why when you go online, word 90, and again, I'm being charitable, 90% of the information is wrong.
They say, narcissists gaslight, narcissists lie.
No, narcissists are delusional. They fully believe everything they're telling you.
That's a problem. The problem is they deceive you because they're authentic. They're real.
They're meaning.
This is a point of contention with people who dislike Trump. They'll say, versus the Trump supporters, the dislikers will say he's lying and the Trump supporters would say, I sense authenticity and honesty from them.
So do I. I think he's authentic in his insanity, in his delusionality, in his cruelty. Everything is authentic.
The narcissist truly believes his stories, his promises, his intentions, the fantasies he imposes on you or introduces you into. The future as he delineates it, he doesn't future fake. Narcissists don't future fake. They fully believe the future that they're selling you on.
So this is important to understand. This is a confusion between narcissists and psychopaths.
Psychopaths manipulate you knowingly. This is known as Machiavellianism.
Psychopaths, if they make a promise, they know they're going to break it. If they make an offer, it's goal-oriented.
They know the difference between fantasy and reality. They're selling the fantasy to you.
They remain stuck in reality, the psychopaths. They are firmly embedded and grounded in reality, but they want you to lose your mind.
They gaslight you. They falsify your reality. They induce, induct you into fantasy, and they do it intentionally in a premeditated manner. It's part of a plan.
The narcissist is not like that. Narcissism is highly automatic. Most of the processes are unconscious and they believe.
Everything they say they believe because they're grandiose. Everything they say is the word of God. How could you distract or doubt it? No way. It's a God speaking, you know?
So that's the second sign, the alacrity, the speed.
The third sign, I'm sorry, the speed.
The fourth sign is control.
Narcissists have severe separation insecurity, which colloquially is known as abandonment anxiety. Exactly like borderlines.
But while a borderline clings like a codependent, a borderline would cling to you and would emotionally blackmail you in order to make sure that you don't abandon her and don't reject her and she would become hysterical and emotionally dysregulated if there's even a hint or a whiff of abandonment and rejection.
The narcissist's solution to the conundrum of abandonment is to control you.
So the narcissist from the get-go, from the first date, would be in control. He would take the keys from your hand and lock your door. He would drive you to a restaurant of his choosing. He would order food and drinks for you without asking you. He would then interrogate you why it took you so long to be in the bathroom and so on.
He in control, you feel like an employee with a very strict boss. And that's from the first minute.
And finally, I mean there are many more tips but I'm giving five.
Finally, fantasy incongruence. There are huge discrepancies in the autobiographical data provided by the narcissist, and usually in the first few meetings or occasions, the narcissist would focus on you exclusively. It's like a laser focus and you become the total center of attention, you're idealized, and it's irresistible. You fall for it.
Yes, it sounds attractive. It's attractive. You fall for it. It's intoxicating. And you want more and more. And only the narcissist can give it to you and so this way he gets you addicted.
But if it does provide and when he does provide autobiographical material, it's usually contradictory. Usually there are severe discrepancies and usually the personal history of the narcissist contains a lot of evident fantasy, evident.
Examples. A narcissist can tell you that his work is groundbreaking and he is about to win the Nobel Prize.
I'm kidding enough. Sounds stupid, isn't it?
But then the contradiction would be, he may say this, but then...
It's clear that it's fantasy. It's fantasizing.
Oh, sorry. What I meant to say was, can you please provide an example of something from their past that they would say at one instant and then they would contradict it later?
On a first date, the narcissist would tell you that he was a member of the special forces or the SAS or depending on the country. And then on a second date, he would tell you that he never served in the army.
Okay, that's interesting, but I don't see how they believe that then.
At any given moment, they believe it.
That's the thing that's difficult. It's difficult to wrap your mind around this.
If you enjoyed this toe clipping, then the full video is linked in the description. You should also sign up for Toe Mail, which is, again, in the description you should also sign up for toe mail which is again in the description and the pinned comment you'll receive immediate access to all exclusive updates from the theories of everything podcast it also helps me communicate directly with the core toe community you'll also receive my top 10 toes think of it as the intellectual version of Quentin Tarantino's obsession.