Thank you all, for your thoughts and contributions to this... It's a very complicated issue, especially depending on who has experienced which bit of it.
You know that parable about blind people touching an elephant and the person touching the leg says it's a tree trunk, the person touching the tail says it's a piece of rope, etc etc... This is what that reminds me of... I see everyone in this thread having experienced a certain part of narcissim - which is real - and it being contrasted to another part someone else has experienced, which is also real - and these two things can seem so at odds they sound almost contradictory.
If you suspect you are being led into a transactional relationship you can test them yourself! If you can change plans at the last minute, cancel, make mistakes, change your mind in general, without the other person sulking, blowing up, having a meltdown… then you have good information that they are probably behaving more relationally than transactionally.
This is an excellent thermometer. ^^^^ All of this.
The thing is, I don't believe this is true at all! Yes, in the LATER stages of a narcissistic relationship, this is an excellent litmus test. And also, for other abusive people, it's also an excellent litmus test. BUT - for the intial stages of a narcissistic relationship, where there is either literal love-boming (in a romantic relationship) or the equivalent of love-bombing in a friendship, employment situation, or whatever - this is exactly what DOESN'T work, because the narcissist is passing these test with FLYING COLORS because they're actively sucking you in. You could theoretically behave at your absolute worst - late for everything, petulant, moody, whimsical - and they'd be in the "idealisation" phase where they're telling you you're "cute" for having flaws...
And this is part of what makes these relationships so addictive and dangerous... That this initial honeymoon phase is continued until they see you "fall for it". Once they can tell you've (finally) bought it, then you've been baited and now you're their plaything. It's a perp thing, to draw you in.
In addition to agreeing that, yes, infants/ toddlers can be very narcissistic, anyone who has outdoor cats must also have observed how perp-y and cruel cats can be with their prey. The way a cat stalks a mouse and waits and waits and waits until just the "perfect" moment and then basically tortures the mouse/ other prey and plays with it - allowing it to "almost" run away and then pouncing on it again... Honestly, anyone who's got an outdoor cat and has observed it's behaviour and who knows about PTSD, perps, abuse, torture etc... must be able to see the really disturbing parallels...
I'm grateful for some of the points you make too
@Friday - I agree that manipulation/ being able to read people can be used for different ends. For example, a therapist has to be able to read micro-cues and is trying to "manipulate" clients towards healing, self-esteem, growth, etc. I wouldn't class that as "narcissism" tho, unless it is done with abusive, selfish intentions.
One of the things that has really confused me with my narcissistic ex is how WELL he was able to "empathise" in the love-bombing phase - he was able to read each and every single mircro-cue of mine and respond to it with exactly what I "wanted" to hear. So I think it's wrong for some people to say a narcissist "lacks" those abilites - tho I can very much understand the comment when viewed through the lens of how the narcissist ENDS UP treating people in the later phase which does make them seem like they're devoid of ANY empathy at all.
I think narcissist have a "special" kind of empathy - it's literally an ability to "micro-read cues" and to intuit what the other person wants - but I think it's not connected to a deeper core sense of feeling that it's "important" what another person wants in the same way it's important what you yourself want. There's no deep sense of "we all have human needs and that's okay, it's part of what makes us all alike".
To make matters more complicated, my narcissistic ex is also a survivor or major childhood trauma. I can "see" where the brokeness comes from. It's a different kind of breaking of the soul than what happens with people with PTSD. Until I experienced him close up in all his facets, I didn't truly realise that people could break "that way". I sort of was aware of it from cultural descriptions of narcissists and perps... but I never understood it fully until I experienced it first-hand.
The "why" aspect does bother me and if some people view it as an unhelpful question for them, that's fine. For me it truly is an important one, just because of how my mind works. I know my mind won't rest until I've understood the "why" aspect to some degree.
One thing I can be grateful for is that my ex was not a deeply malignant narcissist. If he'd wanted/ intended to truly F*CK me up, he could have inflicted much, much, much more harm. Thankfully, he's not someone that actually thrives on seeing someone else suffer - he's not a sadist. If I'd gotten entangled with someone like that... who knows what might have happened.
I think he's much more a... "confused" narcissist... The whole love-bombing phase and then later the controlling/ devaluing phase gave him some kind of ego-boost, which he was desperately in need of. He definitely fits the category "covert" narcissts - he was never physically abusive - he was more the type who would guilt-trip me that I had "looked at him wrong" and "made him feel awful" by saying a wrong word. It was pure and utter mindf*ck and done to manipulate and control, but it wasn't the pure hell of a sadistic type using physical violence or bent on making me suffer.
Also, another part of the dynamic was this: I told my ex, before we got together, that I had PTSD. I figured it was fair to be upfront about that, as we were getting closer. He didn't mind it at all - which I recall being surprised about - but also thinking "Hey, how nice that someone's not freaked out by it". Only much, much, much later did I realise that PTSD actually fit part of his "type" of who he was attracted to. He wanted to be with a woman who was "weaker" than him, someone that he could be the "strong hero" for.
The thing is that he literally misunderstood what my "having PTSD" meant. He assumed it meant I was weak and vulnerable and needy. He did not realise that it meant that I was "avoidant attachment" and used to fighting for survival, looking after myself, being hypervigilant about signs of abuse. So once the abusive phase started, I actually got out quick smart. I didn't stay "in" the abusive phase of the relationship. I did leave. (But the damage was still done... The devaluation and abuse happened in the breakup phase and the aftermath phase, but it still happened.)
During the breakup and the aftermath phase, I actually screamed and screamed and screamed at him - yelling out every single ounce of my frustration and hurt and indignation at being treated like a piece of dirt, so the whole "ego boost" that he'd acquired in the inital phases of the relationship - it was all undone by the disgusting, prolonged, blamey, shitty breakup phase. So he didn't "win" anything from this whole stupid process at all. He tried it - and had he chosen his victim better - it would've worked. But this way, even though I've been left with a huge amount of psychological damage by being put through the process of being someone else's prey and being used for utterly selfish reasons - he's not gotten what he wanted out of it.
I also feel like he's stuck in a compulsion... I think when we've been the victims of a narcissist, we tend to "give" them too much power. It's not "powerful" to be a maglinant perp or sadist. Yes, it can seem that way, if you're the mouse and the perp is a cat... But really, people who are that kind of malignant antisocial type - they're incredibly broken and incredibly sad specimens - they will never be whole, they will never experience true human contact, they will never understand what life is actually about. While they can cause a shitload of harm - like a toddler with a loaded gun - it's not actually from a deep, true sense of personal strength and ability. It's simply the "power" of someone who is broken to use that brokeness to break other people too and to pull them down into the brokeness so that they are less alone there. That old "misery loves company" adage.
