I've had a few days to really think over the conversation my friend's ex and I had. The more I think about it, the stranger it feels. She was very sweet and flattering to me (in between the times where she would tell me how little my friend cared about me, how he was obsessed with her). She called me her "friend" almost right away, and while she was trying to sound like she was relating to me, it was more of her building herself up to me, telling me how strong she is/has become and acting almost like she was trying to mother me, or maybe be that bit of wisdom that I needed to hear? There was definite one-upmanship going on though. I was feeling pretty numb from the other things she was saying though, and I didn't really respond when she did it.
Here's the thing: something about the whole conversation seemed so fake, even though it was so "sweet" and "caring". I don't know now if I only saw it because I knew ahead of time that she was HPD/NPD or if that's the way other people would feel around her too.
So how do HPDs normally act around women then? Are they super sweet? Competitive? I know that this woman has friends (women) who say what a good heart she has, and that she's very giving and warm. I tried to explain the strangeness of our conversation to another friend, one of our mutual friends, and I don't think she understood at all. She said it sounded like I was "guarding my heart" and that this other woman probably was too. I dropped the conversation because I already felt badly about our mutual friend being stuck in the middle of this mess, but she honestly didn't understand what I was talking about.