by bitty » Fri Jan 30, 2015 10:40 pm
Most of us narcissists are entertaining, and I've felt resentful at being the one who livens up proceedings, and makes people laugh - it's great when someone can really make me laugh, which is far less often that my ready laugh would suggest. So yeah, I can relate to you feeling that you get no benefit from most social occasions - we wear ourselves out, and in a way the admiration and liking is nice, as you say, but we don't get as much entertainment back.
If people really are plotting against you, it may be that they're picking up on underlying hostility and competitiveness, perhaps, and reacting to it? I do think that people with strong egos pick up on other people with strong egos, in a way that others don't, and are more antagonistic towards them. Or do even people who don't have strong egos strike you as plotting against you?
(I've said before that I used to view people as the enemy, but with me, it was more of a general view.)
My view of most people nowadays is that I am funnier than most of them, (but also annoying at times), and I can get an interesting conversation going about wierd and wonderful topics. But when I do listen to people, (a rare thing!), and find out more about them, they become 3 dimensional, and more intelligent, and sometimes humourous, than I gave them credit for.
I just mean that as a narcissist, my 'superior' qualities are good ones, it's good to entertain people, cheer them up, interest them, (whatever my actual motives are), but there are others that I lack, and I'm learning to appreciate in other people. It's really hard to quantify what I mean, I just see people as richer and deeper than I used to.
It took me until my fifties to realise this, but just try not to write people off as unworthy of your attention if they are less intelligent or humourous or whatever. What can I say? Just try to really see them. I'm being unfair - I'm a narcissist, you think that you might be one too, and I'm saying in effect, "Don't be a narcissist.", as if it was that easy. We can't just snap our fingers and develop empathy. I suppose that I'm thinking that if you're aware of how your perceptions might not be fully accurate, or rather how you're not seeing the full picture, you can start to change direction a bit, if you want to.
Sorry,it's getting late, and I need to go to sleep, more on my screw ups later, if you still want to hear about them!