Vlog CCCXXXIII

They act as if anything you may do on the level of being human and spontaneous is somehow a fault and an attack on their sense of well-being. You end up feeling bad for them. They seem exquisitely sensitive, but they give their acute sensitivity other names, having to do with respectful attitudes and "taking things seriously". They certainly play the game of acting stupid, as if it were not possible for them to understand what one was saying to them. Then they try to bill you for the relationship (and other) costs of them getting it wrong. The only conclusion you can draw from this is that they are not people. They never do anything spontaneously and therefore can be blamed for nothing. They don't have contempt for anything in particular except what is human and natural -- which is to say, less than godlike. If you are someone like me, who was strongly bound by a code of strictness and fairness, they will relentlessly try to exploit that sense you have that you ought to have done more for them. Interestingly, when I was writing my PhD, I used Bataille's meditations on death and disintegration to gain a perspective that enabled me to treat the narcissists more correctly, in terms of what they really deserved. You have to break the spell of attraction that is based on their godlike demeanor, and see that the real destiny of humanity is down a death spiral. This sounds extreme, but invoking the other side of the dialectic is very useful and effective.