Spoiler Alert

When I was with Siobhan (an ex girlfriend) her birthday arrived just four weeks after we had begun seeing one another. I took her away for the weekend, bought her a beautiful Tiffany bracelet, organised a huge bouquet to be delivered to the suite where we were staying in our hotel and then took her shopping for a couple of new outfits and some new shoes. She was swept off her feet. Just as I intended. All part of the golden period and naturally part of the ongoing seduction to ensure that not only was I receiving her positive fuel caused by her delight, admiration and thanks for such a wonderful time, but that she was becoming embedded into my world. All those I meet need to become part of my world, attached to me, fuel lines running from them to me. This is especially so with the person who is to become my Intimate Partner Primary Source (“IPPS”). I need to own that person, I need to draw them into my world, ensure they are completely subsumed within it and thus they will be under my control. I truly want them to succeed because they show such promise, they demonstrate that they have the ability to fulfil the Prime Aims and deliver what is required which in turn will give me the fuel that powers my construct and this illusory world into which this person has been drawn.

When it was her birthday a year later I didn’t give her a present and begrudgingly went for dinner with her that evening. I ensured she paid. I talked down to the waiter and insisted we leave without pudding and subjected her to silence on the drive home. I wanted to spoil her birthday because it was about her and not me. I hate attention being focussed elsewhere. I can tolerate it during the golden period because it serves my purposes to allow that person to have a wonderful and special birthday because of their positive fuel and the need to embed them, yet when devaluation occurs, there is no need to tolerate this state of affairs and the reality can be unveiled to the bewildered horror of the recipient.

There is no need to maintain the artifice. The person is embedded and if we have chosen the correct victim (and we usually do) they will not be going anywhere fast because they will cling to us in the hope of returning to the golden period. The victim, who most of the time will be the IPPS (as this is the person who suffers the longest and the worst type of devaluation) has been chosen for their desire to mend things, to understand and try to establish what has changed, what has gone wrong and their need to try to make everything good again. This creates an almost indefatigable approach by the victim to remaining with us. Nevertheless, when this devaluation is in place, everything has to be spoiled. What once was a wonderful occasion is either not acknowledged or is actively ruined. Whereas we once praised and complimented something you had achieved, this too is either ignored, put down or belittled in some way.

My nephew told me he had come first in his school’s 100m race. I told him I ran a faster time than him when I was at school. A colleague showed me his new watch. I told him I had one which was similar but mine was better. You’ve got tickets for a performance tonight? I went last week and it was rubbish. You recommend a new Mexican restaurant that has just opened? I tell you that it is attracting the attention of environmental health. Bought a new car? I don’t like the colour and criticise its miles per gallon ratio. The thing is that these comments often just spill from our mouths (especially with the Lesser and the Mid-Range) before we even have a chance to think. It is an instinctive response which is designed to make you give us negative fuel, to assert our control over you and to emphasise our superiority.Whenever the spotlight is shining elsewhere I need to smash it and train a new one on me. Sometimes the needs of the façade will mean that control has to be exerted so that the training of the spotlight occurs in a way where was outshine you as opposed to necessarily denigrating you, but the effect is the same. You cannot have the spotlight on you, it has to be on us.

If you have an important function you want to attend, I will pick a fight with you before you go and then text you incessantly whilst you are at it so you do not enjoy it. I have to ruin it for you. I cannot control this urge. Sam (an ex girlfriend) loved to garden. She would spend hours at the weekend tending her beds. I would call round during the week when she was not there and take a strimmer to her plants. As the stalks and stems were obliterated I could feel myself feeling better as I envisaged her dismay at returning home and seeing her garden having been hacked at. That Thought Fuel was welcomed and of course I would ensure that I just happened to call around later that evening to find her either sobbing at the destruction or raging at the carnage that had been caused. Witnessing her reaction to my spoiling behaviour of course provided me with significant fuel which was potent and edifying.

I have to cut people down. The urge to destroy, denigrate,criticise and belittle is overwhelming.

I have to spoil. There is no hope for an alternative because the need to keep people in their place, maintain my own superiority and also to create the contrast for the provision of potent negative fuel is overwhelming.