Connected Yet Removed
The people that know me and interact with me often remark that I always seem attuned to people and my environment. They remark about how I know so much about certain things, that I have clearly experienced a lot and retained the benefit of this experience. My awareness of matters is high and it is often commented on how I am able to “plug in” to something and instantly understand it, know how it works and what to do. Whether it is a meeting, discussion or event, I always fit in. I am not going to disagree with those comments.
Let us imagine that you are a massive football (soccer for our transatlantic cousins) fan. I listen to how you analyse a forthcoming match and discuss the impact of an expensive new signing. I carefully pay attention as you detail how the opposition centre-half is weak on short passes played into the penalty area. I see your eyes widen and light up with interest as you debate these issues with fellow fans. I make a careful note of what is said by you and the others and store it so that I can regurgitate it later to someone else who is similarly interested in football and pass it off as my own knowledge and observations. I do this with conviction so that nobody recognises that these comments are not my own. I spent the morning before the match that we are attending, reading the sport sections of two quality newspapers and also the satellite broadcaster’s webpage for the match, along with other bits and pieces from around the internet in order to assemble my knowledge for this, our first match together. I knew from your social media postings that you are a passionate fan of this team and as I targeted you I pretended I was as well. I managed to recall key trophies the team had won and recent events from the football club’s website to enable me to demonstrate I was also a committed fan. In the course of the discussion with you and your friends who are also die-hard fans I trot out a piece I memorised from a football writer, tweaking it here and there to give it a ring of authenticity as I explain how the captain, sorry our captain, needs a holding midfielder alongside him to allow him to venture further forward and play key balls to the lone man up front. You all nod in agreement showing admiration in my knowledge despite it being acquired elsewhere. I feel the fuel flowing.
I attend the match with you and see how excited you are by the occasion. Your conversation speeds up as you talk about the team the manager has selected. The smell of beer and hot dogs and pies mixes together on the concourse, heightening the occasion as the singing from the away fans drifts from inside the stadium. An event like this assails the senses. The press of the crowd as it makes its way inside seems to lend energy to you and your pace quickens, causing me to have to speed up to ensure I am not left behind. Once in our seats your face shows how you are eagerly anticipating the game, the chanting and shouting already loud, bouncing around the stadium and competing with the delivery of the pa announcer. All around me I can see nervous anticipation, bullish enthusiasm and well-founded confidence. I listen to the chants so I learn the words enabling me to join in. I watch you as you crane forward in your seat, eyes fixed on the unfolding match, fists clenched and repeated utterances issued loudly to urge your team on. I mimic your exhortions and body language, leaning towards the pitch and then jumping up as your team, now our team, opens the scoring. You hug me and I return the hug, jumping up and down in a replica of the delight that washes across the home crowd. The taunting chants aimed at the opposition ring out and I readily join in, gesturing towards the disconsolate faces in the adjoining stand. A second goal is scored, this time from the cries of delight and the conjoining of profanity and blasphemy the goal is clearly of both quality and importance.
“That puts us on top of the league on goal difference,” you explain as if you are able to see that I am wondering why there is such a heightened reaction to this second goal. I know however that you are not wondering that at all. I know that you are thrilled that I am embracing with such enthusiasm the match, sharing the main passion in your life. I join in with the cheers, the shouting, the cries of frustration and disappointment, the barracking of the referee when he makes a poor decision and ensure I am fully integrated with the experience. I look around me watching the passion, the hope, the fury and the delight etched on the other supporters. The stadium is a cauldron of noise and emotion. I am plugged into this experience alongwith fifty five thousand other people. I can see the emotions are raw and visceral, even primitive.
I see all of this around me yet I feel none of it. I merely mimic everyone else in order to fit in. I am attached to the experience but I feel nothing. I am completely detached from it. All it does is serve a purpose to enable me to create and build bridges and ties with you. I can see how it all affects you, it is clear to see. I am there yet I am not. I am connected yet removed. This is how it feels, or rather, this is how it does not.
14 thoughts on “Connected Yet Removed”
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Thank you so much about “Connected yet removed” post, HG! I needed exactly this! I just jumped on the other side on the fence and I am determined to move in the narcissistic team for good. I already targeted my first victim. I know he is an empath, always trying to be helpful and to fix things. He is a huge football fan. I am invited on 7/7 to watch the game with him and his friends. So, I will follow the steps you describe in the post. I’ll try not to be too enthusiastic though. I plan to bet with him on the first goal, just to add some suspense.
Otherwise, frankly, I find all of the so called “football fans” totally lame. Agree with you about the quality of emotions on field – primitive and profane.
I will not allow him sex until next week. I have an important question: how you have sex with a person that you do not find very attractive but you know they will give you a first quality fuel?
P.S. You’re right – fuel tastes so good!
Ha ha. I think if you have to ask that, then I would posit that you are mot a real narcissist.
Yep. You’re right. My narcissistic traits are incomplete and even feign, if any. But this is about to change. I just discovered HG and I’m fascinated. I plan to silence all my empathic traits and to develop at full scale all my egotistic qualities. Keep fingers crossed! Now I must go – I have an appointment to the beauty shop to get mink lashes on.
HG, first I must commend you on using the word “fuel” rather than “supply”, the former is so clearly understood to be an absolute requirement for life. I imagine you’re aware that the empath’s barely contained excitement at the game, tears of joy at seeing a friend succeed or elation after being of assistance to one in need, is actually the fuel motivating empaths to do good. We all repeat that which feels good. I noticed my Mid-Ranger’s face contort with pure vehement contempt in the presence of people enjoying a genuine positive emotion. Although he would later remark on what a bunch of weak idiots these people are, I wonder now, could he actually be envious of their joy, or does he honestly, (pardon the expression), view emotion as undesirable disgusting weakness?
Thank you. Yes, he is envious of the joy and the contentment.
HG, please – why does a narcissist do sport – do you feel exhileration from kitesurfing or sailing or skiing down a mountain? As I understand it, fuel must be emotional reactions that come from others and centre around you, be caused by you, so how does this apply?
Apologies for harping on this; I really am trying to understand.
Thought fuel and then using the experience thereafter to gain Proximate Fuel.
Thank you, HG; it is all becoming clearer.
Sorry for once again disturbing the continuum –
You have no need to apologise.
I’m understanding this now! My mother wanted people to talk about their experiences and then tell them about hers, from which she seemed, only to me who kbew her well, completely removed. She did so many, many things, more than “mete mortals”, but could never feel any of it. “He” was the same – his fascinated look at me when showing him around the medieval college – it was not fascination with me, or who I am, but with something he could never feel or comprhend – passion for life. Is that right – have I made the correct connection?
In essence yes.
They are really like an alien. Mork from Mork and Mindy Except their soul is black and hallow. it is like they jump from one body to another to co-exist. Like a animal just trying to survive. They don’t think anything of killing their next meal. A Nac. thinks nothing of using people to feed off of. WE are just a drug for them. Entertainment. RIGHT HG?
….and suddenly I think I realise why some Narcs have been drawn to me…. I say some because I think some would steer clear if they knew just how ferrocious and wild, (unable to be tamed) we can be!
I literally drip with feeling much of the time and it is enough to move many who have never cried or perhaps talked about stuff deep inside them…. to suddenly have tears and tell me whats deep inside them….like they subconsciously know I can handle it, literally nothing will shock me, and they are safe!
I guess that must be the strong empath traits within me….. but coupled with the borderline it does make it all extra powerful…. and when I connect with people, it is a very strong bond indeed! It is addictive and all encompassing!
This has not happened just once or twice…..its happened many many times.
In many ways HG, I kinda envy you. I feel too much. It’s overwhelming. It’s too much. Not only do I feel what I feel, I would feel what my partner would feel, and also what those around me were feeling, as if they were my own feelings. I would take it all in as you also do but instead of just observe I “feel” everything! I do enough “feeling” for 2 people….
If I wrote something similar to this mine would read: “Connected, and Tuned-in with heart, mind, body and soul”….