The Seven Truths About Narcissistic Friendships
- Our friends don’t really like you
The people that we choose to provide our inner and outer circle of friends have all been charmed by us and roped into our sphere of influence for the purpose of providing us with fuel, traits and residual benefits. They in return are granted repeated audiences with ourselves, they are able to gaze on the Sun King and benefit from their association with such a social titan. When you are admitted to my sphere of influence as an intimate partner these friends of mine only like you because they know that this is their role and they must do so in order to remain able to attend my court. Should I give the instruction they will turn their backs on you in an instant. Never believe that you can turn to them in a moment of need. You will head straight into a brick wall. Should you be admitted into my sphere of influence as another member of the inner or outer circle then these friends are your competitors. They are all seeking my favour, either to remain in the inner circle or to achieve promotion to it, such is the allure and attraction of being friends with me. These other friends will smile and welcome you, because that is what is expected of them but they are smiling assassins who will pounce and delight in plunging the dagger of isolation and ostracising into your back should I will that to happen. You are entering a viper’s nest.
- It is a one-way street
You will benefit from your association with me as a friend and you will enjoy my company, who would not when I am charming, magnetic and interesting but you are only allowed to occupy this positon so long as you are giving. You must provide me with the fuel to keep me topped-up through your praise and admiration. I expect you to be an errand boy for me, you will carry out my machinations on my behalf when I require you to manipulate someone by proxy, you will get me things, give me things and do things for me all because you want to stay in the elevated position of my friendship. It is also highly likely that I will possess some information about you or something you want which compels your compliance also. You are the giver and I am the taker. It is one way.
- Our friends do not know what we are
The blazing brightness of our brilliance is such that it obscures what we really are. Any complaints about our behaviour will be met with rejection and a confused response. They have always been treated well by us. We let them join us and we allow them to follow in our wake which has numerous benefits. They have no idea what we actually are for if they did they would no continue to be part of our retinue. They do not want to know any different however because they have been brainwashed into thinking that the status quo is to their advantage and therefore they see no reason to entertain anybody who seeks to usurp us.
- Your friends are all targets
I have no interest in making friends with your friends. They are beneath me but I will regard them as targets. There may well be your replacement amongst them and how satisfying would that be to corrupt one of your supporters to turn against you and sit at my right hand? I will charm and ensure that your friends think well of me as this will not only make my seduction of you as my primary source far easier, it will also provide me with fuel, traits and residual benefits as well. You friends are targets to be my new primary source, members of my coterie and even lieutenants so that I have a fifth columnist in your camp willing to act on my behalf when the inevitable devaluation begins.
- Our friendships are defined by the usefulness
As I have explained the concept of friendship for us all about what we can take from it and therefore so long as someone is providing us what we require, complying with our wishes and carrying out what we want then the friendship will endure. Should one of our friends see through us, turn against us or begin to fail in their assigned role it is of little consequence to us that we may have known them for ten years or more. It is of no concern that we go drinking with them every Friday, if they do not function as a constituent appliance then they will be switched off, excluded and replaced. We make friends easily and we keep them far easier than you might think. Very few leave us. We usually do the jettisoning.
- Our friends must never outshine us
We like our friends to be beautiful and handsome but not better looking than us. We like to have a beautiful crowd around us, it signals to the world that we are special. We want the interesting folk, the talented, the successful and so forth as we are able to steal traits from all of these people to accentuate our own success and popularity so we are better able to seduce more people into our sphere of influence. We want them to achieve, look good, be fascinating so long as none of them outshine us. We benefit from the reflected glory but it must not shine brighter than our star otherwise someone will have to be exited. There is only room for one king on this throne.
- We appear to like our friends but we like their fulfilment of The Prime Aims really
The members of our inner or outer circles often appear to be liked by us. This is purely the outer manifestation of our fuel-filled selves. What we really like is that our friends are satisfying The Prime Aims. The fact we say you are a good badminton partner, really means that you provide us with fuel and the residual benefit of having someone to undertake some sporting exercise with. The fact we declare we enjoy our morning lift-share with you, really means we enjoy the fuel you provide and that you are providing the residual benefit of enabling us to save money. Remain within our control, fulfil one or more of the prime aims and as a friend, a Non Intimate Secondary Source you will appear to be liked.
8 thoughts on “The Seven Truths About Narcissistic Friendships”
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I was “frenemies” with someone like this when I was in Jr. High. The minute I got on her bad side, her whole crowd turned on me (fortunately, we went to different schools, so she had to torture me long distance). A guy she had tried to fix me up with (mostly because he wasn’t as cute as her boyfriend, who DID go to my school) called to say he wanted to break up. Unfortunately, I eventually asked him what I had done wrong, but my first reaction was priceless: I said, “I didn’t know we were going out.”
ha ha, i went out with a guy without knowing it in middle school, he decided i was his, and kept threatening other boys to not talk to me, he did that for almost half a year, when a girl asked me why i never meet up whith my boydriend, i told her that i had no boyfriend, and then she told me the story.
when i confronted him, he was surprinsingly nice, he didn’t resist and even apologised.
When I said I hadn’t known we were going out, he whined, “Well, we kinda were…” (We met at the ice rink and had done some very minor snuggling outside. No movies, no dinners, and I suppose his parents picked him up as mine did, since none of us was old enough to drive.)
Then I ruined it by going all insecure and wanting to know what was wrong. It never occurred to me that my on-the-outs Frenemy had recruited him to do this, and that she had motivated him by either claiming I had said GOK what about him, or had given him false hope that he could move up in her food chain if he went on her missions. Quite probably both.
I wonder if he ever figured out what a user she was.
Violetta,
in any case, if a he can be turned against you, then he is no good for you. you don’t need a person like that in your life, although i understand that for a highschooler it is verry hurtfull.
Liza
This comment is amazing.
Assuming he was a narcissist. I am going with sense of entitlement, grandiosity, delusional (perceived/imaginary relationship), triangulation, gas lighting, objectification, lack of boundary recognition and emotional empathy and threats.
When you confronted him, he didn’t deny it; he deployed the Second Line of Defence: Distract and Deflect; benign control, facade maintenance and false contrition.
there was a girl in my group who was always sitting with me, and pretending to be friends at least, when my two real friends were still there. the two of them went abroad 2 years ago, so in the next year of their departure i was only with her, and then she changed behaviours, she wanted to make decisions for me, always guilt triping me, she would critcise even the most insignificant details about me : that i’m clumsy, lightheaded, she would take back her words and tell me i’m forgetfull and early Alzheimer should not be taken lightly, the most childish thing she does, she would always insist on siting to my left side, since i’m lefthanded and she is righthanded, our arms colide, and she would complain all the class long that she can’t write confortably, but she still refuses to sit on the right side. one time she even told me that it is suspicious i get better marks than her even thought i don’t atend that much, i explained that i don’t atend because i prefer to study alone, but she kept on telling me that it is stil souspicious, she comletely ignored the fact thaat a week befor exams i was the one explaining to her, and if i was that stupid why would she ask me.
she wanted to hurt me by trying to seduce the M.bibi, but it appeared that he used her to acquire informations about me, and i don’t really know what happened between them but when he decided that i will be his IPPS she never came near me again. i asked one time about her, he smiled and said that i shouldn’t bother with such matters and changed subject.
Is it possible for a N not to have friends or family? Would they still be able to survive? I’m only asking because of a situation I was in just recently. I’m a CNA that does home care. I was sent to care for a middle aged woman. She had serious health issues and was on tons of medication. I hope I am wrong about her and her behavior was a result of medication and the stress of being sick.
From the minute I walked in she started complaining about all the other caregivers that had been there before. They all had attitudes and challenged her about everything. She decided she liked me and immediately asked me to come see her FT. I agreed but I had a bad feeling about her. Something about her was just off. Her parents are dead and all her siblings are, as she said, evil. She constantly was calling the home care office yelling at them for things she claims they did to her. She had no friends to speak of. I felt sorry for her being alone and sick. I gave her a chance hoping that if she saw that not all CNAs have attitudes maybe she would be happier. So I made sure I was attentive to her and friendly. But her constant complaining about the other CNAs etc.. got on my nerves and made me wonder about her. She had poor boundary recognition and nothing was ever her fault. She blew up at people quite easily. I kept telling myself it was the result of medication. But one day recently she asked me to do a task no other client had asked me to do. It was disgusting and not something I will write about. I told her I had to call the office to make sure this was something we are to do. She said that was fine. I was out in the hall talking to the nurse and I could hear her yelling from inside her apartment. I went back in and she was at the door yelling at me for taking too long. How dare the office keep me from her. It was literally maybe 5 minutes. Later I told her if she is unhappy she doesn’t need to yell at me. She apologized and immediately started crying for like 2 seconds. Neither seemed genuine to me.
I won’t work with her anymore. I got a feeling she could be a N. But I keep wondering how a N could survive without any friends or family…
There are several narcissistic indicators in her behaviour.
With regard to a narcissist not having friends or family, it is unusual but it can happen. Could the narcissist survive? Yes , although the level of function may be impaired. He narcissist can engage with other fuel sources, such as neighbours, care givers, doctors, lawyers, handymen etc. They can also interact with people through a Virtual Fuel Matrix.