Knowing the Narcissist : Hounded By Love

One of my ex girlfriends, Kate, was a big animal lover. She was always sponsoring some rare monkey in Africa or baking cakes to raise funds to save the gay whale or such like. People often remarked how fortunate I was to have someone so caring. I would tell them if she spent less time playing Dr Doolittle then maybe I would not have to sleep in the spare room so often to remind her of who she should be focused on. I remember this used to get me some puzzled looks and for an instant I could not understand why but then I worked out they thought I was being mean so I used to tell them the bed was always full of her dogs so there was no room for me. They would smile and nod. Too easy. You see, people will, most of the time, take the path of least resistance and this means that they will accept most explanations so long as there is some degree of plausibility about them. People need to find a reason and especially those of an empathic nature have to do so. Provide a reason to explain something away and people accept it. This is one of the main reasons why we are able to do as we do, because people either accept the explanations that we give for what is otherwise aberrant behaviour or they find a reason or explanation themselves (either blaming some third party event or influence or blaming themselves) rather than seeing the behaviour for what it is. I do not write this from a position of blaming people for thinking and behaving that way, it is understandable. They do not know what they are dealing with, they do not realise the person they are engaging with is a narcissist and they, as truth seekers, need to find a reason to explain the behaviour. They need to know and this invariably causes them to fall for what we tell them or what they tell themselves.

Anyway, she got involved in volunteering at an animal shelter which did not impress me and to add insult to injury she expected me to walk and feed her dog whilst she was out being St Francis of Assissi. I kid you not. So on the two evenings when she was helping out I would invite her sister Amanda over. She would feed the dog and I would pretend I had taken it for a walk. (So long as I let it out in the garden and did its business (which I would fling over into next door – I guess that’s why we have new neighbours) Kate thought the hound had been walked. Thus I was able to lure in Amanda. She was low hanging fruit. Ignored by her boyfriend it only took a couple of weeks of texts and declarations of compatibility and I was bedding her each time she came round. Kate would come home and spend most of her time petting her dog but I had someone else to distract me so I let that flagrant failure to give me attention slide a little. Not totally as I still used it to remind her of how neglectful she was of me. I did notice though that she was spending more time and more money on the hound and was obviously doing it to provoke me. Her sister Amanda then started to change. She was initially great fun, vibrant, passionate and interesting but then she got whiny and needy and had the audacity to start criticise my girlfriend Kate. That was not on. She would still call round twice a week, even when I stopped inviting her and I had grown tired of bedding her. I had decided that Kate was the better choice of the two and wanted to focus my attentions on her but she doted on that wretched dog.

Demonstrating the decisive decision making that is my hallmark I took prompt action. On an evening when Amanda had called over I agreed to sleep with her. Before doing so I let pooch out into the garden and opened the gate. I went through the motions with Amanda and then had just returned downstairs when Kate returned. A few moments passed and then she began to call for the dog and with increasing urgency. The hound had gone. I blamed Amanda. Cue sibling fall out. The upshot of it was Kate never spoke to her sister again. Amanda never called round and pestered me and the dog was gone.

Two birds and all that.