That Thing Between a Man and a Woman...
Narcissists and Personal Attraction
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
First published in my
"Narcissistic Personality Disorder"
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... I lack.
That moistly energy, the hungry eyes, the imperceptible tilt of bodies lusting, that magnetism. I do not have it. I do not know the frequency of the silent broadcasts of sexuality. My face is handsome in a man-child way. My features broad but quite agreeable. Sometimes I am rich and powerful or famous. Women are curious.
Until a few years back I was able to disguise my illness. I mimicked the behaviours, the intricate messages, the subtle bodily perfumes, the long and longing looks. But now I can't. I am exhausted. These rites of procreation drain me of the energy I need so abundantly in my pursuit of my supply. Freud called it sublimation. I am a prolific author. My seeds are verbal. My passion is abstract. I rarely fuck.
In women I induce confusion. They are attracted, then repelled by something they cannot explain, nor name. "He is so unpleasant" - they say, hesitantly - "He is so... violent... and so... disagreeable". They mean to say I am not a healthy person altogether. The animals we are, they sense my illness. I read somewhere that female birds avoid the sickly males in mating season. I am one sickly bird and they avoid me with the hurt perplexity of the frustrated. In this modern world of "what you see is what you get", the narcissist is an exception. A packaged deception, a diversion, a virtual reality with awry programming.
Not long ago, I was still able to control myself, to hide my vile thoughts, to play the social game, to mimetically engage in human intercourse. I can no longer. I am the denuded narcissist - bereft of old defences. This transparency is the ultimate - and psychopathic - act of sheer contempt. People are not even worth maintaining my defences anymore. This frightens women. They sense the danger. Psychic annihilation is often irresistible, the brinkmanship of self-destruction luring. That evil is aesthetic we all know. But it is also so alien, like waking from a nightmare into its continuation in reality.
(continued below)
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But I am not an evil man, I am simply indifferent and wish not to be bothered. This schizoid streak conflicts with my narcissism and with my virility. The narcissist devours people, consumes their output, and casts the empty, writhing shells aside. The schizoid avoids them at all costs. As a man, I am very much attracted to the opposite sex. I am imaginative in my fantasies and prone to sexual abandon. But to a schizoid, women are nuisance and annoyance. Obtaining voluntary sex requires too much effort and waste of scarce resources.
Most narcissists go through schizoid phases in their inexorable orbits of gloom and mania. Sometimes the schizoid prevails. A narcissist that is also a schizoid is an unnatural hybrid, a chimera, a shattered personality. The push and pull, the approach and the avoidance, the compulsive search for the drugs that only humans can provide and the no less compulsive urge to avoid them altogether... it is a sorry sight. The narcissist shrivels and withers as the battle is prolonged. He becomes almost psychotic at the tug of war inside him. Alienated even from his False Self by his schizoid disorder, such a narcissist is turned into a gaping black hole, out to suck the vitality of those around him.
So, you see, that thing between a woman and a man - I lack it.
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