Any other INTJs dated or had a relationship with a bona fide sociopath?

[Camus2u2]

I just learned today that there is an 'Introductions' section, but I've already made a few posts. My apologies but my mind has been extremely occupied lately, as I'm sure many on this board can relate to. I'll try to do a proper introduction soon.

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Up until a couple days ago, my mind has been in super-analyzing mode. All my relationships have been strange but this one wasn't due to any INTJ-ness; yet I couldn't quite put my finger on the cause. Now, I can laugh about it, sort of-- now that I realize what was going on. I think INTJs might be more susceptible to the charms that always veneer sociopathic behavior, but only as an extreme curiosity. After all, many INTJs are jokingly called mentally ill for being schizoid; I know I have been. Regardless, my intuition from the beginning was that "this guy is not on the level", but his behavior oscillated so smoothly between unimaginable and charming that I couldn't look away for 3.5 months. I'll go into more detail if others respond but, suffice to say, he once stole a fancy coffee pot from a busy checkout counter while I was in-line behind him. Even stayed to chat, for a sec, with the unpaid-for coffee pot under his arm! That was near the end, though. I knew he had major issues, by then, but I needed, perhaps wanted, more data. Can't leave things open-ended.

Anyway, if you've dated a sociopath (diagnosed or suspected). I'd love to hear about your experience. I'm glad that I'm a typical INTJ, it's made moving on so much easier than I suspect other types might experience, but I must say that it's taken a great deal of my energy to process it all. I thought I did a good job of calling him out on his BS, as it happened, but the residual feelings were intense before I made the sociopath connection.


If you've been there...
What was the first sign in your relationship?

...for me it was when he insulted my neighbor for having a fat dog, while riding in the elevator with him. It must have been pretty bad because the neighbor approached me at the pool, the next day, to discuss it. Awkward.
I'd known him less than a month, then.

[Santana28]

yes.

First sign? the sweetest, most generous, most selfless person in the world would berate waiters, store employees, people he didnt even know in the harshest of ways. Later on, he would say very nasty things to people who were friends or family of mine, without even thinking anything of it. I visited an old school friend who had a young baby with Down Syndrome... when he asked her, TO HER FACE, how her little "mongoloid child" was doing in school... i should have RAN. But i didnt. Stupid me.

If you need more examples of things to watch for, shoot me a PM.

[changos]

I don't know precisely if I'm on the right track, but after reading the post of Santana28 I can share this:

A lovely lady I dated, pretty happy, kind and easy to smile at other people. Two occasions two diff aggressive drives got in my way and I said something like "damn people" and she got mad at me telling me not to do that. BUT she was crazy!!!, when aggressive drivers got in my way SHE was the one yelling and even insulting them. WTF?!

People just won't believe the things I saw while dating her... "she is so sweet", but nah, she was crazy.

First sign? "I'm telling you this only because I trust you, we are very alike"...

Yes, those lines of me having the privilege of having access to something just because they see something "unique" in me that connect us (but its obvious a lie). Just like:

"I'm showing you my collection or baseball cards only because you have that unique point of view needed to understand the value they have for such a collector, me".

WEIRD!

[Camus2u2]

Thanks for the reply. I would not have any trouble imagining this guy doing exactly what you describe. I never allowed myself to get too involved, i.e. when he virtually moved into my place after 3 weeks (kept leaving more and more stuff each visit), I finally packed his shit and left it on his apartment's back patio. I should have left it at that, but he was very charming. Also, he doesn't seem to be as severely expressed a sociopath as some I've recently read about, so we had a lot of fun, most of the time. Anyway, I ended it a month ago and haven't heard from him. I basically told him that I found him incredibly insincere and that I couldn't spend time with someone that I didn't trust. It was also planned, on my part, as I was leaving town for 2 weeks, the next day.

I appreciate your PM offer. I think I've processed everything pretty well, now, but I would like to share a few his traits. Maybe you'll recognize your sociopath ex ;-)

He loved to go to the Casino (esp. before he met me) but always ran out of money between paychecks. He had a good job, too. I suspect it won't last.

He had just moved here from 2000 miles away after basically destroying his credit.

Speaking of his job, he works as a social worker/advocate for victims of violent crime! He would frequently recount a victim's story using very detached language. Even most INTJs would disapprove. Ironically, I imagine he's very good at consoling the victims, superficially, that is.

He loved to try to insult me by making remarks about my personal appearance, in the guise of being playful. I'm difficult to insult, but I did eventually tell him that if he continued I would lose interest and very quickly. He immediately stopped that behavior and began to engage in extreme flattery, which clued me in to the depths of his insincerity.

He lied about everything. Never could get his back story straight. I sometimes miss details but numbers tend to stick in my head. His last relationship was either 3 or 6 or 9 years long? lol.

Anyway, I'm actually glad for the experience, but I'm more glad that I didn't fall into the web too deep. I never gave him money though he asked a few times. I don't think he knew how to play me and that made him try a little longer than he might otherwise have. I don't think too many people had called him on his BS, so early.

I hope your experience wasn't too bad. I can only imagine how bad it could've been if I were in a different frame of mind when I had met him. How long did your "experience" last?

[Santana28]

Yep - mine had a Counseling Psychology degree, and is an active member in his church. Domestic violence? That too. Financial instability? Definitely.

Mine lasted 8 years - 4 in marriage. I'm glad yours didnt last NEARLY that long :) It was hell...trust me.

[Camus2u2]

Wow...8 years! He must have been very charming. They all are; I guess it comes with the territory.

I was a in a good place mentally when I met him...ready to try a relationship again, but not oblivious to the pitfalls. In a lot of ways, he was perfect. Great cook. Yet, I knew he was "different" from the very beginning. Had I met him 10 years ago, I might just now be starting to recover.

In spite of my interest in personality typing, I used to disparage psychology in favor of what I thought was a better treatment of most issues by philosophy, but now, this relationship has taught me the practical side of studying psychology. I thought sociopaths would be so easy to spot that I never feared meeting one. Lesson learned.

[Santana28]

Wow...8 years! He must have been very charming. They all are; I guess it comes with the territory.

Ha ha yes... that and i was in a horrible place when i met him. At the time i took his generosity at his word - looking back, i see how he targeted me.

And yes - mine was a great cook as well ;) Wanted me to put him through culinary school even.... LOL

[Camus2u2]

I don't know precisely if I'm on the right track, but after reading the post of Santana28 I can share this:


First sign? "I'm telling you this only because I trust you, we are very alike"...

Yes, those lines of me having the privilege of having access to something just because they see something "unique" in me that connect us (but its obvious a lie). Just like:

"I'm showing you my collection or baseball cards only because you have that unique point of view needed to understand the value they have for such a collector, me".

WEIRD!


I think you're on the right track, though some poeple aren't full on sociopaths; they are classified as anti-social personality disorder. Some consider the terms equivalent, but I tend to sympathize with the distinction that sociopaths are usually complete, in that they express virtually all the characteristics. Mine did. Whereas, people with ASPD may only exhibit a few of the traits, though they do so consistently and are also usually beyond treatment.

Your first sign rang a bell, as well. My sociopath, lol, was always saying "it's a sign, we're meant to be together" in reference to really stupid things. As coincidence would have it, he once called me to tell me about a cool preying mantis he saw on his patio. Well, I too had seen a preying mantis that evening. I thought it was funny. He thought it was a "sign". He tried to use it a few times thereafter when we were arguing. Sociopaths are brilliant in their ability to manipulate.

[Santana28]

i would say my ex has Narcissistic personality disorder, along with Borderline Personality Disorder...

his ability to "empathize" is his greatest trait - and until i married him and saw the processes that went on beyond his actions... i had no idea how utterly false they were.

"we're meant to be together" - yep, heard that a million times too. Ugh.

[Camus2u2]

Mine was extremely generous, as well, especially early on, but he was also extremely narcissistic. We ran into a friend of mine at a restaurant once, who had a young infant. Well, the kid couldn't take her eyes off of me. Mr. Sociopath got super jealous after my friend made the comment that infants tend to stare at the most beautiful person around. It was funny to watch and another clue.

***I should add that my friend with the baby is always complimenting me because she knows it makes me very uncomfortable. She's very sweet, that way.





Camus2u2 added to this post, 27 minutes and 5 seconds later...


his ability to "empathize" is his greatest trait - and until i married him and saw the processes that went on beyond his actions... i had no idea how utterly false they were.

"we're meant to be together" - yep, heard that a million times too. Ugh.

The heightened empathy made me very skeptical. I can experience intense feelings of empathy but such situations are not something I seek out. It's very draining. I could never be a social worker, for example.

Overall, I'd say the reason I let it go on for four months was because I rarely meet people that I can't understand. I meet tons of people that I don't relate to, but I understand them, at least superficially. Sociopaths are impossible to understand to anyone with a fully functioning brain, but I found this one incredibly interesting for all the contradictions. I think that's what I meant earlier by being susceptible.

[Pandemonium]

My last x-gf (4 years ago) was a full on sociopath. I only dated her for around 6 months. I easily noticed what she was doing and how she acted. I had a lot of experience with sociopaths before hand. When I was 12 years old one "adopted" me as a friend. Anyway long story short I learned a large amount of information from observing them. My x-gf was starting to infect multiple areas of my life trying to control or own me. This annoyed me so i decided to destroy her with the most complex plan possible (I was immature at the time). I removed her from my life and moved cities.

Every so often she finds out somehow my contact details and calls me. Her conversation normally follows the line of pronouncing her love for me and how she is incomplete without me.

I was a introverted kid that got harassed quite a bit at school. I was an easy target at that early age for sociopaths. Now that I'm older and more mature I can deal with people in a suitable manner. I can pick a sociopath from a mile away these days and I can read basically anyone with ease. Everything is a learning experience even if people do horrible things to you.

This really sparked my obsession with psychology. From the ages of 14 to 18 I all read was psychology text books. I wanted to become a criminal psychologist but engineering was different and now more interesting.

[PRBori]

Wow...

Well, I would have to say yes. My ex-hubby, when I met him he worked 2 jobs and hardly had any time to himself, seem respectful and was acting quite religiously....until of course we got married.. then a different side showed up..

First sign, a week after we got married, he literally left the car running in the middle of a busy street with my inside because of a simple comment I made about his driving habits and took off for 5hr before returning home.

Second sign, he was a pussy girl when it came to construction work which is a field for the real men... but somehow he managed to stay put for 2 years in the construction field and worked hard.... until he found out I could make good money in my field... then hell broke through and the real person came to light... he quit and got a part-time job (4hr/day or less)

the marriage lasted 5 years and it was hell, specially the minute I got pregnant with a full term baby...

Anyway, to make the story short...yes, I end it up with a nut case and so was his family


Has anyone had a more sociopath person than that?

[Henry]

I just learned today that there is an 'Introductions' section, but I've already made a few posts. My apologies but my mind has been extremely occupied lately, as I'm sure many on this board can relate to. I'll try to do a proper introduction soon.

To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Up until a couple days ago, my mind has been in super-analyzing mode. All my relationships have been strange but this one wasn't due to any INTJ-ness; yet I couldn't quite put my finger on the cause. Now, I can laugh about it, sort of-- now that I realize what was going on. I think INTJs might be more susceptible to the charms that always veneer sociopathic behavior, but only as an extreme curiosity. After all, many INTJs are jokingly called mentally ill for being schizoid; I know I have been. Regardless, my intuition from the beginning was that "this guy is not on the level", but his behavior oscillated so smoothly between unimaginable and charming that I couldn't look away for 3.5 months. I'll go into more detail if others respond but, suffice to say, he once stole a fancy coffee pot from a busy checkout counter while I was in-line behind him. Even stayed to chat, for a sec, with the unpaid-for coffee pot under his arm! That was near the end, though. I knew he had major issues, by then, but I needed, perhaps wanted, more data. Can't leave things open-ended.

Anyway, if you've dated a sociopath (diagnosed or suspected). I'd love to hear about your experience. I'm glad that I'm a typical INTJ, it's made moving on so much easier than I suspect other types might experience, but I must say that it's taken a great deal of my energy to process it all. I thought I did a good job of calling him out on his BS, as it happened, but the residual feelings were intense before I made the sociopath connection.


If you've been there...
What was the first sign in your relationship?

...for me it was when he insulted my neighbor for having a fat dog, while riding in the elevator with him. It must have been pretty bad because the neighbor approached me at the pool, the next day, to discuss it. Awkward.
I'd known him less than a month, then.

Potentially. I'm not positive, she just may have been unstable, and it was really just drinking and sex, but she prided herself on seducing younger women. Used pretty hard drugs. She tried to borrow money from me, and I'm pretty sure she wasn't entirely truthful about a lot of things. Not sure if it was sociopathy or just plain old white trashness.

Hanging out to chat during a theft is a pretty sure sign of antisocial personality disorder.

[changos]

I think you're on the right track, though some poeple aren't full on sociopaths; they are classified as anti-social personality disorder. Some consider the terms equivalent, but I tend to sympathize with the distinction that sociopaths are usually complete, in that they express virtually all the characteristics. Mine did. Whereas, people with ASPD may only exhibit a few of the traits, though they do so consistently and are also usually beyond treatment.

Your first sign rang a bell, as well. My sociopath, lol, was always saying "it's a sign, we're meant to be together" in reference to really stupid things. As coincidence would have it, he once called me to tell me about a cool preying mantis he saw on his patio. Well, I too had seen a preying mantis that evening. I thought it was funny. He thought it was a "sign". He tried to use it a few times thereafter when we were arguing. Sociopaths are brilliant in their ability to manipulate.
A lot of things make sense to me now. On my sociopath I found out after a while that all her friends were weird. If you put them all together you have a circus, no kidding.

[SevenOfSpades]

Yes, the story's something I'd save because any female who's encountered him and makes the mistake of falling in love has been driven to attempt suicide if they dare defy his word and 'ruin' the relationship.

[Camus2u2]

I really appreciate all the feedback. I don't think I've ever known a sociopath before and am kind of surprised that so many here have had this experience.

My last x-gf (4 years ago) was a full on sociopath. I only dated her for around 6 months. I easily noticed what she was doing and how she acted. I had a lot of experience with sociopaths before hand. When I was 12 years old one "adopted" me as a friend. Anyway long story short I learned a large amount of information from observing them...

Every so often she finds out somehow my contact details and calls me. Her conversation normally follows the line of pronouncing her love for me and how she is incomplete without me.

... I can pick a sociopath from a mile away these days and I can read basically anyone with ease. Everything is a learning experience even if people do horrible things to you.

This really sparked my obsession with psychology. From the ages of 14 to 18 I all read was psychology text books. I wanted to become a criminal psychologist but engineering was different and now more interesting.

I am slightly worried that he'll try contacting me again. However, I was pretty thorough in my breakup speech. I even threw in an insult or two about his inability to satisfy me sexually. Having endured so much bullshit in such a short time, it really felt good to use the truth to expose his "game". Good to hear that it only took you 6 months to figure her out. As others here have mentioned, these types can make even the most ridiculous behavior seem excusable.

Wow...

Well, I would have to say yes. My ex-hubby, when I met him he worked 2 jobs and hardly had any time to himself, seem respectful and was acting quite religiously....until of course we got married.. then a different side showed up..

First sign, a week after we got married, he literally left the car running in the middle of a busy street with my inside because of a simple comment I made about his driving habits and took off for 5hr before returning home.

the marriage lasted 5 years and it was hell, specially the minute I got pregnant with a full term baby...

Anyway, to make the story short...yes, I end it up with a nut case and so was his family


Has anyone had a more sociopath person than that?

Too funny. Your story certainly reaffirms my conclusion about my recent ex. When I was first getting to know this guy, I'd try to discuss various things with him, even trivial things, and he'd often get really upset and storm out. This is a major symptom. Sociopaths tend to react emotionally to the wrong things, especially trivial things that they believe reflect poorly on them (i.e. driving habits) but they can be incredibly resilient, due to their ability to lie, when discussing matters of a more mature nature (i.e. setting sexual boundaries within a relationship). Anyway, my favorite storming out incident occurred one night after we had had great sex and good conversation afterwords. Well, I thought it was good conversation anyway, but he had apparently been miffed at something I had said. So, he woke me up in the middle of the night, yelling at me...calling me a "weirdo" before storming out. That was when I packed up the shit that had been accruing at my place and dropped it on his patio. I should have never had contact with him again, but...

Potentially. I'm not positive, she just may have been unstable, and it was really just drinking and sex, but she prided herself on seducing younger women. Used pretty hard drugs. She tried to borrow money from me, and I'm pretty sure she wasn't entirely truthful about a lot of things. Not sure if it was sociopathy or just plain old white trashness.

Hanging out to chat during a theft is a pretty sure sign of antisocial personality disorder.

The conversation after the theft incidence was very revealing. He was so proud of his brazenness. He had just started a new job in the DA's office, the week prior. I calmly suggested that shoplifting a coffee pot is an incredibly stupid thing to do when one's has just started a new job with the DA--a move that, if discovered, could not only cost someone their job but which would be very embarrassing, as well. It took far too long for him to do the social math on that one.

He eventually revealed a history of hard drug use. I sometimes partake of the herb, myself, so he knew I wasn't a tee-totaller; however, most sociopaths have absolutely zero self-control, so hard drug use is common. How long were you with her?


A lot of things make sense to me now. On my sociopath I found out after a while that all her friends were weird. If you put them all together you have a circus, no kidding.

He didn't have many friends, and since he had just moved here, it was a difficult clue to discover. However, he once proudly noted that he had skipped out on his "going away party" before moving across country. As an INTJ, I didn't find that too alarming, as I might have considered doing the same if in a sufficiently bad mental space before such a move. I would have felt bad, though, if I did such a thing to true friends. He was not remorseful, in the slightest way. Thus, most sociopaths have very few friends, but not by choice, as is the case with many INTJs.

Yes, the story's something I'd save because any female who's encountered him and makes the mistake of falling in love has been driven to attempt suicide if they dare defy his word and 'ruin' the relationship.

Wow. what do you mean by "the story's something I'd save"? I wish I'd known more about sociopaths before I met my chump. Please share...





Camus2u2 added to this post, 6 minutes and 17 seconds later...

Incidentally, I'd love to hear of similar experiences from non-INTJs, as well. I guess I should have made that clear in the original post. I presume that a more emotionally-centered personality might have a harder time 'discovering' and acknowledging the duplicity that defines a sociopath.

Agree or disagree?

[Ice Wolf]

Thank you guys. I think you gave me some thinking material. Something similar happened to me. Not in romantic terms, but... I bless God again. This time for enabling my "extra cautious" perk. Until now I thought it was because she was an S (hmmm) ... I think I have to reassess some of my past ideas... This time I really hope my new ideas are wrong.

[changos]

Yes, the story's something I'd save because any female who's encountered him and makes the mistake of falling in love has been driven to attempt suicide if they dare defy his word and 'ruin' the relationship.
That's another thing... my sociopath "was looking" for someone to kill her because she had no courage to kill herself... but it was another attempt to manipulate me.

In fact the story is full of such attempts, trying to manipulate people.





changos added to this post, 7 minutes and 30 seconds later...

Thank you guys. I think you gave me some thinking material. Something similar happened to me. Not in romantic terms, but... I bless God again. This time for enabling my "extra cautious" perk. Until now I thought it was because she was an S (hmmm) ... I think I have to reassess some of my past ideas... This time I really hope my new ideas are wrong.
Honestly... after reading other posts in other threads (here and there) still many people think they can make a wife or a husband out of anybody ha ha, that makes me laugh.

[Pandemonium]

I am slightly worried that he'll try contacting me again. However, I was pretty thorough in my breakup speech. I even threw in an insult or two about his inability to satisfy me sexually. Having endured so much bullshit in such a short time, it really felt good to use the truth to expose his "game". Good to hear that it only took you 6 months to figure her out. As others here have mentioned, these types can make even the most ridiculous behavior seem excusable.


Funny you might say that. It was my sociopath friend that loved manipulating people into sadistic scenarios, who forced me to go out with the sociopath girl. He decided when it was time to get rid of her. My friend he manipulated my parents into moving into our house. It is a bit hard to have control of a situation when one is in the next room away from you.

Some nights he would storm into my room arguing that I was a worthless human being. He also had a few interesting habits. At this point I was getting extremely annoyed with them both. One trying to destroy my inner world and another trying to have me as her little play thing.

It always helps being in the top 99.9% of the population intelligence wise. I got my friend sent to jail by convincing people he raped them (which in fact he did, some people are a bit clueless) and for a few other charges such as possession and 40 counts of assault (I caused him to go berserk at a party, strange thing was he called the police on himself asking for a fight, he was on pcp at the time).

The girl needed to hear that I loved her to fulfill her fantasies. I told her just that. There is nothing more interesting than bringing all the guys and girls that she was manipulating in that manner to one location. There was 12 of them. I didn't know that you could lead on 12 people at once and not having others find out. Once a fight broke out between the guys. She started crying looking around dumbfounded to see me laughing my head off. She called me later on that night crying declaring her love for me and only me, I replied with "Ohh poor girl. Mommy and Daddy never loved you and unky touch your special spot." She liked to use her child abuse stories to gain sympathy.

A week later as I was getting the mail from my letter box I was thrown into a boot of a car. Four hours later the boot opened and four fairly large guys beat the crap out of me. One of them I knew so through out the beating I was having a nice conversation to him about how well his sister is doing in school and the group project we were working on (talking is slightly hard when your getting kicked in the stomach). With my nose broken and eye socket bleeding like hell, I started limping back to town. I managed to hitch the way back.

The girl I was forced to date had a draw full of love letters to people that people sent to her. After the whole kidnapping event. I broke into her house at 2am and spray painted on her wall in her room while she was sleeping 'I know you.'

Thats the story in short. Thinking back it sounds really immature and makes me cringe. Being young and immature makes the world spin I guess. After the removal of the toxic people in my life, it gave me a real chance to do what I liked to do; Be a book worm, study and achieve high results at school. It did take me four different schools until I found the atmosphere I wanted to be in. Dealing with average people annoyed me beyond belief. Now at university I'm with people with similar goals to myself. Solve the world's problems through sustainable systems engineering!

[baixue]

i would say my ex has Narcissistic personality disorder, along with Borderline Personality Disorder...

This perfectly describes my ex. He was also extremely violent and abusive sexually. I did become pregnant by him, but he left (thank G-d) when I was 3 months along. I haven't seen him since and last I heard he was in prison.

[Camus2u2]

Thank you guys. I think you gave me some thinking material. Something similar happened to me. Not in romantic terms, but... I bless God again. This time for enabling my "extra cautious" perk. Until now I thought it was because she was an S (hmmm) ... I think I have to reassess some of my past ideas... This time I really hope my new ideas are wrong.

Thanks for the words of appreciation. That's the main reason I am posting about my experience. I'm an information junkie but somehow I never thought an in-depth study of a sociopath would prove worthwhile. Well, in the last two weeks, I've read everything I can get my hands on, on this topic. It's a totally new experience for me--this appreciation for psychology. The strange affection that only a sociopath can offer has made all the difference in the way I will interpret psychological positions, in the future. It's opened my mind, a bit. Is applied psychology an official discipline?

Since I am a big-picture type, my excusing such ridiculously inappropriate behavior really had me puzzled. The big picture is clear now that I've listed, in my mind, the incredible number of behavioral anomalies, as well as the factual inconsistencies. I've shared only a few. It's a testament to the power that sociopaths can achieve by constantly keeping people in a state of confusion. If you think someone you care about might be a sociopath, pay careful attention to how they react when you point out their ridiculous behavior. Mine would totally shut off and then simply flip the switch to normal, in very short order, depending on my response. A relationship with a sociopath is cyclical and usually they leave you once they taken all they can. If you call them on the bullshit early on, the cycles will be shorter and you stand to lose less, at least that's how it seems to me. I feel very sorry for all the people that I've read about who have given a decade or more to a sociopath. 3.5 months was intense enough for a lifetime.

[azelismia]

Not all of these examples sound particularly sociopathic to me. Particularly being not into construction work as a male... that's just not being into construction work as a male. leaving the car during and argument and not coming back for 5 hours is just someone very pissed off. Pbori, I don't see sociopath from your description, maybe a jerk.. but not sociopath. a lot of these other stories sound like various personality disorders but not necessarily sociopathic.

I was married to a fellow with borderline personality disorder for 9 years. it was a very F###D time. He was very very charming to all he met, but then he had these rages. his parents knew there was something wrong with him and he used to tell me how he just manipulated the psychologists to believe there was something wrong with his parents not him. He knew all the right things to say but inside was hollow and empty ( these are paraphrasing things he said to me in the time we were together)

he tried to kill me a number of times. He had some sort of insurance thing mapped out in his head. I had an insurance agent call me daily askign when I was going to come in and sign life insurance paperwork, he said that my husband had been calling him trying to get me in. he talked about killing a coworker in great detail and he had some insurance fraud plans he wanted me to carry out while he was fishing. He was very very controlling.

The first couple times he tried to kill me, I didn't believe he'd do it ( and sure enough I am still living) I thought it was a game we were playing. a very rough game and a game I didn't like but I thought I knew the answer to it. I could always keep up with the edgy arguments. There were a number of aspects about him that I absolutely loved. I mean, I've never been more in love with someone.. but his bad side was just beyond control and it seemed to get worse with time. He set his best friends house on fire. he ended up in prison a few times for assaulting police officers when intoxicated. ( I was seriously starting to distance myself from him by this time) and then he snapped and truly became out of control at the end after I told him I wanted a divorce. We had a three day talk and I thought we were really dealing wtih things and maybe we could salvage it after all btu then he snapped and broke a crystal glass and threatened me wtih it and then started slashing his own throat. I escaped past him when he fell down and ran to the neighbors to call the police. he fought with them when they showed up. he went running away bleeding and with bare feet. He'd tried to hang himself with a telephone cord when I was at the neighbors.

He's super intelligent. Very well spoken, can debate a mule out of it's stubborness so on and so forth. but inside he's blank. he's got this deep well of rage that he tries to control.

Now he's studying law. He's married to a very Dull woman physically and mentally ( my intelligence was a big problem for him. if I didn't always outwit him I at least could keep up with him and that would infuriate his attempts at control. He couldn't keep me down) He has two or three kids now. ( I fear for them, he was always trying to talk me into kids but I saw that as a keeping me under control thing. If I had kids I wouldn't be able to end things so easily, plus I couldn't imagine being so irresponsible as to bring children into the world with someone as mentally unpredictable as that.

In our three day talk at the end, he admitted that if i stayed with him he'd kill me eventually. this was in calm and relaxed conversation.

I keep expecting to see their names in the news. Maybe being with someone mentally dull who isn't good looking will keep things more stable for them though. If he feels in control he probably won't be so unstable. ( no idea if that's true but that's the thought process) He's got feelings for himself.. but he's said more than once that he doesn't feel empathy. He never understood that about me. He found it fascinating that I could have empathy. When I was 19 adn we went to cancun, we stayed in the cabana's where a lot of the poor people lived. it really got to me. He really didn't get why I'd be upset about the poverty and suffering of others ( it was a dying puppy that broke me down completely) . the way I saw it there were SO many reasons to be bothered by it. at the time I was pretty poor by american standards but it made me realise just how spoilt I really was.

[Camus2u2]

Not all of these examples sound particularly sociopathic to me.

I agree, Azelismia. Some of the examples might just be jerks, as you say, but it's hard to tell without all the details. There are numerous personality disorders, and sociopaths often have borderline and narcissitic disorders, concurrently. It seems to come with the consummate nature of the illness. Regardless, I've encountered many that I suspect have PD, but I've never met anyone like this last guy. There is a certain parasitic quality to the true sociopath that is not present in other PD cases. It is however infinitely fascinating to observe, assuming you are able to see through the lies.

All in all, I remain somewhat skeptical of labeling unique personalities so precisely. For example, schizoid personality disorder is a misnomer, in my opinion. As I see it, if your personality does not involve actively harming others, I am hesitant to call it a disorder. Many INTJs are schizoid, but they are seemingly well-adjusted. Then again, maybe I'm a little biased.

He was very very charming to all he met, but then he had these rages. his parents knew there was something wrong with him and he used to tell me how he just manipulated the psychologists to believe there was something wrong with his parents not him. He knew all the right things to say but inside was hollow and empty ( these are paraphrasing things he said to me in the time we were together)

Actually, by your description, your ex sounds more like a sociopath than any other I've read about in this thread. The lack of empathy, the charm, the manipulation, the early development problems are all hallmarks.

There were a number of aspects about him that I absolutely loved. I mean, I've never been more in love with someone.. but his bad side was just beyond control and it seemed to get worse with time.

Also indicative...after all, a sociopath wants to maintain their parasitic hold so they never forget where their bread is buttered. It is impressive how lovable they can seem during the good times, but they are incapable of true feeling. Apparently, it's brain-related and can be especially bad if their childhoods are tumultuous.

Maybe being with someone mentally dull who isn't good looking will keep things more stable for them though. If he feels in control he probably won't be so unstable. ( no idea if that's true but that's the thought process)

I think your analysis is correct. My S was definitely threatened by my intellect and perhaps my looks, though he was very handsome, too. They're simply far too self-centered to accept any competition on equal terms.

Seriously, your ex sounds like a classic case of sociopath or else he was just a very extreme borderline personality. The only non-sociopath quality is the suicide attempts. Most sociopaths will threaten suicide but never attempt it. It's only useful as manipulation. They love themselves more than anything so suicide is not usually an option.

***Of course, much of my analysis is what I've learned through reading, very recently, but it all corresponds so well to what I experienced that I'm now a believer.

[azelismia]

well, I don't know if the suicide attempts were serious or if they were just to pull me in. he never actually killed himself. Apparently slashing your own throat isn't terribly easy to do seriously enough to kill yourself instantly and I was right there and it is abundantly clear to all who know me that I am not going to just let someone die in front of me. ( I was a complete vegetarian for 15 years and now I only eat poultry) He was a fisherman. if he wanted to really kill himself it would have been very easy.

Afterwards when he was trying to get me back he said he just wanted me to see how serious he was or something along those lines.

My ex was drop dead gorgeous. 6'3" dark curly hair, long eyelashes deep brown eyes. full lips. Basically I was married to warren beatty in looks he knew it too. He used to say I looked like Faye Dunaway and we were bonnie and clyde.

oh to answer your other comment, I always thought Borderline personality order was the new PC term for Sociopath? I thought sociopath was blasted down by the Psychology board for having too many weighted connotations that they felt were not fair or something along those lines.

[Camus2u2]

What was his attitude regarding sex? Was he promiscuous? Secretive?
In defending his promiscuity, my ex once said "it's just sex" and "it's okay as long as your partner doesn't find out". Mind you, I was attempting to have a sexual boundaries discussion with a sociopath. It was difficult to get a straight answer, but I knew he wouldn't be able to curtail his dishonest nature. I'm not a prude. However, I found it very disturbing that this guy could so passionately express his interest in building a relationship with me but he simply could not understand the need for discussing boundaries, particularly when the topic turned on how their behavior could negatively affect the ones they supposedly love.

[azelismia]

He used to say he was asexual, but that wasn't true. I do not think he was promiscuous though. He was concerned about catching things. He was violent with me a fwe times in bed to "teach me a lesson" which didn't help our relationship in the slightest. there was only one time where I suspected he had cheated on me though. Everyone used to say how devoted he was to me. who knows though. he knew what to say to people.

after we had been apart a couple years and he was engaged, we got together for dinner. he didn't make a move. that sort of validates my ideas that he just didn't do that type of thing. Sex was not something that controlled him. He controlled it like he controlled everything else in his path.

[Camus2u2]

well, nearly all sociopaths are hyper-sexual. Sexual impulsivity is almost always present, so perhaps your ex really was just a borderline/narcissitic. He sounds hot, though ;-) Seriously, I hope I'm done with the crazies.

My ex also noted that he thought he was asexual, that he and his last partner didn't have sex for 2 years. it's the omitted part that was key...he may not have had sex with his partner but I'm sure he wasn't celibate. The main thing that alerted me to his illness was discovering several online profiles of his that were less than flattering and downright contradictory to my experience with him. Yet, all the while he was trying to convince me that he wanted an exclusive relationship with me (even though I didn't ask that of him). He was very active online. My discovery made his charm far less effective.

[azelismia]

I remember reading various disorders as we were splitting to try and understand what was going on and the description that fit him best was borderline. I don't think he was narcissistic.

My understanding of the sociopath is that it will show different forms. Some extremely sexual, some violent, Some in various criminal formats but all of those need not be present for it to be so.
I've been doing some reading, According to this
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it does manifest itself in a number of ways. He was implusive with his shopping and had sporadic substance abuse issues but needed to control those aspects of his life as well so as far as I know never actually became addicted to anything. He used meth for awhile but then quit. I've always wondered if he had taken it up again at the end there and that's why the downward spiral.

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Out of curiousity, where are you getting your information? None of the sites I've read that have any sort of credence say anything about ALL Sociopaths being promiscuous. they say some are but it isn't one of the criteria on it's own and even then it's only three of the ten needed to gain diagnosis.

With that in mind, I really don't know the full nature of my ex's illness. at the time I remember settling on Borderline as most likely although he definitely has traits in other directions.

my dad was/is ( I don't know if he's still alive, I disowned him a couple years before I cut my ex out of my life as well) a schizophrenic so I think it left me more open to having someone with absurd thinking patterns n my life.

I am with a hopelessly NICE Intp now and while it's not as on the edge stimulating for me, I think it's much healthier.





azelismia added to this post, 7 minutes and 26 seconds later...

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reading these two antisocial fits him better but he had indicators of borderline as well.

[Santana28]

just skimming the new posts... but thought i'd throw in that my ex was also very strange in the sex department. Was/is a complete pornography addict, likes to pretend to be a female online and make men want him.... finds suicidal ugly (insert depressing adjective) girls on the internet, make them fall in love with him.. and then stop talking to them or insult them. In real life - sex (initially) was great... then fell off a cliff. He had ZERO sex drive... he'd masturbate... but that was it. Later on after we were married he would initiate "affairs" with female coworkers... which nothing would ever come of. He just wanted to see if he could make other people want him.

Its all really quite sad, honestly.

[Camus2u2]

Thanks for the links and the comments, Azelismia. The Mayo Clinic article is one of the first ones I encountered.

I've been reading a lot of websites regarding sociopaths and some books, too, and they all mention sexual promiscuity as being common to sociopaths. The reasoning, beyond a basic lack of self-control, is very practical for sociopaths. They all know that they will eventually be found out or that they will eventually sabotage each relationship so they are constantly looking for their next meal ticket. When I asked my ex about his previous relationship's length, he gave me 3 different answers. Now, I realize that all were probably true, but just with different partners.

Dr. Robert Hare is considered to be an expert on the topic and his diagnostic criteria is the one that is most widely accepted, I believe. The following site (lovefraud.com) has a fairly well-presented explanation of Dr. Hare's criteria. Incidentally, the rest of the site is very informative. Having read many of the "personal" experiences of others who have been involved with sociopaths, it seems clear that sexual compulsion is almost ubiquitous, particularly for the reason stated above:
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A relevant quote from the above link:
"engaging in an unending series of casual, impersonal and trivial sexual relationships"

As my ex would say, "it's just sex". While I can certainly agree that nsa sex isn't always bad, when the pattern develops that this is the only kind of sex you crave, there is usually a problem.

I appreciate your insights, Azelismia. My grandmother was schizophrenic so I am familiar with that hell, as well.





Camus2u2 added to this post, 16 minutes and 7 seconds later...

just skimming the new posts... but thought i'd throw in that my ex was also very strange in the sex department. Was/is a complete pornography addict, likes to pretend to be a female online and make men want him.... finds suicidal ugly (insert depressing adjective) girls on the internet, make them fall in love with him.. and then stop talking to them or insult them.

Very interesting, Santana. Looking back, the actual first sign that something was off with my ex involved his phone constantly ringing on our first few dates; yet, he would never answer it. Someone really wanted to get in touch with him. I finally asked him about it, and he casually explained that he had "gone out on a couple of dates" with a crazy guy right before he moved. He said he had told the guy that he wasn't interested in seeing him anymore, blah, blah. I suggested he take the next call and firmly explain that it was over. He just laughed. At the time, I could tell that he was enjoying the attention and that the phone calls were not really annoying to him, that he expected them to continue and that he was proud of his ability "to lead someone on". I should have listened to my intuition and never seen him again, but...

About a week later, he got a call from the guy and asked me if I'd like to hear how pathetic the guy was on his VM. Before I could answer, the guy's VM was already playing on speaker phone. My ex hadn't listened to it, yet, and to his surprise, the guy clearly explained that what he was upset about was how my ex had behaved on this guy's recent visit! My ex did not tell me that the guy had actually flown out here for a visit. That hardly constitutes "just someone you had gone on a couple dates with...". Anyway, I was really put off by his behavior (putting the VM on speaker) and told him that I couldn't respect someone who would lead on another person, like that. He sweet talked his way into convincing me that this guy was just an obsessive type and that he had really tried to end it. I now suspect that this guy was wealthy and that my ex had used him for funding his move across country. Regardless, my guard was officially up.



In real life - sex (initially) was great... then fell off a cliff. He had ZERO sex drive... he'd masturbate... but that was it. Later on after we were married he would initiate "affairs" with female coworkers... which nothing would ever come of. He just wanted to see if he could make other people want him.

Its all really quite sad, honestly.

Bingo! When the sex fell off a cliff, I knew that most of his energy was being devoted to finding his next mark. After all, I called him on his bullshit so frequently that it was really beginning to cramp his style, I think. I have no doubts that when he has oblivious partners, my ex can be a great lover to them all, until he decides to disappear; however, he was not able to deal with my constant scrutiny. I have never been more thankful for my INTJ tendencies than I am when looking back on this experience. I am capable of offering great love to someone I care about, but I don't give of myself so easily, especially when I suspect only insincerity will be reciprocated. Yeah, I feel sorry for my ex too. I'm not an overly emotional person, but I would not want to live a life where true intimacy was an impossibility.

[azelismia]

I Personally can't take any comments seriously from a site called lovefraud.com it's got an angle it's selling you. Anyone can register a site and say they are someone with credentials.

It can be a common thing but it is not one of the diagnostic criteria. these types of mental illnesses have various ways of manifesting. I believe what you'd call that is a sex addict. not necessarily sociopathic. it could be co-morbid with it but they do not necessarily go hand in hand. there are other ways it can equally manifest.

[changos]

Again, many of the things I keep reading here make my bell ring on people I knew (dated and involved with). Too many to quote, but as obvious it can be, yes, they are incapable of loving. Its all about them. It was more clearly for me when the problems came as they justify EVERYTHING in ways beyond logic, even making up stories.

[Camus2u2]

I Personally can't take any comments seriously from a site called lovefraud.com it's got an angle it's selling you. Anyone can register a site and say they are someone with credentials.

It can be a common thing but it is not one of the diagnostic criteria. these types of mental illnesses have various ways of manifesting. I believe what you'd call that is a sex addict. not necessarily sociopathic. it could be co-morbid with it but they do not necessarily go hand in hand. there are other ways it can equally manifest.


Well, I personally don't get wrapped up in "credentialism" when evaluating information. I prefer to engage my critical thinking skills. That said, I certainly agree that the sitename, "lovefraud", is unbecoming, but the information contained therein has been truly enlightening, and for me, it is always the quality of the information that I am interested in. While I can also grant you that interrogating a source's credentials can be very important to evaluating the information itself, particularly when you are unfamiliar with the subject, it is not a substitute for independently assessing the merit of the information on its own terms. Critical thinking has been neutered by excessive reliance on unearned credentials. In fact, I think credentialism has played a major role in the degradation of our public institutions. For example, academic institutions have become so reliant upon corporate funding that the credentials of those who graduate from them are often of suspect quality, particularly where human health is concerned. (/rant)


Anyway, the information contained within the love fraud site jives with most of the other sources I've cross-referenced. In fact, I'd say it's the most thorough compilation of information on the topic that I've found online. Lastly, it all correlates with my recent experience. If nothing else, the personal stories related on the site are of immense value for anyone who has truly experienced a sociopath.

I do, however, agree that sexual promiscuity is not required for the sociopath, but everything I've read indicates that it is an exceedingly common trait for such individuals. It should also be noted that the diagnostic criteria for this illness is still evolving. There is some professional disagreement about how broad the criteria should be, especially in relation to distinguishing sociopathy from other personality disorders. The standard criteria--DSM-IV--seems to be a little too generalized for many:
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[Indubitably]

From what I understand there are very few "true" sociopaths out there. I know there is a fine line, but its important we be careful to make sure that we aren't just talking about extremely selfish ENFJs or something. There are plenty of people who are capable of being manipulative, charming, and cruel, without being a sociopath.

[Undead Bonzi]

I would have to agree with Indubitably. A couple of the stories told here ring a bell on the sociopath meter, but a lot of what I'm seeing is just stories of plain unhealthy or selfish partners (and to be honest, people who put up with way too much bs before calling it quits and walking away). I have doubts that all of the stories told here are sociopaths, it just seems to be bending the statistical probability a little too far to be believed. Never forget that some people don't need a mental or social disorder to be jerks.

[Camus2u2]

From what I understand there are very few "true" sociopaths out there. I know there is a fine line, but its important we be careful to make sure that we aren't just talking about extremely selfish ENFJs or something. There are plenty of people who are capable of being manipulative, charming, and cruel, without being a sociopath.

Indeed. That is why I used the term 'bona fide' in this thread's title. I've met plenty of people who are disingenuously charming and selfish and a few who are manipulative and cruel, but to encounter all those negative traits (and more) wrapped into one personality really shook my perception of others and of myself. I thought it might help me (and others) to get feedback from INTJs on this topic, since I don't relate well to overly emotional types and many of the sites that deal with sociopathy are peopled with those who are feeling-dominated. Perhaps, they tend to make for easier marks. I guess it depends on the level of challenge wanted and the intellect of the sociopath. I hope you never encounter a true sociopath, and that if you do, you are able to recognize the situation before it escalates.

I'm currently reading The Sociopath Next Door, by Martha Stout. So far, it's very well-written, and has helped me to feel better about things. It is easy to say that I understand the core problem with sociopaths is an inability to feel and empathize, but to be on the receiving end of that knowledge in a supposedly "loving" relationship has been difficult to reconcile. As INTJs, we often celebrate our rational processing of feeling, but being intimate with a sociopath has made me question how I can continue to do that without harming others. Even though I know there are fundamental differences between the sociopath and the quasi-schizoid, particularly with relation to intent, the emotional damage can be similar.





Camus2u2 added to this post, 2 minutes and 30 seconds later...

I would have to agree with Indubitably. A couple of the stories told here ring a bell on the sociopath meter, but a lot of what I'm seeing is just stories of plain unhealthy or selfish partners (and to be honest, people who put up with way too much bs before calling it quits and walking away). I have doubts that all of the stories told here are sociopaths, it just seems to be bending the statistical probability a little too far to be believed. Never forget that some people don't need a mental or social disorder to be jerks.

According to the book I'm currently reading, 1 in 25 are truly sociopathic, with male sociopaths being more common, 4:1. Before my recent experience, I would have found these numbers to be a little on the high side. Now? Who knows? It only takes one to offer a lesson in reality.

[Undead Bonzi]

Indeed. That is why I used the term 'bona fide' in this thread's title. I've met plenty of people who are disingenuously charming and selfish and a few who are manipulative and cruel, but to encounter all those negative traits (and more) wrapped into one personality really shook my perception of others and of myself. I thought it might help me (and others) to get feedback from INTJs on this topic, since I don't relate well to overly emotional types and many of the sites that deal with sociopathy are peopled with those who are feeling-dominated. Perhaps, they tend to make for easier marks. I guess it depends on the level of challenge wanted and the intellect of the sociopath. I hope you never encounter a true sociopath, and that if you do, you are able to recognize the situation before it escalates.

I'm currently reading The Sociopath Next Door, by Martha Stout. So far, it's very well-written, and has helped me to feel better about things. It is easy to say that I understand the core problem with sociopaths is an inability to feel and empathize, but to be on the receiving end of that knowledge in a supposedly "loving" relationship has been difficult to reconcile. As INTJs, we often celebrate our rational processing of feeling, but being intimate with a sociopath has made me question how I can continue to do that without harming others. Even though I know there are fundamental differences between the sociopath and the quasi-schizoid, particularly with relation to intent, the emotional damage can be similar.





Camus2u2 added to this post, 2 minutes and 30 seconds later...



According to the book I'm currently reading, 1 in 25 are truly sociopathic, with male sociopaths being more common, 4:1. Before my recent experience, I would have found these numbers to be a little on the high side. Now? Who knows? It only takes one to offer a lesson in reality.

My brief look into the subject gave me 3-4% of all males and 1% or less of females being sociopaths. Which meshes fairly well with what your numbers say but my point still seems valid. 3-4% is not a staggering number and the likelyhood of all the posters on this thread having actually dated a sociopath seem unlikely.

The biggest thing that makes me question ANY dating/ex story about ANY person that I hear is objectivity. Too often you talk to people while they are in a relationship and the person they are with might as well be the second coming of Jesus as far as the partner is concerned, then after the breakup you would listen to the same person and think that their partner ate live babies and had the number 666 on the back of their neck. A lot of it is simple emotional backlash and a way of healing the wound by telling/hyping to yourself/others how terrible that person really was. I am not dissmissing anything said here, but the internet being what it is, too often stories get washed through too many filters to be considerd reliable.

As I said before, some things said here ring the bell of sociopath (Camus, your story in particular does), but a lot of the other posts read more as bashing on/exaggerating/picking apart/demonizing old boyfriends/girlfriends in order to jump on the 'sociopath victim' bandwagon in order to bring down ex's who were no doubt jerks/bitches of the first water, but probably were not actual sociopaths.

[Camus2u2]

The biggest thing that makes me question ANY dating/ex story about ANY person that I hear is objectivity. Too often you talk to people while they are in a relationship and the person they are with might as well be the second coming of Jesus as far as the partner is concerned, then after the breakup you would listen to the same person and think that their partner ate live babies and had the number 666 on the back of their neck. A lot of it is simple emotional backlash and a way of healing the wound by telling/hyping to yourself/others how terrible that person really was.

All very true, Undead Bonzi.
I think INTJs would be less likely to suffer this response, or maybe just for the shortest amount of time. Regardless, what you wrote definitely needed to be said. Thanks.

[azelismia]

I would have to agree with Indubitably. A couple of the stories told here ring a bell on the sociopath meter, but a lot of what I'm seeing is just stories of plain unhealthy or selfish partners (and to be honest, people who put up with way too much bs before calling it quits and walking away). I have doubts that all of the stories told here are sociopaths, it just seems to be bending the statistical probability a little too far to be believed. Never forget that some people don't need a mental or social disorder to be jerks.


While I agree on many fronts, I don't see how it's a statistical misnomer. How many stories do we actually have here out of how many people? then you also have to look at hte numbers of INTJ's being a statistical outlier as well. we're 2% of the population or something like that, so why is it impossible for us to be more likely than others to pick up people who are another statisical outlier? Especially as these personality disorders do shallowly have some resemblance to the intj personality type while at the same time the intj personality type is so different than the average personality type.

[NephilimAzrael]

No, although it is more concerning that I may have been the potential sociopath at one stage - according to this.

Fact is, this guide seems rather suspect to me. How reputable is the source and why are the terms elusive? The sheer fact that a person states that they have been in such a long-term relationship with such a person and then have a period of enlightenment after reading that piece (not the comments in here mind you), seems ridiculous.

To be honest, I would not postulate such ridiculous assumptions on this subject. Sociopaths are more common than normal people if a person were to comply to assessing others under these rules.

[azelismia]

Well, I personally don't get wrapped up in "credentialism" when evaluating information. I prefer to engage my critical thinking skills. That said, I certainly agree that the sitename, "lovefraud", is unbecoming, but the information contained therein has been truly enlightening, and for me, it is always the quality of the information that I am interested in. While I can also grant you that interrogating a source's credentials can be very important to evaluating the information itself, particularly when you are unfamiliar with the subject, it is not a substitute for independently assessing the merit of the information on its own terms. Critical thinking has been neutered by excessive reliance on unearned credentials. In fact, I think credentialism has played a major role in the degradation of our public institutions. For example, academic institutions have become so reliant upon corporate funding that the credentials of those who graduate from them are often of suspect quality, particularly where human health is concerned. (/rant) While it's dangerous to put too much stock on credentials only, one does have to have a base line of agreement with a term or it becomes meaningless. this person has taken things out of context to the actual diagnostic criteria and put their own spin on it in the name of understanding it better. basically it has nothing to do with actual psychology before and is just spinning a web to lure people in based on their insecurities. In order to remain objective one needs to stay within the realm of the truly accredited source in order to evaluate the world around them. in otherwords, agreed upon definitions. If you make up your own definitions, it's no longer valid at all.

[Camus2u2]

While it's dangerous to put too much stock on credentials only, one does have to have a base line of agreement with a term or it becomes meaningless. this person has taken things out of context to the actual diagnostic criteria and put their own spin on it in the name of understanding it better. basically it has nothing to do with actual psychology before and is just spinning a web to lure people in based on their insecurities. In order to remain objective one needs to stay within the realm of the truly accredited source in order to evaluate the world around them. in otherwords, agreed upon definitions. If you make up your own definitions, it's no longer valid at all.

I agree with much of what you say here; however, once independent, credentialed sources have been properly vetted, themselves, they can then be used to corroborate a more biased source's information, but I have no problem using the more biased source as a resource for furthering my understanding, if the information provided is based in reality.

The part that I disagree with you on is related to your comment on making up your definitions. Case in point, as far as I can tell, the website that we are discussing is using the more detailed criteria proposed by Dr. Hare to define sociopathy, but it is not without precedent. For example, the Harvard-trained psychologist who wrote the book that I am currently reading (mentioned previously) asserts that Dr. Hare's description of a sociopath assumes the general principles are met while providing much greater insight into the real life expression of sociopathy, and is therefore of far greater use to laymen who are trying to understand a potential sociopath in real life. In short, Dr. Hare's criteria deals the behavioral manifestations of this condition, as does the "lovefraud" website. Once you are familiar with the behaviors, whether from reading or actually experiencing them, a greater understanding of the underlying pathology is possible. In fact, before my experience with someone who I believe to be an actual sociopath, I would have questioned the possibility of adjudicating each criteria and probably would have been dismissive of a site called "lovefraud", as well. Now, as much as I find the name to be a bit pathetic, I have found the actual information on the site to be representative of my experience--perhaps, in a similar way to how people on this forum feel a sense of understanding to be in the midst of other INTJs.

Can you give an example from the the site that you think is made-up?





Camus2u2 added to this post, 37 minutes and 56 seconds later...

No, although it is more concerning that I may have been the potential sociopath at one stage - according to this.

Fact is, this guide seems rather suspect to me. How reputable is the source and why are the terms elusive? The sheer fact that a person states that they have been in such a long-term relationship with such a person and then have a period of enlightenment after reading that piece (not the comments in here mind you), seems ridiculous.

To be honest, I would not postulate such ridiculous assumptions on this subject. Sociopaths are more common than normal people if a person were to comply to assessing others under these rules.

Well, you've obviously never encountered a sociopath in the real world. They are usually incredibly charming. This cannot be overstressed. I have never been so intrigued as I was by the sociopath with whom I was recently involved. Luckily, I never gave fully of myself since I could not rationalize away all of the behavioral anomalies, but never have I had such a hard time reading another human being with whom I was considering a future. The ability of the sociopath to convince another human being of how much they cherish that person is unsurpassed. They have no conscience and cannot experience the full range of human emotion. Remorse and most importantly guilt are not available to them. Many people repress these emotions, including many INTJs, but we are aware of them. A sociopath must learn to mimic most emotions--this is what makes them difficult to spot--and, yet, their reasons for doing so are entirely self-centered because the only meaning they can find in day to day living is derived from dominating and manipulating people for sport. This is how they approach every relationship and the behavior is consistent, i.e. not a phase.

Once again, sociopaths are not more common than others. Human beings can be f*cked up in many ways, but to truly live life without a conscience is, in my mind, the most screwed up of all. I am very resilient but my encounter with this individual has shaken my understanding of what it means to be a human being.





Camus2u2 added to this post, 127 minutes and 29 seconds later...

It's not what the sociopath does that is so disturbing. It is how they do it.

[NephilimAzrael]

Well, you've obviously never encountered a sociopath in the real world. They are usually incredibly charming. This cannot be overstressed.

Yes, I can say I have met numerous clinically diagnosed sociopaths. Shared much time in their presence and learned their mannerisms. The post on that site however seems to treat the pathology of ASPD with too vague a description that can be ill considered by it's audience. Regardless of the support of a "reputable", credentialed psychologist. The criterion listed to assist the 'lovefraud' reader can be misleading, if applied by the general public without the correct context, anyone may attribute an individuals behaviours to being Sociopathic. In particular I object to the listing of these descriptions to individuals who would otherwise be able and possibly quite willing to use it as an excuse to categorize someone who they should rightly just keep away from based on their own pre-conscious reactions. Perhaps they themselves may have a pre-conceived notion of warning signs, and I could attribute support to the article on such a ground. The article itself however is rather vague on specifics such as stated here: To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

The article may be more accessible and give slight context, however the examples could be compared to relatively minor examples of the traits and then subjective bias would take over. So there is my stance on the matter.

Perhaps I am a sociopath according to the scale. Care to discuss how dispensable my opinions are on those grounds? :)

[jakattack]

I dated this chick when I was 16 that was beyond crazy. At first she seemed a little insecure, but a blast to be around. She manipulated me so well, it makes me sick to my stomach to think about it. We only ended up being together a month because I was tired of sneaking around behind my suspicious parents, and so I broke up with her. Then she went ape and started driving by my house screaming stuff, stalking me and my friends around town, photocopying "select" parts of my notes to her and throwing them all over town and school (for the record my home town has a population of 2,500 people), writing with window chalk on my high school and church doors about how I'm a lesbian and a whore, it only got worse before it got better. The crazy thing about it that now all of those friends that she stalked and called and yelled at, all of them that know what went on, are her friends at present. They say she's really sorry (it was 2 years ago) and she was dumb and knows it. She has manipulated them right into it.

I wouldn't trade those few months for anything though, as I learned to be wary of people, but I also learned that in a crisis the people you love will be there for you more than you think, and what the general public believes about you doesn't matter.

[Follow]

It's funny to read this thread on the INTJ forum... INTJs share quite a few traits with "bona-fide" sociopaths as normal aspects of our personality. An onlooker could say that because of our analytical and callous nature, we have no conscience too. I lost a few family members recently that I didn't shed a tear for. Does it mean I'm a sociopath if I didn't shed a tear? Or do I actually have to have an absence of conscience? What if I said that I recognized the pain but didn't show it to anyone else? Would that say I'm not a sociopath? What if I said that I recognized the pain and I was lying?

As for many of the other traits:
Glib and superficial (probably not a common INTJ trait, at least not a natural one)
Egocentric (read this forum a little longer and you'll note our definite egocentrism)
Lack of remorse or guilt (explained above)
Lack of empathy (same)
Deceitful and manipulative (I've had plenty of people tell me I'm being manipulative when arguing, even though I'm just stating facts. Many have a difficult time recognizing the difference)
Shallow emotions (an INTJ hallmark, at least to someone looking)

The line is a really hard one to judge and in all reality, we are probably the absolute worst people to judge it, just based on our own relationships with emotion. Every one of those traits above could conceivably fit me and I imagine they could fit every INTJ if you asked the right people. How is it that someone can be judged a sociopath, especially by an INTJ who knew them in what was a fairly brief period compared to their lives?

Most of the relationships mentioned here sound more like simple pathological liars to me (the partners mentioned, not the people discussing their partners). Besides, personality disorders seem more like a death knell of solitude to me than a particular issue that should be concentrated on. People are quirky, many people have issues with the particular quirks of another. If you want to make things work, you concentrate on how you can work through those quirks (repair them or just live with them), or if you want to learn something from a failed relationship you can reflect on those quirks and what could be different next time. But blaming things on incurable disorders like a person being a "sociopath" isn't going to help growth. What if your next relationship is with an INTJ who just seems sociopathic, even if they aren't?

Just to be clear, I'm not familiar enough with the situations mentioned to say for a fact that the people mentioned here weren't intolerable jerks who might even turn out to be serial killers one day. I'm just mentioning this for a balanced approach that might help to read a situation in a different light later on.

[azelismia]

Follow, what you are forgetting is that we are INTJ's. we're not enfp's who might mix up the difference. I was in a F$$$d up relationship for too long, but that time definitely gave me a lot of material to witness the mindset of someone who was absolutely not like me even if outward appearances were similar. My ex truly didn't have a sense of remorse or guilt and he didn't really understand the concept. he spent hours grilling me about why I cared about certain things. He just didn't understand.. and most people consider me pretty cold.

With that in mind though, it is easy to misdiagnose others with a brief description. Forers effect comes into play. Especially if you do not know the subject well.

Actually, the only thing we [INTJ's] have in common with them [sociopaths] albeit only superficially, is number 7 on the below list and only in an F type way of lookign at it.

An F might think that our lack of remorse because we told them that if they want to lose weight they should eat less and exercise more, having hurt them exceedingly makes us sociopathic but I don't think that's what they're talking about in the diagnostic criteria.

Three or more of the following are required:[1] (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts._note-dsmiv-0)


Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;
Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.

the lovefraud site basically is just saying a sociopath is a con artist. that's not really true. it's a loaded word. yes, it's true that they wear a constant mask trying to pretend to be normal, but they aren't necessarily out to bilk you as she goes on about, they aren't necessarily trying to get your money, have sex with a lot of people or so on and so forth. They want you to fill the hole in their life. The only thing is, it's a blackhole.. you can never fill it. I think this escalates in to all sorts of strange behaviour. that's why they do everything they do. they're trying to fill the hole. Be it money, sex, keeping you in a relationship you shouldn't be in, fast cars, drugs, so on and so forth. Their life is empty and they can never find anything that gives it meaning.

Lots of people are what she is describing without being sociopathic. It's written entirely with a purpose of scaring and leading people emotionally. I don't see much in the way of facts or level headed/objective diagnostic tools present. it's propaganda. The list of traits can encompass many people and the rest of the way it's written sound like a soap opera supervillian novel. I don't see how it's a valid site for learning about this mental disorder. Sociopaths aren't necessarily sleazy or serial killers. they can be but they aren't necessarily bad because of the hole inside them, they're just crippled.

the purpose of this site is to get you to click on ads and to give htem money. How do they do that, rope you in, make you think you're in danger and they can save you.. how is the writer of this article any better than the sociopaths she villianizes?

[Follow]

Follow, what you are forgetting is that we are INTJ's. we're not enfp's who might mix up the difference.

Despite being INTJ, we are still prone to the occasional error, especially when it comes to reading behavioral patterns that seem illogical to us. That was pretty much my point actually, I think INTJs are generally ill equipped to deal with social norms and spotting them. Approaching things from a clinical black/white prospective as an INTJ leads to error in emotional reading and conversation. These are lessons that I've been hard pressed learning myself.

For example, I watch a friend of mine who is definitely NOT an INTJ work with people on an emotional level and I'm absolutely dumbfounded by the conversation. Things that I would never think to say or that I think are an affront (if they were said to me) seem to go over so well in the situation at hand. When I try similar tactics in my standard analytical way of doing things, I get disastrous results with the person I'm talking to. I've learned that it's a certain intuition to how people's emotional expressions function that is totally alien to my own.


Actually, the only thing we [INTJ's] have in common with them [sociopaths] albeit only superficially, is number 7 on the below list and only in an F type way of lookign at it.

I've found that most people are either naturally F, or are conditioned to be.


Three or more of the following are required:[1] (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts._note-dsmiv-0)


Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;
Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.


A teacher of mine once told me that there is a difference between anti-social and asocial. Most of those we find to be anti-social are actually just asocial. In that, they might have some other issues that are going on, but to be a definitive anti-social a person has to actually try to actively tear down the establishment. Hence the term, anti.

When talking about pathological liars and manipulative assholes, it fails to meet that all important criteria of actively tearing down the establishment. Being a clueless rebel stuck in his teenage years doesn't qualify either. In order for a person to truly meet the anti-social criteria, in my mind, is for them to try to tear down society in violent (and usually very stupid) ways. If they go about it intelligently, they're usually politicians.

All of that being said, with the various diagnoses in the world about this disorder or the other, I haven't found a single person who I couldn't classify as having one kind of mental disorder or another. Is it rational to classify every person as having a mental disorder? Each of these disorders is supposedly debilitating to a person for their entire lives, but on the whole, society putters along through life just fine, don't you think? Like I said before, I don't know the situations well enough to tell anyone here they're wrong about their classifications, but I would advise caution in going through these diagnoses with people we come into contact with.

For me, when anything in my life goes wrong, especially a personal relationship, I analyze myself completely to find out what I did wrong. Many times I'll get through that list and not find a problem, but it's all too easy to find a problem with someone else. Sometimes I pin the problem down correctly, and other times I figure that I might have missed the mark (though I'm not sure when).

My personality, along with many of my personal quirks makes it very difficult for me to read someone's behavior. Maybe your experience differs from mine, but it's like a dark room for me when someone starts to use their emotional reasoning rather than their rational mind. Just to clarify, there has been a point in my life when my emotion took over my reason too, so I understand that it happens, just not why or how to deal with it.

[Camus2u2]

I was in a F$$$d up relationship for too long, but that time definitely gave me a lot of material to witness the mindset of someone who was absolutely not like me even if outward appearances were similar. My ex truly didn't have a sense of remorse or guilt and he didn't really understand the concept. he spent hours grilling me about why I cared about certain things. He just didn't understand.. and most people consider me pretty cold.

Actually, the only thing we [INTJ's] have in common with them [sociopaths] albeit only superficially, is number 7 on the below list and only in an F type way of lookign at it.

An F might think that our lack of remorse because we told them that if they want to lose weight they should eat less and exercise more, having hurt them exceedingly makes us sociopathic but I don't think that's what they're talking about in the diagnostic criteria.


yes, it's true that they wear a constant mask trying to pretend to be normal, but they aren't necessarily out to bilk you as she goes on about, they aren't necessarily trying to get your money, have sex with a lot of people or so on and so forth. They want you to fill the hole in their life. The only thing is, it's a blackhole.. you can never fill it. I think this escalates in to all sorts of strange behaviour. that's why they do everything they do. they're trying to fill the hole. Be it money, sex, keeping you in a relationship you shouldn't be in, fast cars, drugs, so on and so forth. Their life is empty and they can never find anything that gives it meaning.

Lots of people are what she is describing without being sociopathic. Sociopaths aren't necessarily sleazy or serial killers. they can be but they aren't necessarily bad because of the hole inside them, they're just crippled.


Excellent post, Azelismia. You do seem to understand what makes a sociopath "special", so I don't have much to add to what you've written here, particularly about the differences between a sociopath and a run-of-the-mill emotionally-callous person, such as an extreme INTJ, etc. For brevity, I've only included the parts of your response that I think others interested in the topic should pay extra attention to.




"I don't see how it's a valid site for learning about this mental disorder....the purpose of this site is to get you to click on ads and to give htem money. How do they do that, rope you in, make you think you're in danger and they can save you.. how is the writer of this article any better than the sociopaths she villianizes? "

Now, I think you're being a bit narrow-minded here and a bit unfair to the lovefraud site. All sites use advertising to stay afloat. While I do agree that the opening story on the site puts too much emphasis on the con-man type of sociopath (they come in many varieties but the basic traits are always ever-present), the rest of the site is incredibly useful to anyone who is trying to decide whether they are involved with a true sociopath or just a bad person, not to mention how helpful it is to those who are trying to get their life back together.

Consider the following links. There are many articles on the site's blog that I have found to be insightful and none that I would label as propaganda:

How a deficits disorder can cause so much grief and pain (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

Kinda sounds a lot like what you've written above, doesn't it?

Heeding the exploiter’s earliest warnings (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

A quote from this very insightful lovefraud article:

"The sociopath, in a word, appears to be a psychologically handicapped individual. Yet it’s hard to empathize with the sociopath, who himself lacks empathy. And how not to personalize his actions—actions that can cause so much personal pain? And how not to personalize that pain, even if it results from the sociopath’s deficits?"

Crippled was the word that you used, correct?

Anyway, sociopaths frequently use a technique called gaslighting. In simple terms, it means manipulating their partners into believing that they are the crazy one. This happens most frequently when they are confronted with their own inappropriate behavior. I've experienced it first hand, and believe me, this technique can be very confusing, even for an INTJ, especially when the manipulator is highly-skilled.





Camus2u2 added to this post, 22 minutes and 8 seconds later...

"Despite being INTJ, we are still prone to the occasional error, especially when it comes to reading behavioral patterns that seem illogical to us. That was pretty much my point actually, I think INTJs are generally ill equipped to deal with social norms and spotting them. Approaching things from a clinical black/white prospective as an INTJ leads to error in emotional reading and conversation. These are lessons that I've been hard pressed learning myself."

Thank you for your comments, Follow. You have succinctly captured the reason that I have had such difficult with my recent situation. I am horrible at identifying and, perhaps even, accepting social norms; therefore, I do believe that I was more susceptible to someone with sociopathic tendencies. However, I also must credit my INTJ-ness with keeping me from giving fully of myself to someone I knew was less-than worthy. As I stated previously, I allowed the relationship to continue for nearly four months for two reasons, mainly:

1. I know that I can be exceedingly judgmental, with unrealistic expections of others, and I wanted to be sure that I was not being hasty in dismissing someone "fun", who might just be going through a difficult period in his life.

2. I was confused because I had never met anyone whose behavior was so contradictory, and because I am not immediately turned off by someone who does not bow to social norms (I share this trait), I needed more data to decide why this person was not giving normal responses in conventional social situations. In my case and as a typical INTJ, I rarely obey social conventions without consider the conventions worthiness and/or relevance to my own worldview. In his case, I discovered that it was a simpler process but far more unsettling. It was an inability to control impulse, no matter the consequences, stemming from a severe deficiency in achieving empathy. Wow! Both could be labeled selfish, but one is decidedly more destructive, socially, I think.





Camus2u2 added to this post, 12 minutes and 24 seconds later...

"For me, when anything in my life goes wrong, especially a personal relationship, I analyze myself completely to find out what I did wrong. "

So do I...see my post in this thread (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.), before I knew what a sociopath was...

Another trait that makes INTJs particularly vulnerable to someone with sociopathic tendencies is our unending willingness to analyze our own role in dysfunctional relationships. For me, had he not attempted to gaslight me, had he just left me alone to ruminate, I might have continued to analyze things for far longer, but alas, I eventually recognized his frequent manipulation, and thus the nature of my analysis changed; it turned outward.

Incidentally, I don't think he has ever had a "relationship" with an INTJ before, so his usual tactics were thwarted, and that seemed to really confuse him, as well. Hopefully, he'll realize that I am too much work and not the ultimate challenge. Who knows but I do hope he stops trying to contact me since I will never respond. Now that I know what he is, I don't even listen to his voicemails.

[Maja]

I get uncomfortable when people start comparing real aspects of healthy, functioning people, like personality, to a damaged psyche. Not to say that any person here is or is not dealing with an antisocial. This post isn't meant to be a direct reply to Camus' situation, just an informative aside. I am directly referring to comparisons that aren't made clear.

For interest's sake, here's some information which I find trustworthy and professional, and that answer some topics raised in this thread --


*Answers questions about clinical definitions and retitling that have come up:
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

*A professional's explanation of the huge difference between a psychopath and an INTJ:
To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

She notes that there is no universal rule stating a person registering as INTJ cannot also be a socio/psychopath, but that it would be unusual. That said, sociopaths may have an issue but that doesn't mean they're stupid. They could easily identify with an INTJ and think all INTJs are like them, justifying to another person that, "I am like this, I am INTJ, therefore, they are as well." Scientists call this kook logic.

*A cut from snopes.com that is directly relevant, well written, and useful:

The other terms you mention are psychiatric diagnoses or constructs used by criminologists attempting to predict or explain criminal behavior. The only one currently an official psychiatric diagnosis is antisocial personality disorder (APD). This term replaced "sociopath" and only applies if (link):

A. There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:
(1) failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
(2) deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
(3) impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
(4) irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
(5) reckless disregard for safety of self or others
(6) consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
(7) lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

B. The individual is at least age 18 years.
C. There is evidence of Conduct Disorder with onset before age 15 years.
D. The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia or a Manic Episode.

A 2005 study published in The Journal of Clinical Pyschiatry (link) found that about 3.6% of Americans will be diagnosed with APD sometime during their lives. Of course, not everyone with APD is a serial killer, for which I guess we should be grateful, and not all serial killers have APD.

Though not listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the official catalogue of mental illness, "psychopath" continues to be used by some criminologists. Gennaro Vito and his colleagues in their textbook on criminology note that the term was coined in 1845 (link). Canadian psychologist Robert Hare has revived the term to describe the criminal personality. He created a psychological scale that purports to measure psychopathy.

His checklist requires a trained interviewer to rate a subject on:
Factor 1: "Aggressive narcissism"

Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Pathological lying
Cunning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Shallow affect
Callous/lack of empathy
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Promiscuous sexual behavior

Factor 2: "Socially deviant lifestyle"

Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
Parasitic lifestyle
Poor behavioral control
Lack of realistic, long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Juvenile delinquency
Early behavior problems
Many short-term marital relationships
Revocation of conditional release

Traits not correlated with either factor:

Many short-term marital relationships
Criminal versatility





Maja added to this post, 26 minutes and 9 seconds later...

For example, schizoid personality disorder is a misnomer, in my opinion. As I see it, if your personality does not involve actively harming others, I am hesitant to call it a disorder. Many INTJs are schizoid, but they are seemingly well-adjusted. Then again, maybe I'm a little biased.

As far as the public is concerned it might be the same thing but from a clinical standpoint it isn't.

Being of a schizoid personality type simply means you have a tendency to rely on certain affects as a personality. It's not a real term. It doesn't mean anything clinically. It doesn't mean you have any illness or even a subtype. Just like being incredibly ordered doesn't mean you are "OCD"... Terms get colored inappropriately through social use.

Since it's such a fine line to cut I though I would clarify.

The biggest and most well solidified difference between the harmless personality characteristics of the INTJ and the real psychological traits of an abnormal is that INTJs are both unflaggingly responsible and consistently worried with justness. The psychopathic person just isn't. INTJs are in reality very sensitive and their criticisms stop mostly at themselves - neurosis. This isn't the case with sociopaths. That said, I can see where an INTJ might be attracted on the outset to a sociopath, as it might appear on first glance that they share reasoning with you...before you realize that their reasoning is incredibly different!

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (family of mine has had to suffer through relationships with professionally diagnosed subjects) is relatively common. It comes in third under depression and alcohol abuse. I'm not pointing that out to make light of it. It's devastating and terribly frightening, but it's also more common than anxiety and it's more likely you'll date a narcissist in your lifetime than a sociopath or psychopath, although to a person in the middle of intimate communication with this person, it might seem the same! Or the difference wouldn't matter! :( They seem very similar anyway and in an emotional turmoil where you are the victim, you're not really caring about splitting hairs.

Another thing to regard is that a sociopath or psychopath wouldn't care about appearing to be a loving, caring person, keeping friends, being forgiven, etc... A narcissist (if that was their only disorder) would.

A person who might be using recreational drugs might seem disordered to another person even if they were not, and they would have no idea that you thought so. I've seen that happen.

Sorry, I realize this is getting long but I wanted to add a case study (not really, but yes really -- a case study of my own that is) :


Alice and Tina. Grown, successful adults. Both were bright, inquisitive, humorous people. *I* got along with both, but they seriously couldn't understand a single intention from the other. Through hanging out with both, this is what I observed:

Alice was on the surly APPEARING side, but that was because she was quiet. She generally was busy reading or looking into a personal interest -- to an almost obsessive degree. I wouldn't have been surprised in the least if an outside tester tested us as having the same basic personality type, but we were different in a few ways. She seemed to be really attached to the prestigious identity of "the living brain." She would go on and on about how much of a bother it was for people to always think you knew everything, but would take every opportunity to race to the punch, even if she was incorrect - then follow it up with the humility-script above that I began to suspect was false because it didn't include an apology for any incorrect statements. Maybe I am incorrect, but in any case, I didn't personally care, just observed this as part of her character. She was extremely self-focused. I don't mean that she was selfish in obvious ways, like a teen (sorry) or a narcissist (good lord no). I mean she'd subconsciously do things only in her preferred order regardless of reasoning, or complete her personal work before anything else, even though other people were asking for tasks to be completed. I'm not positive, but to her, thinking about working on something was the same as working on it (common with INTJs or similar), or, if she privately had decided work was over, everyone else should have been magically aware that was so and get on with it. She didn't appear to be goal oriented or care all that much as long as she was entertained, but I wouldn't have been surprised if she was in fact highly goal motivated, only that her goals hinged on some secret inner process. She was amazingly ordered, but her sense of structure appeared to revolve completely around herself. She had many long term relationships as far as jobs, family, and friends went, but no romantic entanglements that I knew. She could say cruel things, but not in a pointed, personal manner -- as accidental by products of other characteristics. We got along because these things seemed normal to me and I knew there was more to her than first glance might imply.

Tina was a true extrovert; one of the only people I know of who was called extrovert by introverted friends and actually was a dyed in the wool extrovert, not termed that just because the person might have been good with words. If things around her weren't designed nicely and made to be relaxing, she couldn't function well. If people around her weren't reciprocating, she couldn't quite relate things back to her world. Not that she was lost or didn't know what was going on surface wise - it was just that she was obviously out of element. She couldn't smoothly interweave another person's interior behavior with her very outwardly focused map. She would literally get ill when something bad around her happened. She was a workaholic and lived alone. ...But.... She was self-questioning and possibly had self confidence issues. She had a classic "introvert career." On the surface, those last few things might make a person think she was introverted, but that's just stereotype. She was NOT. This made it difficult for her peers to understand where she was coming from. We shared many commonalities of interest, and in fact, seemed on the initial outset to be almost identical people to a stranger's POV...but we did things for opposite reasons. I got along with her because she knew she had blind spots and I knew I had to explain some things she might not initially "get."

Alice would POST to communicate with a group. Tina Instant Messaged. Alice got to know people by playing games (real games, not head games). Tina got to know them by sharing. Alice might read about lemurs when tired of work. Tina might invite all her friends out to a square dance. Classic.

The two individuals got along well enough to not kill one another, and would give each other the benefit of the doubt out of necessity and maturity, HOWEVER... If they had ever gotten into a situation where they were dependent on each other in a PERSONAL way for emotional needs, the universe would have imploded. There was NOTHING wrong with either of these people when viewed by the outside observer, but they were both convinced the other was pure crazytown. Alice was convinced Tina was crazy because she would feel things and they BECAME reality to her. That she was too self centered because the area and people in it disturbed her if they weren't the way she thought they needed to be. That she was paranoid...histrionic. Tina was convinced Alice was a sociopath because she had no apparent attachment or moral center -- because she didn't respond to clear requests from Tina the way Tina expected. Coming from me to you, these things probably sound reasonable, but ask those two, and they would come up with wild stories about how the other was crazy. Crazy sounding stories because they would be told from their point of view, even when they weren't in a relationship of any sort. Emotionally charged or otherwise.

[azelismia]

Camus,

We are going to have to agree to disagree on lovefraud.. I think it's titled that because the site itself is a fraud and you think differently.. what are you going to do? Sure there are tidbits of truth hidden among the propaganda but I think it's an unhealthy way to get it across as a whole. it's a very negative biased slant. Why not watch fox for your news?

as far as the gas lighting goes.. uh huh, been there done that. It never worked on me. I've always been too in touch with my own personal mental defects. trying to turn his on me just never ever came close to working. He gave up on that tactic fairly quickly. although after we divorced he did convince my mom and her boyfriend that i was the crazy one. I had to show my mom all the court documents before she'd believe me. His parents never bought it. they knew him too well.

as far as the tactics of getting you back after they've lost you.. I had to move 3000 miles away for a year in order to be sure I'd be free. I knew he'd get me back if I stayed, even after all the crap we'd been thru. I was the moth stuck on his pin..

debates with him.. Serious serious turn on. sigh. lol. why do they have to be dangerous?

[Follow]

She notes that there is no universal rule stating a person registering as INTJ cannot also be a socio/psychopath, but that it would be unusual. That said, sociopaths may have an issue but that doesn't mean they're stupid. They could easily identify with an INTJ and think all INTJs are like them, justifying to another person that, "I am like this, I am INTJ, therefore, they are as well." Scientists call this kook logic.

I don't think I understand this statement, can you rephrase it for me? It seems that you're saying a sociopath can identify as an INTJ and assume that other INTJs are like them? Or are you saying that INTJs comparing their personality quirks with those of sociopaths is what scientists call "kook logic"? Or is it any INTJ comparing a person's personality to their own on the grounds that they're INTJ is "kook logic"?

Sorry if I've confused the issue even more, but I don't get what you're saying here at all.

[Maja]

Don't worry about it - I'll gladly clarify what I meant. I try to restate my meanings so they'll be clear before I post them but it doesn't always work out. :)

In a way, all of it could be - it depends on the situation.

"Kook logic" is a colloquial term scientists sometimes use to refer to anyone's APPARENT logical conclusion that isn't correctly constructed, but constructed around the writer's personal delusion or pet theory that they need to be true for one reason or another. (I'm sure other people use this term, what with the melding of those two words in English being likely, but this idea of correct construct is what I mean.) A deceptively crafted fallacy that the speaker actually believes himself.

Paranoid schizophrenics use "kook logic," but that doesn't mean all people who use kook logic are paranoid schizophrenics. EVERYONE actually uses or repeats kook logic. It's a matter of degree.

A diseased person might create a world for themselves wherein everyone else is diseased also. There are lots of reasons for this so I won't even try to begin. I believe there is a post grad on here so maybe he/she could be more succinct, if they see this (I forget who it was, I ran across a post of theirs earlier). In such a case, it would be easy for a psychopath or sociopath to come across a generalized statement about personality and say, "Oh! Hmmm... yes... me too..." When in reality, there were other things going on.

If it was a personality type that people would believe sounded likely, the sociopath would pick up on those cues. INTJ would be a likely choice, since most people are perfectly okay with thinking the INTJ is characterized by extreme apathy, probably because they don't know any. People with APD know what they are doing. If they were in a group who were interested in something like personality, by masquerading as an INTJ, they might get what they wanted and then more: they would not only be seen as an interested party and valuable to the group, they would possibly be viewed as unique and all their "odd" behaviors would garner them further accolades. In the above quote, I was imagining coming from the perspective of a young person who was "personality shopping" in order to get what they wanted, but didn't realize it yet. This is similar to religion shopping, where people who have serious problems will search for outside validation having nothing to do with belief in a higher power or moral code. Their behavior is masked at first because perfectly normal people seem to do it, too, but for entirely different reasons. (Other people might use the term religion shopping and mean something different - that was my personal description of that type of event).

That's why I have posted (and will probably continue to post) that it's incredibly important people don't see personality typing or the psychology of personality as a general list of features only. It's easier to understand people when you don't see them in shades of black and white, and easier to pick out the things that sound wrong.

We often think of people with disorders as being somehow obvious in their defects or stupid in some way...easy to pick out. But that's not always the case.





Maja added to this post, 97 minutes and 30 seconds later...

Camus2u2:

I feel bad now for adding to the thread without adding an experience like the kind for which you asked.

Normally, I don't like to assume people have psychological problems when they do something I think is odd. Most people I've known who've actually made me think twice over consistent behaviors I wouldn't testify in a court of law over. However, there is one I might...

It wasn't a romantic relationship. It wasn't a person I would have initially termed as odd. However, after a great length of time, I began to feel incredibly uncomfortable about their actions and speech. I really wanted it not to be so. I did what I normally do -- which others have described doing also -- inspect myself for some wrongdoing (It must be me/my fault). It was turning into a bad scene.*

Something clicked one day and I asked my husband (who chose not to go into psychology but trained for it) for an outside perspective. He said that what I described could also be a severely insecure person trying to appear competent. I left it at that. Since I wasn't in a relationship with this person, they were easy enough to leave behind. In retrospect, I sometimes wonder if my gut feeling wasn't correct (even though it's not directly harming me). It didn't occur to me back then, but just because a person is highly insecure DOESN'T mean they wouldn't be a sociopath. In fact, it would be a factor. Everything I know about sociopaths tells me that yes, this person would qualify, but I'm not qualified to make that decision. Even if I had to testify in a court of law, I would feel torn that I might be incorrect. I'm not sure anyone else really understands why this bothered me so much, but our interactions would literally keep me up at night. Maybe, MAYBE the behavior seemed different to me because I pay so much attention to the way things relate and flow, including people and behavior. Perhaps that's the key, that many people just don't notice.


*I'm not going to go into more specifics here but if anyone is curious we can speak in PM. I'm not shy about discussing it, I've just written way too much in the thread already and don't want to be TOO obnoxious.

[Pandemonium]

Ok! We have defined the difference between INTJs and sociopaths. Now an interesting question. Are INTJs more susceptible to being targeted by sociopaths?

[Maja]

Ok! We have defined the difference between INTJs and sociopaths. Now an interesting question. Are INTJs more susceptible to being targeted by sociopaths?

My opinion? I don't think so.

My guess? INTJs might be more likely to pick up ON them, not necessarily pick them up.

[Pandemonium]

My opinion? I don't think so.

My guess? INTJs might be more likely to pick up ON them, not necessarily pick them up.

I share the same view.

[Maja]

I realized when I went back I missed a few posts at the bottom of one page.
Sorry if I restated someone else's position obliviously. That's annoying.

I think INTJs are generally ill equipped to deal with social norms and spotting them. Approaching things from a clinical black/white prospective as an INTJ leads to error in emotional reading and conversation.

Approaching things clinically and being unable to perceive shades of gray are not the same thing. Everyone who works in a clinical profession can't be obtuse, and that's what that insinuates.

The general profile of someone with INTJ preferences is the same as one who makes a good detective, a good psychologist, or a good human-factors engineer - in other words, people who deal with human systems. A behavioral system is a system of patterns like any other. The only difference is that there might be people involved. Often there are just words, though. :p Highly intuitive thinkers, which you might be or might not be even if you define yourself as INTJ, are very likely to see the inner workings of a pattern, complete with shades of gray, without a great deal of study.

It's more likely that the deciding factor behind whether a person can or cannot "read behavior" is due to another facet altogether. As you say below, a personal difference.

My personality, along with many of my personal quirks makes it very difficult for me to read someone's behavior. Maybe your experience differs from mine, but it's like a dark room for me when someone starts to use their emotional reasoning rather than their rational mind. Just to clarify, there has been a point in my life when my emotion took over my reason too, so I understand that it happens, just not why or how to deal with it.

Be careful mixing up over-emotional reaction, reasoning with Emotion, understanding emotion, and open attitude versus closed attitude.

I don't mean to sound picky if I do. I was just responding. I've stayed up too late. :faint:

[Follow]

Approaching things clinically and being unable to perceive shades of gray are not the same thing. Everyone who works in a clinical profession can't be obtuse, and that's what that insinuates.

The general profile of someone with INTJ preferences is the same as one who makes a good detective, a good psychologist, or a good human-factors engineer - in other words, people who deal with human systems. A behavioral system is a system of patterns like any other. The only difference is that there might be people involved. Often there are just words, though. :p Highly intuitive thinkers, which you might be or might not be even if you define yourself as INTJ, are very likely to see the inner workings of a pattern, complete with shades of gray, without a great deal of study.

I disagree that emotional or behavioral patterns are the same as detective work. There is some cross-over, but with the case of a detective you make pattern based observations and predictions based on textbook type behavior which guide a person to a conclusion. Human emotion is not nearly as simple. There is no manual on human reaction (not one that isn't sold by a snake oil peddler anyway) because it's something that comes with a particular empathic intuition. Those with more highly attuned emotional intelligence to put it another way.

I can tell for example when a stranger is lying to me with reasonable accuracy, and usually their motives are quite clear. But these sorts of pickups are due to physical manifestations of their nervousness that I've taught myself to look for. Too many blinks, placating behavior like gently rubbing their fingers or throat, or looking down when "thinking" about something are all good examples of physical manifestations that I have clear ways of seeing and dealing with. I cannot however tell when a person is lying to me if they actually believe the lie themselves. I can't judge their particular emotional reaction to a situation and place it into some sort of mold where I can easily discern how they would react (or how I would react if I were them) to the situation at hand.

Detective work involves more clean cut cases where you're looking for textbook defined windows of intuition, psychology might involve the same, though I couldn't say for sure. But standard human interaction, talking to someone, meeting someone, getting to know them, or learning to say the right things at the right times to them is definitely not textbook defined. Those types of interactions relate more to empathy and an intuitive sense of how the person is feeling. I use the word intuitive here to mean something different than the way we use it in our "N". Intuition in this case seems to rely more on the S and maybe even more so on the F parts of the personality I would think.


Be careful mixing up over-emotional reaction, reasoning with Emotion, understanding emotion, and open attitude versus closed attitude.

I don't mean to sound picky if I do. I was just responding. I've stayed up too late. :faint:

I don't see the difference. When a person has an "over-emotional" reaction to something and they do something dumb, it's because their emotion took over their reason and caused them to do it. Very strong emotions have that effect on many people. I'm convinced that it's less of a problem for an INTJ because we generally judge our emotions on a reasonable level and work through them. However, when someone else can't, even for things seemingly minor, it escapes my reason entirely. I see people all the time get broken down completely because of a simple comment given by a stranger as an example of this. I can't even imagine why that's happening to them, or why they can't control it.

So why would I take an over-emotional "reaction" to something as anything but a person's reason centers shutting down to make way for emotion? Many people who I've had extensive discussions with reason completely from their emotions. I can present fact after fact to them, have them agree that every fact makes perfect sense logically, but will never change their point of view because they "feel" (exact word) that their view is more correct. Never an explanation from people like these, they just "feel" they're right and nothing will move them from that.

[Maja]

This is going to be a long response and I'm incredibly sorry for what might appear to be the hijacking of this thread, but if you read through the post, there are very strong themes here which relate to the discussion as a whole. I'll try to put what I can under cuts so it won't be unsightly.

Also, I have officially now been up all night. The fact that I am still cogent is baffling. Take the tone of my words with a grain of salt. And forgive typos.
:mad:


I disagree that emotional or behavioral patterns are the same as detective work. There is some cross-over, but with the case of a detective you make pattern based observations and predictions based on textbook type behavior which guide a person to a conclusion. Human emotion is not nearly as simple. There is no manual on human reaction (not one that isn't sold by a snake oil peddler anyway) because it's something that comes with a particular empathic intuition.

Sure, that's fine, but that's not exactly what I said. You have to deal with systems based on humans and human society in order to make conclusions about what goes on within them -- not that the application of detective work and the idea of understanding the work conceptually are one and the same. (I was referring to work with people before, in case I didn't make it clear. In a way, I guess you could call any work of an inquisitive nature detective work, but that's not what I meant.)

That clarified, if a person can't understand what the society around them is doing and why, they probably won't ever make a detective, agent, or otherwise investigator in a human based situation. Emotions and the results of exhibited emotion are heavily involved in a lot of the aspects. A detached person's benefit is that they can observe these emotions in other people and work with them conceptually without getting caught up in them or feeling over-whelming, judgment clouding sympathy. A person can do these things and not be "detached" but they have to train themselves rather than it coming naturally.

There is a reason those things are written down in textbooks; because a group of people had enough insight to inquire "Why" and enough research to decide if the idea was likely to be right or wrong in a real life situation. But those are still just guides. Especially as society itself changes, they get rewritten. As an individual, you have to make a call on how likely you think "likely" is in each particular case. Then you put the opinion up for discussion if you get the opportunity. It's being guided to a conclusion, like you say, but if all I did was look for keywords then pick one that seemed good and regurgitated it, I wouldn't be doing a very good job.

I can tell for example when a stranger is lying to me with reasonable accuracy, and usually their motives are quite clear. But these sorts of pickups are due to physical manifestations of their nervousness that I've taught myself to look for. Too many blinks, placating behavior like gently rubbing their fingers or throat, or looking down when "thinking" about something are all good examples of physical manifestations that I have clear ways of seeing and dealing with. I cannot however tell when a person is lying to me if they actually believe the lie themselves. I can't judge their particular emotional reaction to a situation and place it into some sort of mold where I can easily discern how they would react (or how I would react if I were them) to the situation at hand.

Detective work involves more clean cut cases where you're looking for textbook defined windows of intuition, psychology might involve the same, though I couldn't say for sure.

Physical manifestations can be faked or misread. The difference between someone who lies and someone who believes their own lie is that the second would not act as if they were lying. Only through testing would you see that they were lying, and that's a matter of study and training. It may come easier to some people but it's never completely natural. Knowing how a person might likely react in a certain situation is a matter of training more than anything else. And that's behavioral science and social science -- the study of human and animal systems. If you are familiar with how these systems are likely to work, guessing at how a person might react is as easy as recognizing a person is nervous. A little easier, in fact, because a person might appear to be nervous because they just ran up a flight of stairs and you had no idea. Looking at them once would be working with too little information.

These sciences of organic systems are not the same thing as communications, which is what you're referring to when you say greeting and handshaking. They might be related in an academic program, and are cousins of a sort, but being able to see a map of likely outcomes based on gathered information about a certain creature (a lot of which is backed up by scientific study) and actually saying the right thing when your coworker's pet dies are two totally different things. (Actually, that last one might be just luck, although what you are calling standard human interaction is in fact defined in a communications textbook.) No one is omniscient, though. That sounds like what you meant by "intuition."

There is no such thing as a universal reaction. You can study human reaction all you want but that doesn't mean you'll get better without practice or you'll forever know all the right words to say at every opportunity. Most people who seem good at people are just persons who've realized it benefits them to study social interaction or those who liked to practice because they were naturally inclined, so are now good at it. Seeming to understand something without apparent effort is still just an appearance.

Intuition as defined by Jungian systems is the opposite of the sensing function, btw...All the parts are inter-related but these are ways of describing a person's primary source of information. Sensor doesn't mean they “sense” things. It means they are more likely to traverse the world through information they can gather with their senses. It also defines a sort of network. Think of the difference like circuits. A sensor is a series and an intuitive is a parallel. They both light just fine but they're doing the same task mechanically differently. Sensor describes a person climbing a rope to get up a hill. Intuition describes a person calling a giant condor with a homemade whistle and flying to the top. (Not really. Please, no one needs to go to the trouble of informing me condors can't carry people...) The sensor had all the applicable knowledge to get to the top. He saw the path and used it. Despite any other knowledge he carried in his head. It worked. The intuitive delved into his knowledge store and he formed a relation to the problem at hand. Even though it may have been impossible to others to figure out why he did what he did, he knew the condor would come, that it would carry him, and would likely go up the hill because he knew its nest was at the top. But it worked, too. Feeling vs Thinking is mainly about whether you're likely to deal with your information from the inside or outside. This is not particularly important to how successful you are as a behavioral scientist, although the Thinkers might have an easier time of it.]

Most of behavioral and social science is not clear cut (sort of like areas of physics are not “clear cut”) but it IS a defined system set. You're right, there are windows that make our intuition (inferences) easier, but like I said before, those are more like guidelines than rules. You have to know when to bend them, and someone needed to build those windows in the first place. Someone also needs to continue to repair them.

Criminology, what we have been discussing in this thread off and on, is a social and behavioral science. That's just the way it is. I didn't make the rules, I jus' follows 'em. :cheesy: No, but seriously, it is closely related to sociology and psychology, which is pretty much the entirety of what we've been discussing here. All studies of human systems. My original response was that just because a person might be reserved, or consider themselves an introvert, "bad with people," or define themselves as an INTJ, that this has no bearing on their ability to study a system just because it happens to be made of meat.

I don't see the difference. When a person has an "over-emotional" reaction to something and they do something dumb, it's because their emotion took over their reason and caused them to do it.
No one is excessively inappropriate all the time. If they were they would be psychologically ill, not simply emotional. For example, a person with APD might try and convince their friend that the friend was excessively inappropriate all the time, and therefore the crazy one. The well person, being reasonable, would naturally assume with the information they had that yes, they must be the crazy one, because only crazy people would be overly-emotional all the time. Something like this combined with other tactics to reinforce the friend's feeling of helplessness is how it might be done.

Saying someone had an “over-emotional” reaction is usually meant to mean overly-emotional for their natural state, not for yours. It's not the same thing as saying they are consistently ruled by illogic, either. A person might be upset because their mother died and say what they felt instead of tempering it like they normally did. That would be over-emotional for them, but it wouldn't mean they were suddenly irrational or that whatever they said was unreasonable in relation to reality or the situation. It might even be highly inappropriate by the standard of the company, but that still wouldn't make them irrational.

Very strong emotions have that effect on many people.

Sure, a very strong emotional reaction can kick the feet out from under you, but “strong” is a relative term. And emotions don't make you do anything – they're just biological expressions of a process already put in motion by another force. Like poop.

I'm with you as far as your big picture goes. I also dislike it when people get carried away with what we term “thinking with their emotions” (it's not really), but what I am responding to in those situations and what they are expressing are generally perfectly reasonable reactions that we happen to disagree on. For instance, I might roll my eyes privately over a friend who was imploring the neighborhood to sign an apple growing petition (So we could all form a co-op to eventually have “free” apples. Save money, gas, feed the homeless, make snazzy decorations, all that jazz, blahblahblah). On the outset it seems like I'm bristled by his beseeching me for mercy and charity, all things a person might regard as “emotional.” But really, I might have figured out that he wants the petition signed because our other neighbor told him that if he manged to get the petition passed, he would give him free trees and pay for a personal irrigation system. I am disappointed by his naivete in believing the neighbor will actually do what he promised, disgusted by his manipulation of other people to get something for himself, and upset that these other neighbors are being taken in. I am also irritated that I can't seem to do anything about it, so I say nothing (but saying nothing is prompted by an emotion, right? Right.) My conundrum is this: Tell my friend what I think and start an argument, which might eventually get out of hand because he is protecting his pride or whatever, or, say nothing and be incredibly irritated, worried my neighbors might sense my difference from them, etc etc. On the one hand EMOTIONS AHEAD. On the other EMOTIONS INSIDE. This is a great example IMHO of a real life occurrence of the “overly-emotional” and the “non-emotional” working together. (My friend the teary eyed apple peddler and me, who sees the strategy) BOTH of us are working in rational ways. Whether the stances and words seem to be emotionally led has nothing to do with our basic rational abilities. Say the event broke out into a heated neighborhood argument with people yelling and crying and spouting garbled justifications all over the place. The process of them getting to that point was so convoluted and so many different people with different egos were involved, there is no way to say that each person isn't having a reasonable reaction. Now that I think about it, in an extreme example, this is what an investigator might be called in to work out.


I'm convinced that it's less of a problem for an INTJ because we generally judge our emotions on a reasonable level and work through them. However, when someone else can't, even for things seemingly minor, it escapes my reason entirely. I see people all the time get broken down completely because of a simple comment given by a stranger as an example of this. I can't even imagine why that's happening to them, or why they can't control it.

So why would I take an over-emotional "reaction" to something as anything but a person's reason centers shutting down to make way for emotion? Many people who I've had extensive discussions with reason completely from their emotions. I can present fact after fact to them, have them agree that every fact makes perfect sense logically, but will never change their point of view because they "feel" (exact word) that their view is more correct. Never an explanation from people like these, they just "feel" they're right and nothing will move them from that.

Because emotion doesn't work like that -- and reasonable for whom, BTW? A feeler could work through their emotions just as easily and quickly as a thinker could. It's just that they do it in different ways. It's really a very subtle difference in and of itself. The difference is exacerbated when other preferences and traits are put into play, and when environmental factors (or further environmental factors, depending on your theories) are considered. Whether a person has a mood disorder is not related. Whether they personally are disposed to over-react for whatever reason is not related. Without emotion, there would be no personality to be reserved with in the first place. Apathy is an emotion. I agree that sometimes people do uncharacteristic things based on circumstance, and that this deals with emotion, but not that “emotion” means crying, illogical decisions, breaks with reality, etc... Emotion is just the word we use to define how we perceive the act of being. There are no real stoics and no one is unemotional, unless they're dead, and that's literal. I'm sure serious illnesses might mimic a “real stoicism,” but that would still be relative.

Saying you just “know” something or just “feel” its “rightness” doesn't often mean that they actually used say, joy, to be their sole guide in the world. They could just have trouble explaining their thought process or not want to for some reason. For example, inventors often do this. They won't explain how they got to a decision or invented something, but that doesn't mean they literally got it out of a dream then poof, it was made, or that they think gods gave it to them as a gift, or that they have no idea how they managed to figure it out. I often myself say, “I feel this is lacking...” or whatever, but I am using an expression. Saying “I think...” would work just as well and I could explain my ideas. If I wanted to right then. Obviously, as you can see by the length of my discussion with you, I am very interested in outlining my thoughts on the topic. That doesn't mean I'll do it tomorrow. If you look around on the boards, a lot of people make two sentence posts about some personal conclusion they don't explain. That doesn't mean they are all stumbling their way through some sort of logical process they don't understand. Maybe those people you described simply didn't want to argue, or thought they had made their position clear and you were purposefully being obtuse. Who knows.

There are many, many reasons a person might react or respond the way they do to you, or to a certain situation. Reaction, like I said, isn't universal and a reaction is just that: an action in response to something else. Who knows what the something else is in any given case? Could be anything.

But you also focused on your definition of “over-emotional” and didn't weigh it together with the other terms: reasoning with Feeling, understanding emotion, and open attitude versus closed attitude. (My bad because I wrote Emotion instead of Feeling, which was a horrendous typo on my part, but hey, it was like, 4 in the morning.)

“Over emotional” is relative, and an expression, not a state. “Understanding emotion” as a biological process mixed with our working knowledge of psychological states is what I've been talking about the most – it's also part of social and behavioral science. Reasoning with Feeling refers to the personality system of the MBTI, as well as other Jungian systems. And open versus closed attitudes refers to a psychological concept describing an almost random set of likes and dislikes personal to yourself that effect the outcome of your decisions and ideas.

[Follow]

Fundamentally, Maja, I think we are mostly in agreement but arguing certain nuances. It sounds like you've studied the topic extensively and know what you're talking about regarding human thought process. My study of it (along with all things) is self taught and based on my personal observations. I'd love to continue discussing nuances with you and our perceptions of them because I think I would learn something from you in the end, but I can't. I am in the middle of a move right now and I didn't expect my involvement in this thread to be so drawn out or interesting.

Because of the move, I won't have enough time to give you a reply that your last post deserves and before the end of the day I'll have no internet for at least a week (I don't even get into my new place until Dec. 5th... ugh...). But thanks for the explanations you've given so far, I appreciate the time.

[ragavpayne]

I've read a little bit of most posts in this thread and to me what seems to be happening is vainly understanding this event in simplistic terms.

You (the OP) say how he managed to evoke a unparalleled sense of love in you and how charming he was. I suppose you were even in the verge of falling in love, which was perhapas prevented by your tendency to rationalize the individual as a whole (and how it met with glitches when you tried it on him).

There's one thing about the nature of human beings that most people have a very very hard time understanding (even some psychologists). It is that individuals are not static, understandable entities. We're all very dynamic, we keep changing, some do more so than others (Remember how you cried for expensive toys when you were an infant? Are you the same person now?). Sometimes, the changes we see in our personality/beliefs etc might be so contradictory to our past self that our attempts to generate a "true" picture of it might force us to call one of it our "true" self and the other "fake".

A subtle notion that is very hard to understand to most people (esp. INTJs and other J types) in this regard is that there really is no such thing as a "true" nature...especially of something as complex and dynamic as a human's mind. There're only different unrelated states with each state having its own probability of sustenence. We'd like to make those unrelated states somehow related, connected and continous in our attempts of approximation that'll help us predict things and create a sense of certainty. Trying to find consistency, rationality and trying to generate a perfect model of something can only lead to one's tendency to label certain states as being "fake","manipulative" etc. i.e. trying to pick one particular state that is most evident and calling it the "true" nature of something makes you assume the invalidity of all the other states that are contradictory to the "true" nature.

What I mean is that people (esp. INTJs; me specifically) try to impose a static image of individuals in their egoistic attempts to "understand" and rationalize them. They find it hard to understand that something can be temporally varying in an inconsistent pattern (let's say I study Quantum Mechanics).

In the case of the OP for example, I can offer this consistent interpretation that can be made true if believed in:-

She was thoroughly charmed by him. Whether he was genuine in his behavior that made her feel charmed cannot be known. But the OP, unable to tolerate the feelings that his inconsistencies were generating in her attempts to understand him, chose to believe that he was not genuine (which was a far more protective conclusion). This conclusion and the genuineness of her feeling of being charmed eventually gave her a feeling of being manipulated and deceited. Her feeling of being "manipulated" made her feel that she fell for him so easily. She tries to make herself feel as a not-so-easy victim. She does this by dramaticizing his abilities. She paints a brutally dramatic image of him which in turn puts her in this all-so-comfortable and likable image of a "hard-to-deceive-person-who-just-made-out-of-the-clutches-of-a-terrible-terrible-monster-by-exercising-her-mental-skills". Being the person obsessed towards taking pride in "rationality" she is, she had to make this dramaticization "scientific", "rational" and "logical" (by correlating him with a concrete and conventionally accepted category "bona fide sociopath") so that she could more comfortably believe in her imagined interpretation and continue to feel high of herself. And now that she has comfortably categorized him as a sociopath, it is so much more easier for her to interpret those genuine moments of pleasure they both shared in the past as being "fake" since that fits in so well with her concrete categorization of him. What this in turn does is make him look all the more dangerous since he was able to fake his emotions and behavior in such a genuine and believable manner. This leads to all her dramatically unnatural conclusions about him having absolutely no conscience and blah blah...

The consistency of this interpretation certainly allows me to take the position to argue the OP's own interpretation. But, if I did take the position of saying this is what really happened I would be making the same mistake as the one she's making by trying to find a "right" interpretation and "understanding" this event.

The point I'm trying to carry across to all of us is this - take a break in your attempts to romanticize reality by trying to find patterns and getting a bird's eye view. The only way you can do something like that is by gross approximation and abstraction of it. If you ever acheive such a thing as understanding something concretely (which usually most of us do...that gives us our self-confidence and air of superiority), you probably approximated things and simplified it so brutally in order to fit in your simplistic interpretation of it. Seriously, take a break and just know that reality needn't be understood.

Try doing this (I would imagine this to be an infinitely difficult task for any of us INTJs):-

I met this guy. He did this. It made me feel this. period.


And one more thing, you can't ever read people's minds, their motives or beliefs. You can only *interpret* them to be something. And interpretations are fallible. You can choose to believe in just about anything and consistently interpret things to accomodate that belief. The only thing that would change is the conclusions or the facts that the interpretation generates. Be careful about what you believe in.

And also what is most dangerous about this is that if he did believe that he was a sociopath, he would reinforce that belief instinctively so much so as to end up being one just to be ethically faithful to his notion of what his "true" self is. Again, be careful about what you believe in, you might just end up making it true.

Personally, I like to believe in things, accomodating which, my consistent interpretations of things would generate conclusions that I like and enjoy. It makes my life so much more enjoyable and happy.

[Maja]

Good post. Good points. Not that it really matters, but, I agree. I think you made those thoughts come out excellently.


----
EDIT:
Actually, now that I think of it (and this may be existential enough to get me thrown off the board ;) )...I suspect there might indeed be a true self of a kind, but in the way that there is a human nature. Not in the way we often like to pretend. Like to say, "It is true nature for man to seek out knowledge of his environment...here ineffability begins." Heh

[azelismia]

I've read a little bit of most posts in this thread and to me what seems to be happening is vainly understanding this event in simplistic terms.

You (the OP) say how he managed to evoke a unparalleled sense of love in you and how charming he was. I suppose you were even in the verge of falling in love, which was perhapas prevented by your tendency to rationalize the individual as a whole (and how it met with glitches when you tried it on him).

There's one thing about the nature of human beings that most people have a very very hard time understanding (even some psychologists). It is that individuals are not static, understandable entities. We're all very dynamic, we keep changing, some do more so than others (Remember how you cried for expensive toys when you were an infant? Are you the same person now?). Sometimes, the changes we see in our personality/beliefs etc might be so contradictory to our past self that our attempts to generate a "true" picture of it might force us to call one of it our "true" self and the other "fake".

A subtle notion that is very hard to understand to most people (esp. INTJs and other J types) in this regard is that there really is no such thing as a "true" nature...especially of something as complex and dynamic as a human's mind. There're only different unrelated states with each state having its own probability of sustenence. We'd like to make those unrelated states somehow related, connected and continous in our attempts of approximation that'll help us predict things and create a sense of certainty. Trying to find consistency, rationality and trying to generate a perfect model of something can only lead to one's tendency to label certain states as being "fake","manipulative" etc. i.e. trying to pick one particular state that is most evident and calling it the "true" nature of something makes you assume the invalidity of all the other states that are contradictory to the "true" nature.

What I mean is that people (esp. INTJs; me specifically) try to impose a static image of individuals in their egoistic attempts to "understand" and rationalize them. They find it hard to understand that something can be temporally varying in an inconsistent pattern (let's say I study Quantum Mechanics).

In the case of the OP for example, I can offer this consistent interpretation that can be made true if believed in:-

She was thoroughly charmed by him. Whether he was genuine in his behavior that made her feel charmed cannot be known. But the OP, unable to tolerate the feelings that his inconsistencies were generating in her attempts to understand him, chose to believe that he was not genuine (which was a far more protective conclusion). This conclusion and the genuineness of her feeling of being charmed eventually gave her a feeling of being manipulated and deceited. Her feeling of being "manipulated" made her feel that she fell for him so easily. She tries to make herself feel as a not-so-easy victim. She does this by dramaticizing his abilities. She paints a brutally dramatic image of him which in turn puts her in this all-so-comfortable and likable image of a "hard-to-deceive-person-who-just-made-out-of-the-clutches-of-a-terrible-terrible-monster-by-exercising-her-mental-skills". Being the person obsessed towards taking pride in "rationality" she is, she had to make this dramaticization "scientific", "rational" and "logical" (by correlating him with a concrete and conventionally accepted category "bona fide sociopath") so that she could more comfortably believe in her imagined interpretation and continue to feel high of herself. And now that she has comfortably categorized him as a sociopath, it is so much more easier for her to interpret those genuine moments of pleasure they both shared in the past as being "fake" since that fits in so well with her concrete categorization of him. What this in turn does is make him look all the more dangerous since he was able to fake his emotions and behavior in such a genuine and believable manner. This leads to all her dramatically unnatural conclusions about him having absolutely no conscience and blah blah...

The consistency of this interpretation certainly allows me to take the position to argue the OP's own interpretation. But, if I did take the position of saying this is what really happened I would be making the same mistake as the one she's making by trying to find a "right" interpretation and "understanding" this event.

The point I'm trying to carry across to all of us is this - take a break in your attempts to romanticize reality by trying to find patterns and getting a bird's eye view. The only way you can do something like that is by gross approximation and abstraction of it. If you ever acheive such a thing as understanding something concretely (which usually most of us do...that gives us our self-confidence and air of superiority), you probably approximated things and simplified it so brutally in order to fit in your simplistic interpretation of it. Seriously, take a break and just know that reality needn't be understood.

Try doing this (I would imagine this to be an infinitely difficult task for any of us INTJs):-

I met this guy. He did this. It made me feel this. period.


And one more thing, you can't ever read people's minds, their motives or beliefs. You can only *interpret* them to be something. And interpretations are fallible. You can choose to believe in just about anything and consistently interpret things to accomodate that belief. The only thing that would change is the conclusions or the facts that the interpretation generates. Be careful about what you believe in.

And also what is most dangerous about this is that if he did believe that he was a sociopath, he would reinforce that belief instinctively so much so as to end up being one just to be ethically faithful to his notion of what his "true" self is. Again, be careful about what you believe in, you might just end up making it true.

Personally, I like to believe in things, accomodating which, my consistent interpretations of things would generate conclusions that I like and enjoy. It makes my life so much more enjoyable and happy.



So basically, you're saying that you think this disease does not exist and no one out there has it, especially if the person in question BELIEVES they have it and we have no hope of interpreting anothers actions with any degree of accuracy, it's all just feeling.

did I peg your thought process fairly accurately?

I see two sides of an extreme here. I see one faction in denial about human nature and the other side over estimating it.

what about the middle ground?

I do think almost every human has some major flaw in their personality that can be defined by one disorder or another at least mildly.

So what?

Why would that be unthinkable? Humans are pretty pathetic critters when it comes down to it and when you put in over population and growth away from what we're built for (hunting and gathering with a lot of physical output) you're bound to see mental flaws build up. Canines are a good example of this in other species. if you take them too far out of their pack element they go nuts.

we're organic and we're prone to it.

My own personal diagnosis of the OP's bf just from what she's said here, i am sure there's a bigger story, is that he's just a sex addict and a narcissist.

I actually dated another guy for a couple years who i'd have just pegged as narcissistic. we broke up because he bored me to death. But he got involved with the wrong sort of girl and it went into a big jerry springer sand storm. he ended up in jail for stalking her ( and I don't believe he was. I knew him for years and I never saw this sort of behaviour from him, but then again I was never the bad girl type that did heavy drugs and used him that he really got off on, so maybe she inspired it in him) anyhoo. he ended up in all sorts of programs and ended up with the official diagnosis of borderline and narcissistic.

he'd straightened his life out again but then met this (officially diagnosed) schizophrenic girl who does meth and he's on another downward spiral. I've been trying to talk him out of this girl but nooo. he's in lurve (edit.. Lust) and he must do as the demons say or he will not be a good person ( he's a raving enfp)

[ragavpayne]

So basically, you're saying that you think this disease does not exist and no one out there has it, especially if the person in question BELIEVES they have it and we have no hope of interpreting anothers actions with any degree of accuracy, it's all just feeling.

did I peg your thought process fairly accurately?

No...you got it wrong. I don't care if there's such a thing as sociopaths or not. My point was - go easy on life. Don't take it so seriously and don't be so pathologically obsessed with your analysis.

[Camus2u2]

I don't have much time, at the moment, but I would like to respond to some of the points made by ragavpayne.

First, while your analysis was interesting to read, it is missing some pertinent details. When you say...

"You (the OP) say how he managed to evoke a unparalleled sense of love in you and how charming he was. I suppose you were even in the verge of falling in love, which was perhapas prevented by your tendency to rationalize the individual as a whole (and how it met with glitches when you tried it on him)."

...you're making assumptions that I've never verified or implied. There was no evocation of "unparalleled sense of love". He was charming and very fun, but he was also viciously insulting from the very beginning. I'm not talking about sarcasm or wit, but someone who said really cruel things to me and to strangers with zero provocation--simply, out of the blue. These episodes were always followed by smarmy flattery, the likes of which I've never encountered. Suffice to say, I could never fall in love with someone like that until I knew the reason behind the "odd" behavior, particularly considering that many of those insults came my way.

"A subtle notion that is very hard to understand to most people (esp. INTJs and other J types) in this regard is that there really is no such thing as a "true" nature...especially of something as complex and dynamic as a human's mind."

Sounds good, but it's pollyanna. While I will grant you that my ex may not be a sociopath, he had enough sociopathic tendencies or traits, or what ever you want to label it, that one would have to be in serious denial not to consider the viability of any potential future relationship, including friendship. Thus, his "true" nature may very well be otherwise than what I have noted, but the current manifestation was clear enough for me to reach a decision.


What I mean is that people (esp. INTJs; me specifically) try to impose a static image of individuals in their egoistic attempts to "understand" and rationalize them. They find it hard to understand that something can be temporally varying in an inconsistent pattern (let's say I study Quantum Mechanics).

I consider myself to be an emotionally mature human being, INTJ or not. My images of others are anything but static, especially when I am getting to know someone. While I can be judgmental, I am rarely hasty, and I certainly don't have trouble understanding temporal variations, conceptually. As you age and you experience changes within yourself, perhaps you'll see that change (or absence of change) is sometimes very predictable. Regardless, such generalizations are nonsensical without context. As I've recently learned, the behavior of people with personality disorders is quite static, and these disorders are usually lifelong.

"She was thoroughly charmed by him. Whether he was genuine in his behavior that made her feel charmed cannot be known. But the OP, unable to tolerate the feelings that his inconsistencies were generating in her attempts to understand him, chose to believe that he was not genuine (which was a far more protective conclusion)."

Your "consistent interpretation" is utimately naive. When getting to know someone new, if you only consider the present and only the fun moments, you are doing yourself a great disservice. My reaction to his inconsistencies was far less personal than you have portrayed. In fact, given that many of his "inconsistencies" were criminal, I would say that my measured responses were more than judicious. Also, I enjoy the company of charming people, but when they try to move in with me after 2 weeks of dating, I naturally consider their motivations. It would be moronic not to. Furthermore, living only in the present, as you seem to want to aggrandize, is the narcissist's or the sociopath's only option. That's a big part of the problem in trying to date one. There are communication outlets that simply aren't available. For example, I found that discussing past events (i.e. criminal behavior) is met with rabid indignation. I thought it was funny when he stole an eight ball from the bar with the rude bartenders, and I laughed it off. That was still early. The second time he stole something in front of me, I began to question is value system. Once again, it would be moronic not to.

I don't know about you, but I find that refraining from discussing such things is unhealthy and for me, it is an impossible compromise. Thus, his limited communication skills, i.e. those required when one is not being glib, made it easier to discern when he was being disingenuous. Ultimately, the only time his act was believable was when he was insulting someone or when he was being indignant at being questioned. That's when his "true" nature was most vibrant, if you will.

"And now that she has comfortably categorized him as a sociopath, it is so much more easier for her to interpret those genuine moments of pleasure they both shared in the past as being "fake" since that fits in so well with her concrete categorization of him. What this in turn does is make him look all the more dangerous since he was able to fake his emotions and behavior in such a genuine and believable manner. This leads to all her dramatically unnatural conclusions about him having absolutely no conscience and blah blah..."

I haven't comfortably categorized him as a "sociopath", but I think there's a strong possibility that he is. He might just be a narcissist, but if he is, he is a malignant narcissist. I knew nothing of sociopathy or personality disorders, in general, before this experience. Never even seen 'Dexter'. As I stated previously, I've always thought psychology wasn't very useful to me, personally, but now I'm rethinking that. Regardless, I would never spend so much time analyzing a 4-month long relationship if I hadn't been so creeped out by this experience. I've had a few failed relationships, of considerable length, but I understood the dynamics well enough to deal with them within what I would call a normal frame of reference. My intention with my original post was to learn of others who might have had a similar unusual experience and for those posters who have contributed such information, I am extremely grateful. It has been enlightening. Lastly, until you experience something similar, ragavpayne, you might give strong consideration to the possibility that dangerous people exist and then you might be able to appreciate the potential liability of writing obsequious fairy tales without knowing all the details.

[ragavpayne]

Your "consistent interpretation" is utimately naive.


Which it was meant to be...since, by providing such a ludicrous yet plausible interpretation, I was trying to carry across the point that you can sit in your armchair and talk just about anything...it needn't necessarily be true...no matter how much it makes sense.


I haven't comfortably categorized him as a "sociopath", but I think there's a strong possibility that he is. He might just be a narcissist, but if he is, he is a malignant narcissist.

The thing was that, though it seemed like it was, my motive never was to make this guy seem like an angel or something. My argument, in fact, had very little to do with the "true" motivations of this guy. What I was doing was pointing to our inability to process reality in all its complexity and thereby our need to look for approximations, abstractions, simplifications and categorizations such as "sociopath", "narcissist" so that we can move on without having to understand people in their entire complexity. By providing this alternate viewpoint, I was trying to kill the engine on your conviction and cynicism. He might've stolen an 8 ball *and* flattered you so well without either of them having to do anything with each other...and since you and I like to be consistent and commited to consistency in behavior and like to believe in a coherent and continuous personality, it is our tendency to instinctively expect everybody else to be so as well. In fact, most times, the only way we can "realize" the motives of other individuals is by putting ourselves in their shoes and try to analyze why we would do the things that they're doing. We instinctively assume that we all do things for the same reasons. Again, that is an assumption that is convenient and works well when the two individuals are similar to a fair degree, which in a homogenous society like ours is *usually* fine and convenient. But, you have to realize that it is fallible nonetheless. Again, he might've had completely different motivations than he seemed to have from your perspective.

And by no means am I saying that you were inefficient in the way you dealt with it. We all have our needs to protect ourselves and it is best to get away from danger when you have to. But, I was only trying to argue against the strength in conviction and vigor with which you seem to underpin your simplistic interpretations of his motivations. If you'd known everything about him that he himself knew, you most probably would've come up with an altogether different, non-linear explanation and understanding for the whole series of events. you probably wouldn't even speak in the same terms as you do now.

And since your conviction about his ill motivations was quite strong, and were generalizing and categorizing so liberally you would've probably come up with a fairly sensible cynical theory (similar to my "obsequious fairy tale") that made perfect sense to you and everyone else you introduced it to and they might just end up taking in the well constructed fairy tale in attempts to stay safe from the ill elements of the society...while all these believable and concrete generalizations and judgments allow for usually is one's ability to know so little of something new and yet be able to imagine so much about it...and that allows for misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Yes, such generalizations and cynicisms help you stay safe and feel secure...but at a cost of possible misunderstanding and misinterpretations.

bah...I don't really care if anyone understands this

Anyway, I've been writing this since I'd like to kill that feeling in my stomach - I carry almost all of those traits your ex had; including inconsistency and contradictions in behavior, ideas and multiple varieties of profiles posted over the internet; which is mostly because I'm dynamic and always adapting and I don't feel the need to stay commited to a particular way of behaving and I wouldn't find myself awkward stealing a ball just out of whim, and I'd probably have moved in with you in 2 weeks if I saw the strong potential for that *eventually* happening...*and* I could possibly be eating stolen babies at night...but you'd never be able to guess that from what you know of me...don't try to. Anyway, I just hate the feeling of knowing that I could be interpreted by people as belonging to as simple a category as a sociopath. *eewww*

[azelismia]

Anyway, I've been writing this since I'd like to kill that feeling in my stomach - I carry almost all of those traits your ex had; including inconsistency and contradictions in behavior, ideas and multiple varieties of profiles posted over the internet; which is mostly because I'm dynamic and always adapting and I don't feel the need to stay commited to a particular way of behaving and I wouldn't find myself awkward stealing a ball just out of whim, and I'd probably have moved in with you in 2 weeks if I saw the strong potential for that *eventually* happening...*and* I could possibly be eating stolen babies at night...but you'd never be able to guess that from what you know of me...don't try to. Anyway, I just hate the feeling of knowing that I could be interpreted by people as belonging to as simple a category as a sociopath. *eewww*



Ah, we get to the heart of this, insecurity.

are you the type to cheat consistently? Are you insulting to strangers for no particular reason? do you ever have feelings of remorse for anything? Do you go around beating people up?

do other things in the list of sociopathic warning signs apply to you? Do you have trouble with the law? If so, Maybe you do have a problem. Maybe you don't. But the thing is, You're not this person she's talking about.

Maybe some people could see you that way, Do you treat your girlfriends badly? you obviously care if people might see you as a sociopath..

So maybe you should get your act together and stop being a jerk if that all really applies to you, rather than just trying to deflate a valid concern that someone has about someone else.

Then you'll be able to sleep well at night.

I am guessing it doesn't apply to you.

I am not Camus so I can't speak for her but if it were me, stealign a pool ball and having someone try and move in with me after two weeks wouldn't be the big red flags. they're part of the entire equation. The insulting behaviour combined with the above is the part to be concerned with then that's all just heightened if he's still got personal ads out there AFTER they're together. I mean someone who cheats on you is someone who doesn't care about their health or yours. Those are the bigger issues.

I actually would lean towards the borderline diagnosis with what's been presented. ( of her ex not you)

[Pandemonium]

This is getting interesting. After questioning everything else, question the validity of the original post! I can agree to that people can act in a manner that may resemble a sociopath. The a large proportion of the population (including some of us) believes that they have the right to what ever they want and any action that does not follow their self righteous belief system is an act against them.

The flagged actions of the 'sociopath' could have merely been exhibited because the person does not have a firm understanding of them selves and their emotions. Such a person would continually exhibit such behavior that is not conforming to normal social standards. Social standards.....beliefs/ideals (you get the picture) are learned at an early age from their social surroundings. He maybe acting perfectly normal in accordance to his belief system. There are numerous reasons why people act the way they do.

To further aid the discussion on whether or not he is actually a sociopath you must look into how a person develops the disorder.

Attacking the validity of the original poster is insignificant to the discussion.

[ragavpayne]

Ok, let's see if my explanatory skills are good enough for this.

Consider the following hypothetical situations:-

I

Let's say you live in another country...say some village in China. You're smart, quick thinker. You learnt to speak English and travel to the United states. You get out of the plane to encounter a completely new atmosphere. Everything is new, the food, culture, people. Then you see a white person for the first ever time in your life. You're amused...looking at him evokes no sort of emotion or judgment. You're just looking with a puzzled expression. He comes to you wth a smile and introduces himself and seems interested in oriental things. He is nice, he takes you to coffee. You both chat for a while and learn things about each other. You realize how nice people in this part of the world are. You think that all white people are nice (a natural judgment). You're perhaps thinking about befriending him anand you're about to ask him to perhaps take you around the city if he had the time and interest. He then kicks you in the nuts, takes your bags and leaves with it. You're humiliated. Luckily your wallet is still with you. You go and rent a hotel room...feeling traumatized. Your lips are shivering, legs shaking...just to think of how brutally you've been deceived. Luckily you're smart (at least you think so) and you analyze what'd happened. "In the first place, he was too nice to be true" you hypothesize. "I should've caught him there..". "May be I shouldn't look at white people like the way I did. It perhaps suggested that I'm new here and perhaps easy to take advantage of"."Why would've he been so interested in a stranger? I've been such a fool not to realize that..."." The bastard had been faking it so well right from the beginning all so well executed...well, at least now, I've learnt something." Your next natural question - "How would I know how to spot someone like him the next time I encounter him?" "Well, obviously, I shouldn't take too long to realize if the stranger I'm talking to is faking or not...I should do it all too fast...right at the beginning I should call his bs...ok ok...let me think of the initial cues...his clothes, that smile, he looked so charming, he was dressed so well and behaved all to pleasantly...ok those are the cues...anyway, how would anyone care to be so pleasant to a stranger...argh! I've been so darn stupid..."

You're a googler and luckily your hotel's got a lobby with internet. You google and figure out this strange creature called a "con artist" who goes around giving the wrong impressions to people in order to deceive them and take what they can. These con artists could be so manipulative and deceptive. You read all others' stories. They're so nasty. You're relieved. You're relieved that you didn't have to suffer as much as those misfortunate others to get this experience. "Dang, after all, I've just been in America for a few hours and I've already learnt this very useful lesson. I feel so much better now." You feel like the clothes in your luggage and the pain in your nuts were well compensated for this new lesson you've learnt.

II

Now you're a painter in Chicago. You've always been a happy, dandy, self-confident, self-motivated, self-directed individual. You’re always smiling, friendly and mostly a charismatic person…you like making people laugh, smile and happy. You meet this girl. She’s very pretty, very welcoming of your presence around her, very relatable with and she shows interest in you (you feel). You both are close and you’ve helped her with a lot of things (you think). You think she’s the one. You sit home dreaming about her & you…you dream that it’s 2 yrs from now and you’re with her and your kids…they’re playing in the backyard while you’re in the BBQ making stuff with her…it’s a happy life. You want to keep these amazing plans for the both of you locked behind your heart to reveal to her at a romantic place and time. One day, you get a call from her asking how you’d like to go to the nearby creek where she says “it’s lonely and quiet”. You smile. You both get into her car and she takes you to this lonely forest. It’s perfect. She stops at one spot. She asks you to get out and close the door behind you. You’re puzzled but do it anyway. She takes a brown package from behind her and throws it out of the window…and drives off. You feel weak in the stomach. “Why did she do it?” you turn your attention to that package. It’s got a bunch of papers…nothing else. You open it. It reads “<your name> Journal” and she’s listed down your character map, facts about you, ever since you both met. It talks about how she envied your self-confidence and your jubilant persona…things that she’d always lacked. You realize that she’d never understood how someone could be selfless yet happy and confident…and she saw you and had always wanted to know that she could control you. She'd just proved for herself that she could and had satisfied her ego. You’re on your knees crying your lungs to death…too weak to even move. You just lie there for half a day. You go back home. You’re a googler too. You google. You end up labeling her “power hungry bitch” and end up reading the book "48 Laws of Power"....Now, you're bloody convinced that everybody in the world is seeking power whether they know it or not. You interpret everyone’s actions in terms of their motivations to seek power and realize that it all makes sense and that those who appear least power-hungry are the ultimate fakers. You feel like you've learnt so much. It eventually takes a month for you to come close to recovering. You’re tired of this life. You wish to go to someplace else….somewhere far far away from this cruel power mongering place. You decide to go take a break in Paris with the money you’ve saved. It makes you happy. You feel like you’re returning back to your old self of confidence and happiness. You go to Chicago international airport and walk in there. There you see this Chinese guy looking at you puzzled. You're curious. You go and sit next to him and talk to him casually and are friendly…like your old self. You observe his behavior…he seems rather friendly and overwhelmed with simple things. It doesn't make sense. In the back of your mind you’re aware of this conclusion – everyone is power hungry instinctively. This guy is a faker. It aggravates you. You act out with all the repressed depression you possess.

III

I met this frustrated Chinese guy looking at me while I was smiling and being friendly to him and he slapped me and went away (like a duck) holding his bags close to him. I thought he was "crazy". Who other than a crazy person would be capable of reacting to something as pleasant as friendliness with frustration? Perhaps he's racist...perhaps he's insecure about his little beady eyes...and just couldn't take the sight of a happy big pair of eyes....or perhaps his Chinese parents proddled his ass with a rod everytime he responded nicely to strangers....hmm...that's it...it's gotta be either of the two. But, how would I know for *sure*? That's right....i can just make up a list of yes or no questions that will just let me know for sure..."Did you live in a neighborhood that had bad elements which your parents were protecting you from? "yeah", "Did your parents hit you?" "sure", "did you ever get your ass proddled with rods?" "um....this one time....." "Yes or no!" "yeah...I guess","yep...that's you son of a bitch...the kid that was conditioned to react ass-proddled to every nice stranger....you poor bastard". "wai...wah?", "Let's put him in therapy and make him listen to Bach songs while talking to random, nice strangers". There...done.


Of course, these stories are made up, I know they sound dramatic, simplistic, naive, unrealistic and stuff. But, that’s because I’ve made them up…just to demonstrate something to you – you never know. If you pretend you can beat that and predict with all the mental strength and vigor you possess as a thinker, you’ll end up categorizing and generalizing ridiculously. It drags you down the black hole of misery where you eventually end up being comfortable.

Beat it; life, the universe and reality are non-linear, unpredictable and uncertain. If you ever come to terms where you're absolutely confident that you can pick up sublte cues about someone/something and extrapolate it with your stable theories and predict it (or indirectly know of something) and are certain of your abilities to protect yourself from every possible mishap that can ever occur to you...even those least probable ones, you're only being misled....and are missing out on a lot of things in life....that you would otherwise enjoy if not for those convincing beliefs and conclusions resulting from your linear, correlations filled analysis which you and most of us capable of. And this isn’t to say that you can never know. Just not for certain...especially of things you can't test if you know for certain or not.

I wasn’t intending to attack the OP. I was intending to attack this tendency the OP, I and you have in common, whose limitations we are usually oblivious to. There's a subtle difference.

Again, you can go on and on about sociopathy, perhaps if you're determined enough, end up writing a book on this and make it seem significant enough. But, here's a far better option:-

"I met this guy. He did these things. It made me feel this. There can be a million different reasons for why he did these things and behaved this way or why it made me feel that way. I wouldn't pick one possible interpretation of what it could all be and extrapolated it and generalize my correlations with obsession."

But of course, i don't mean to say that there's nothing to learn from the experiences and that you should jsut forget them. Only that there's only so little you can learn...and only so little you should let it influence you.


And again, I don't intend to condescend. If you think I do, go ahead...and build a coherent system about my motivations.

And one more thing; Go easy on life...sh*t happens from time to time.

Ah, we get to the heart of this, insecurity.


oh boo....you got me...

[Pandemonium]

Your amusing :) I do agree with you.

[Deliberator]

I did date a psychopath, not a sociopath though.

Scared the shit out of me a couple times.

[Maja]

I can firmly agree with most of the posters here, which is why I don't think Ragavpayne meant to attack anyone. He was generally just saying the same things I was saying to Follow in the post above his, but in a different way. He was speaking academically (and by that I mean philosophizing, not speaking as a teacher or from a textbook) on themes that have come up in the discussion. The only problem was that he (all respect intended) made a mistake by using Camus as a faceless example when the example was far from faceless in this situation. That confused the issue.

Camus and Azelismia I agree with because they have made it quite clear that they used rational judgment to get out of situations that would be fairly described as harmful. It doesn't matter how another person might categorize the situation.

I agree with Ragavpayne because what he's pondering is valid, and connecting it to the discussion is valid. I say this even though he insinuated ideas I disagree with, like insinuating you cannot ever relate these sorts of psychological reactions with biology...but again, I don't believe he really believes this, and that was part of the point he was pondering.

There's also a big difference in saying a person has a "true" personality in the sense of saying "I'm a type 7," or, "I am an ENTP," and professing that a specific reaction is part of a bigger piece of "human's true nature" in a biological sense. For example, saying something like, "It is human nature to defend oneself by fight or flight."

Part of the point of studying human behavior correctly is that you need to be fluid. In fact...even some of these personality systems we're using to define personality on this board only define 'types' in order to let you know you're wrong! :freak:

I also agree with the idea that until you're in a situation where your life is so completely controlled and manipulated by a person intent on doing you ill, you might not be able to imagine the situation. The same goes for being in a situation where a person is intent on controlling you through ill means without you figuring it out. That, still, is a different situation, and hard to imagine if you've never had reason to imagine it.

[ragavpayne]

Maja you asshole...how many cocks did you suck before you learnt to write something like that? You twat!

Hold! Sustain your reactions. Ok...let's suppose I left it here.

Perhaps you would come to think of me as a jerk...and what not :rolleyes:. You'll perhaps revevaluate the "valid" arguments I previously made in context to this new Jerkiness you just discovered. Perhaps you'll regret being respectful and dignified with me. I'm assuming you would...

Nonetheless, the implications of the validity of my past arguments should remain constant right? Or would you choose to ignore the validity of my arguments or seek new elements in my argument (through retrospective analysis) that accomodate this newly discovered jerkiness just because you'd like to make this whole thing have some coherence, continuity and sense? perhaps in hopes to find something in my previous posts that would, in the future, help you sniff out of jerk from a mile?

The thing is that you never get the whole picture until you know everything and you can never know whether you know everything or not. Usually we think we know everything once things make sense through some sort of interpretation...and our investigation and exploration of whatever we're trying to make sense of ends there. I sometimes end up shaking my sense in disbelief whenever things start making sense...and try to forget the interpretation that made it seem sensible...and amazingly, I learn a lot more through that forgetting....more specifically, through the open-mindedness I gain through that forgetting.

Consider my behavior. My apparent motivations would seem incoherent, without any pattern, making it impossible for any of you to predict my future behavior...therefore "unpredictable" and "uncertain". There's nothing humans can do when our environment is chaotic and unpredictable. We need predictability in our environment in order to determine and plan our behavior. Often times, we take it for granted. You enter your house in this granted-for assumption that you formerly (till yesterday) loving, caring and ethical father didn't just turn into an incest rapist waiting behind the doors to sodomize you. But, it isn't impossible; merely improbable. It is improbable because only by instilling this notion of certainty can we survive, grow, develop and behave with pre-determination. It is improbable only because you, your dad, and mostly everyone else would like to keep our behaviors consistent so that we can aid our illusory sense of certainty and predictability (to be able to comfortable trust in it)...so that we can go aroud doing things confidently rather than worry about being sodomized every five minutes. That's why we have traffic guidelines. It isn't impossoble for someone to break those traffic guidelines...only improbable. Improbable, only because we assign traffic police and emphasize on their efficiency...just so that we wouldn't have to think of this "possible" hold up when we're planning an important meeting at 5pm next thursday.

We are all likely to carelessly give into this notion of "consistence" of the environment so that we can plan the course of our behavior and actions 5 yrs ahead; 15 yrs ahead, if you're an INTJ...because we're generally more careless in our assumptions...which helps us focus on the "planning" part rather than the improbable but possible incest rape tomorrow. This is also why we get annoyed when our long-term plans get interrupted by the unpredictability and randomness around us. And by the way, "annoyance" isn't the most efficient reaction to randomness. Learning to adapt to it is.

Coming back to the core of my argument here - my behavior. Now that you've discovered the randomness, inconsistencies of my behavior (supposing I left it with the first line of this post), it is so much harder to "trust" me. At first look at this post (supposing I left it there), you'd rather want me dead or out of this forum before you can investigate.

My core argument? - Don't get deceived about the predictability of the things in the world just because you live in a nice part of the world where there're nicely laid out roads, organized traffic flow, predictable office tasks. It is so much harder for you to grasp it because, since your childhood, you've learnt and adapted to live in predictable, organized environments. It is perhaps hard for any of us to even 'conceive' the notion. Try going to calcutta and sit and watch the traffic flow...you'll probably have to be very perceptive to live there...because you'll have to constantly and rapidly feed in information about the environment to channel your behavior...and would certainly be frustrated to plan your behavior 15 steps ahead (because you can't plan *and* constantly change those plans according to the new information you perceive...a natural computation constraint)


Being INTJ and being a schemer sitting in your armchair, blocked from the world and yet thinking about it can be most efficient when dealing with a subject as mundane and predictable as the traffic flow in your city...but when it comes to something as unpredictable as the human mind (at least mine...since I (like the OP's ex perhaps) don't care to be so ethically commited to consistency in behavior (directly or indirectly) for the sake of sustaining others' trust in me), it is not such a good idea to think 5 or 15 steps ahead.

And after all this, I'd like to insist that I'm not saying that the OP's ex was a smart guy that the OP didn't just have the capacity to understand. It is most certainly probable that he had intentions to take advantage of her in every way...but yeah...like I said, it is better to forget than to ruminate....and to arrive at a cynical conclusion that insists on the correlations between charm, inconsistencies in behavior, unprovoked insultiveness, girlfriend-beating and this abstract concept called "sociopathy"...stuff that you think are going to help you from preventing these from ever occuring in the future.

If you'd like to be a cynic in order to protect yourself, you'll have to compromise on your luxury of living happily and your ability to explore things in an open-minded manner.

--

By the way, just for the sake of going easy, I'm sorry about being so impersonal. I know what it means to be betrayed brutally. But, the intensity of the pain inflicted by that betrayal is because of our own hasty, grandiose, confidence-instilling, premature conclusions. You cannot change the motivations of those that betray, deceive and possess ill-intentions...or prevent encounters with them (please don't try to)...but certainly you can change how much you suffer from those unpreventable encounters....which is what ultimately matters to any of us.

[Maja]

You'll perhaps revevaluate the "valid" arguments I previously made in context to this new Jerkiness you just discovered. Perhaps you'll regret being respectful and dignified with me. I'm assuming you would...

And I would do that why? I actually found it quite charming. By the way - you're hijacking the thread. :mellow:


...that accomodate this newly discovered jerkiness just because you'd like to make this whole thing have some coherence, continuity and sense? perhaps in hopes to find something in my previous posts that would, in the future, help you sniff out of jerk from a mile?

Consider my behavior. My apparent motivations would seem incoherent, without any pattern, making it impossible for any of you to predict my future behavior...therefore "unpredictable" and "uncertain".

It was actually consistent, insofar as your apparent sense of humor would dictate. Predictable is up for grabs. It would be neither 0% nor 100%, but nothing ever is.


That's why we have traffic guidelines. It isn't impossoble for someone to break those traffic guidelines...only improbable. We actually have traffic laws so people won't die, since in consideration of averages, certain actions behind the wheel at certain times are more likely to result in an accident. Like driving after 11pm, which there is not usually a rule for, or driving drunk, which there is, or using a turn signal, which drivers often choose not to do. But people are more likely to break these rules than adhere to them because it's more likely for people to think more of themselves, be lazy, forgetful, or have chosen not to memorize traffic rules than otherwise. It's more about causing harm unintentionally, where raping someone would have to have more intention. If you were out intending to mow people down for points, laws wouldn't stop you. There is a guideline, for example, against intentionally hijacking a thread, but you're still doing it. ;)


We are all likely to carelessly give into this notion of "consistence" of the environment so that we can plan the course of our behavior and actions 5 yrs ahead; 15 yrs ahead, if you're an INTJ...because we're generally more careless in our assumptions...which helps us focus on the "planning" part rather than the improbable but possible incest rape tomorrow.

A consistency in reference to inconsistency. Would this be "incontinencesistency?"



My core argument? - Don't get deceived about the predictability of the things in the world just because you live in a nice part of the world where there're nicely laid out roads, organized traffic flow, predictable office tasks.

A person's world is always nice if they want it to be, unless they are psychologically disordered. And I for one don't work in an office.

like I said, it is better to forget than to ruminate....and to arrive at a cynical conclusion that insists on the correlations between charm, inconsistencies in behavior, unprovoked insultiveness, girlfriend-beating and this abstract concept called "sociopathy"...stuff that you think are going to help you from preventing these from ever occuring in the future.

Isn't arriving upon a system to prevent things in the future not forgetting a situation, but recalling?

If you'd like to be a cynic in order to protect yourself, you'll have to compromise on your luxury of living happily and your ability to explore things in an open-minded manner.

Not really. I'm not a cynic, but I know from experience what makes me uncomfortable. It doesn't make me cynical. It doesn't matter if another person agrees that a thing is cringe worthy or not since the reaction is mine alone. It also doesn't mean that in two weeks, I won't decide there is good reason to explore that uncomfortability more closely. A person's ability to live happily is directly related to whether or not they can make themselves happy, even if that includes making assumptions about another person's character based on appearances. Even if that includes being open minded to the possibility of your own detriment.



By the way, just for the sake of going easy, I'm sorry about being so impersonal. I know what it means to be betrayed brutally. But, the intensity of the pain inflicted by that betrayal is because of our own hasty, grandiose, confidence-instilling, premature conclusions. You cannot change the motivations of those that betray, deceive and possess ill-intentions...or prevent encounters with them (please don't try to)...but certainly you can change how much you suffer from those unpreventable encounters....which is what ultimately matters to any of us.

Yep. In a sense. That sentiment was pretty On Topic, too. I give you two stars. I give myself three because I am older. I know it's not fair, but I never could forget the day my third grade teacher took a star off my chart. I have to live in agony and I'm pacifying myself vicariously.


Disclaimer: Hidden for possible taste aversion. Do not open if you are easily offended.

"Your lips are shivering, legs shaking...just to think of how brutally you've been deceived...You feel like the clothes in your luggage and the pain in your nuts were well compensated for this new lesson you've learnt."

This was my favorite part. It's always nice when people's nuts are compensated. Are you sure you're not a writer? By the way, asian eyes are in general actually rounder in appearance than caucasian. I told a white guy this once and he dared to argue with me based on the socially accepted validity of colloquial expression. After a few days, I told him if he didn't pipe down I would stab him in the asshole. He didn't appreciate this, but I was still right. Question is: Did he not appreciate the fact that physiologically, I was correct? Did he not appreciate my vulgar display of wanton magical attack in front of his peers? Or, was he simply angry he hadn't thought of such a colorful expression himself? Only the shadows know.

[ragavpayne]

Seriously, I should've left it there with the first line of my previous post...to see how everyone reacted. I personally would've gone for the "report" button.

Anyway, sorry about the hijacking...let the talk on sociopathy or whatever continue...

<yawn>

[ragavpayne]

I never could forget the day my third grade teacher took a star off my chart. I have to live in agony and I'm pacifying myself vicariously.

That was bloody classic...I remembered this thing after seeing it almost two days ago...It's just too classic...

Thanks for sharing that feeling...