A Beginner’s Guide to Being Friends with a Narcissist
At some point in your life you may become befriended by a narcissist. This is particularly likely if you are an empathetic, kind and generous soul who tends to see the good in people. It is also more likely if you have not had that particular ‘pleasure’ (in the loosest sense of the word) before as your friendly and open personality won’t recognise the red flags waving at you ominously in the beginning. You see you haven’t met your best friend ever after only a few weeks and the fact you seem to share so much in common is not fortuitous coincidence. You’re being love bombed. The word to focus on here is bomb not love because that is totally faked. Bombs aren’t cool. They hurt people and cause damage.
As the relationship flounders, and it will, it becomes obvious that there has been an unspoken code of conduct throughout the ‘friendship’ that you have unwittingly signed up to. To help others short circuit from initial meeting to running as fast as possible in the opposite direction, here are some of the rules to spot.
- Even if you are as right as it is humanely possible to be, if you disagree with the narcissist then you are wrong. Always.
- You must arrive on time for any meeting. Lateness and cancellation, particularly last minute, is only permitted by the narcissist and must never be questioned.
- Phone calls must always be answered at whatever time of day and night but ONLY and this is key information, if it is the narcissist calling you.
- All other friends of yours are not important now. Remember that. Same goes for family members. Your time and focus must only be on one person and you can guess who that might be!!
- Your memory is unreliable. Your recollections of events are wrong. Your faulty memories will be corrected to the facts though so don’t worry. But you will, as the facts don’t match up at all to what you remember. And you do, clearly.
- You must accept that your reactions are both oversensitive and insensitive. Always.
- Any discussion you wish to have about the narcissist’s inconsiderate behaviour towards you is unreasonable and unnecessary. Discussions will be blocked or terminated. You might be mocked for trying to have a discussion. Accept this. Get over it and move on should become your mantra. It’s the only way forward.
- You need to make changes in your behaviour (despite never having been told this by any friend before. They were just too polite to tell you your many character flaws obviously but luckily your new friend is more direct and honest. Lucky you.
- All advice from your ‘friend’ is to support you in becoming a better person and if it sounds harsh or cruel then it is only an attempt to help you and you should appreciate that. Always.
- Only one person can make and break the rules and it sure as hell ain’t you.
Adherence to the code will ensure a period of time where you can enjoy your relationship with the narcissist with relative success before the inevitable discard that is all your fault for being a horrible person. At this point, you will feel totally confused, hurt and used. You will turn to the internet, spend every minute of your free time researching narcissism and become an amateur world expert in narcissistic abuse survival. You will begin to see how duped you were by this frenemy and feel more hurt and upset. You will refrain from sharing your new found knowledge with many others though as you realise that if they haven’t been through a similar experience, they will see you as becoming a bit unhinged and obsessive. But hang on in there because after an unspecified time, you will feel lighter, happier and freer than you have felt for some time. You will see how sad and pathetic the former friend really is. You will have no inclination to ‘refriend’ them and most importantly, you will be so much stronger and ready to avoid ever falling into this kind of relationship again.
One thought on “A Beginner’s Guide to Being Friends with a Narcissist”
I read this story in awe as it is my story. Thank You so much for sharing. I’m on the other side of the experience however I’m forever changed. I have found that I needed to experience this in order to protect myself in the future from the Predators.
Its shocking walking through it.
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