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Narcissistic Snare

 

Narcissistic Snare


Chris Burgess


·
Photo by Freddie Sze on Unsplash

One of the nasty tricks that a narcissist will use is the narcissistic snare. When you need something from the narcissist they will create these hurdles you need to get through in order to get what you need.

Essentially, they will start an argument and they will keep whittling away at your patience through repetition of points, talking in circles, bringing up business from the past that has already been resolved, as well as the use of jabbing words at your weak points in such a way that it’s difficult to call out because of the subtleness that they do it.

They create these fights simply to get you to react. You’ll see the legendary narcissistic smirk in these moments where you finally reach the end of your rope and you snap and say something rude. This moment gives them a feeling of joy and control as they just got you to react emotionally which to them is a show of superiority.

At the same time that this fight occurs, they’ll be withholding what you want from you. Whether it be money, affection, car keys, or whatever, they’ll be holding something over you that you really need.

Almost like magic, without words they’ll have created this dynamic where you need something from them and will need to apologize to them in order to get it. They fabricated the fight by being an ignorant jerk, but yet — you’ll need to apologize to them in order to get what you want.

To make matters worse, they’ll give you every indication that you’ll get what you want as soon as there is peace between the two of you. So, you’ll decide to be nice and you’ll take it on the chin by apologizing to them in order to smoothen things out. You’ll go through the entire apology and when you think it’s over and they are finally going to give you what you need, then the conversation will abruptly end.

They won’t give you what you need and to add insult to injury, they won’t give you an apology in return. You’ll leave the conversation without what you need and being the only one to apologize and take ownership of the situation. They got you to apologize for a fight they started.

Then your next fight you can count on them bringing up this occasion where you took ownership of the fight that they started and they’ll blame you citing your apology as proof it was your fault.

This will give them an edge right off the bat next time.

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