Are
you tired of dating toxic people and screwing up your life over and
over again? In this new "Red flag on first dates" serie we will discuss
some crucial red flags to watch out for when dating and getting to know
new people so this time we can make a better and healthier decisions for
our lives.
Have
you ever wonder why the narcissists are so skilled and magnificent at
love bombing but they absolutely suck in relationships? Let´s talk a bit
about emotional intelligence and what crucial role does it play in
dating and relationships. How to recognize narc "f*ck boys" and narc women in
child energies already on the first dates so we can avoid them before we
get too deep into a roller coaster dead end toxic relationships and
screw up ourselves.
It
will sound a bit (OK, a bit more) controversial, but I would like to
break this topic down starting with the pedophiles as they are probably
the best example of emotionally undeveloped individuals.
But
first, let´s explain a bit what the emotional intelligence really is.
Humans are developing EQ (emotional intelligence) when they are little
children. We all have been born with narcissism and as times goes by,
our parents are teaching us empathy. The more empathy we develop, the
less narcissism we posses and our EQ is increasing. But what happen when
we experience a childhood trauma? And by childhood trauma, it does not
need to be something physically violent like beating. It can be
something emotionally and psychologically violent as having emotionally
unavailable parents, ignoring parents, overbearing controlling parents, parents with low to now EQ and low to no empathy
(narcissistic parents), unloving parents, cold parents, detached
parents, traumatized parents, abusive parents, spoiling parents. This
all cause tremendous trauma to the child, it dysregulates the way the child emotionally attaches to others, it stunts the child´s emotional development and parts of the
brain where is located empathy stops developing or even never starts to
develop at all. And the child freezes with it´s emotions at the age when the
trauma occurred. This is how Peter Pan, the eternal child, has been
created. The "emotional freeze-up" does not need to be very obvious to
the surrounding when the disordered individual is still quite young
(this is the reason why you can´t be officially diagnosed with
personality disorder in young age because you are still in a development
- it´s normal that children and teenagers are quite narcissistic, its
the part of their development), but it starts to be very obvious when
they get older that something is very off with them. The
narcissists, pedophiles or any other personality disordered people are
nothing else than children stuck in adult´s bodies.
When
you meet 50 years old people, if they are emotionally developed, they
will act like 50 years old people. Their body matches their emotional
development. But when you meet a 50 years old narcissists or pedophiles,
it confuses you. You see a 50 years old people (their body matches their
age on the birth certificates) but when you listen to them and watch
their behavior and actions for a little while, you feel there is something off with them. The
thing that is off is their childish behavior, they experience the
emotions the same way as children. They have bodies of the adult people
but they are emotionally developed the same as 10 years old boy or a teenage girl.
If you want to understand the narcissists or pedophiles, you have to think
about them like you think about children and teenagers and your whole world will make
sense, finally!
As
an adult, have you ever tried to talk to a 5 years old child about
mortgage? Or have you ever tried to talk about relationship issues with a
teenager? They can´t relate to you because they do not posses the
emotional capacity to relate to you. They do not posses the right "tools" to act
like the adults (even if they want to). The same goes for the narcissists, pedophiles and other personality disordered people. The narcissists are literary the emotional retards. Imagine healthy emotionally
developed 50 years old person to go out for a coffee with another 50
years emotionally underdeveloped person. As they start to talk, its very
frustrating for the emotionally developed one to talk to the one who is
emotionally undeveloped. They can´t relate. And this is the reason why a
50 years old pedophile does not relate to his or her peers in their
age. They are attracted to children because children are on the same
level of emotional development as they are.
Often, the pedophiles
experienced a violent trauma such as sexual abuse in their childhood and
they are replaying their trauma again and again in their adulthood while being still stuck in their
childhood. They re-live their trauma like it is a movie
they watch over and over again feeling like it happened to them
"yesterday" (even it happened many years ago). For them it did not happen years
ago, it happened "yesterday" and they are still children because they
did not heal and they did not emotionally unstuck. The interesting
fact about trauma is that if you do not heal your trauma, you re-live it
every day. It means, if you experienced a trauma 20 years ago and you
did not managed to heal, the trauma is for you "forever fresh". This is
why people do not understand why traumatized people can´t just simply move on and go
over it ("Hey, it happened 20 years ago, you should be over by now. Just go over it").
Re-living the trauma is being called "flashbacks". Every-time the
traumatized person is triggered it brings them the flashbacks and
they re-live the situation again as it happened just "yesterday" and not
20 years ago. Traumatized people are usually hurting others the very
same way they have been hurt in the past because on subconscious level they want to
understand what happened to them. They do it the way where they hurt
others and then they watch it from the "outside perspective" like a
movie trying to process it in their brains. If the pedophiles have been
sexually abused and they did not managed to heal from their childhood
trauma, they become the abusers themselves and will sexually abuse
others children. In case of the narcissists, many people wonder where
they learnt these sadistic skills to emotionally and psychologically
torture others. They learnt it from their narcissistic parents who
tortured them in their childhood and they never managed to heal from
this abuse so they became the abusers themselves and now in their
adulthood they are emotionally and psychologically abusing others.
Trauma is always a generational curse.
That´s why its important to carefully listen on the first dates when our dates talk about their trauma (especially childhood trauma) and family dynamics. Because if they did not heal from what happened to them or what was programmed into them, the chance that they will take us through the same is high. When we first meet the families of our new dates, its very wise to observe what is happening in their families because this is exactly what we will get too in life with our new partners.
The
emotional underdevelopment is the reason why you can see many old and
older people to date much younger people. Its not that obvious that
something is wrong with the narcissistic person when they are 17 years
old (and they are emotionally stunted in age 17) and they date another
17 years old person. Its still not obvious when they get older and in an
age of 25 they are still dating 17 years old people. But it starts to
be obvious when they become 55 years old and they are
still dating 17 years old teenagers. We can see it in our society many
times when the older people abandon their partners who are their peers
of the same age and they find a new partner who is much younger (sometimes even 2-3 generations younger). The
narcissists often date much younger people to obtain narcissistic supply
(trophy wife, trophy husband, also, its much easier to control and
abuse a naive young person) but other reason why they date much younger
people is that they are simply very emotionally undeveloped. The moment
their partners become "old", they discard them and find someone else who
is on their emotional level. Usually, the emotionally developed
partners suffer tremendously in the relationships with the
underdeveloped narcissists because the relationships do not satisfy the developed ones on the emotional level. Being in the relationships with the
narcissists is like being in the relationships with the underdeveloped narcissistic teenagers.
Narcissism
is a form of a trauma that made the narcissists emotionally stunted and they are extremely emotionally immature. Many narcissists can have a very high IQ (and some might have a very low IQ and they are dumb). But those with
high IQ can be a interesting people (if you don´t live with them or be in the close relationships with them and you only meet them time to time for a coffee). They might be very good at
sport or they can be the scientists. Their cognitive intelligence might
impress people and you can find interesting topics to talk about with
them (although, due to their narcissism, there will be only a monologue
going on because they love to talk only about themselves, they love to
hear themselves and they don´t care what you have to say). Where the
narcissists ALWAYS fail are the situations where is necessary to operate
from their EQ (emotional intelligence) and not their IQ. This is why
people often wonder how someone so intelligent can act so childish,
petty and out of control. The narcissists can be successful in their
careers (some of them) but the moment they come home and suppose to deal
with raising their children (expressing their empathy) or dealing with
the relationships issues in marriages (showing emotional strength, behaving as an adult, being mature, having a capacity to be under the emotional stress, etc.) is a field
where they ALWAYS fail. The "Peter Pan children" get always irritated when
forced to behave matured, they feel frustrated because they do not
understand their own and other people´s emotions (this is why they have to mirror others because they are "emotionally clueless"). They might excel at
work, but behind the doors of their homes, they destroy their children
and partners with their non empathic insensitive nature and they literary terrorize
their beloved ones with their massive insecurities and unhealed
traumatized broken parts inside of them. The narcissists severely damage
emotional and psychological well-being of all people closest to them.
So,
with what we have now learnt about narcissists and their emotional
underdevelopment and extreme immaturity, how we can use this knowledge in recognizing the red
flags on the first dates so we don´t get into the "relationship´s
troubles"?
Let´s
talk about love bombing for a minute. If you ever dated the
narcissists, you already know they are the most passionate lovers out
there (let´s ignore for a moment the nightmare that comes after the love
bombing stage)! They are masters at love bombing techniques. Or ... are
they? Or maybe they are just crazy people in manic stage of
their disorder. We will break this down now. Love bombing is a first stage of the narcissistic abuse cycle and it´s wise to catch up the red flags early in the relationships so we can back off from the toxicity before we spiral down the narcissist´s rabbit whole leading to NarcWonderLand. How to recognize a toxic
love bomber?
The
narcissists are great at love bombing but they absolutely suck at
relationships (or in general with reality and all that stuff adults
usually do). The love bombing is manifestation of a childish behavior
typical for the teenagers. Children are known for "magical thinking"
where they develop alternative realities and their fantasy creates their
own grandiose self (every little boy pretends he is a super hero).
People
diving deep into the love bombing with the narcissists, the deeper they
dive into the fantasy, the more far they are taken from the reality. The
narcissists are great at future faking promising grandiose fantasies
with no intention to bring them into the reality. But we can´t blame
them. They are the children and that´s what the children do. They want only to play, have fun and do not think about reality and consequences. Being
grandiose is the only tool they know how to operate from because they
are emotionally underdeveloped and that´s why they don´t know how to
handle reality. The reality is always handled by their mummy or daddy.
Its always fun with the narcissists in the good days but the moment something goes wrong or during difficult days, the narcissists are running to hide behind the skirt of their mummy or behind the legs of their daddy. The narcissists are very unskilled with reality so they are only left
with providing the fantasy. So, what´s the difference between dating a
man-child / woman-child and a real adult? Here are few examples of how the narcissists love bomb their victims:
The
narcissists are crossing people´s boundaries when they bombard them
with the text messages 50 times a day over-sharing every detail of their day and life. Already from the early dating days, the narcissists start to put their baggage onto their victim´s shoulders. They might even send a text message at 3 AM which only shows that the narcissists do not understand the boundaries at all. This is a typical behavior of the
teenagers. And its typical also for individuals suffering from
personality disorders. The adults know that they have to focus on
performing at their jobs and they do not have time to send emoticons and
selfies every 5 minutes. Pathologically obsessive control over the new
dates is typical for the disordered people. Obsessive and possessive nature is a great
red flag. Obsessing is typical for for example pathological stalkers and
psychopathic killers. Statistically, most of the stalkers are unemployed individuals. They have plenty of time to focus only on their prey. However, not every stalker needs to be necessary unemployed but all stalkers have in common obsessive preoccupation with one person they have targeted. This lead us to another great red flag to think about while dating - if the person we date obsess about us, it does mean they most likely have no job, no hobby, no others healthy relationships or activities going on in their life. Their ONLY activity is to have us on their mind nonstop, they stalk us nonstop and they want our attention nonstop. Its important to beware of people who has nothing else to do than obsess about us. Healthy people do not make one person a center of their Universe. They have other things going on in their life such as hobbies, friends, family, career, business, activities out of the relationships and "me time". Statistically, most of the cases where the stalkers murdered their targets were the ex partners of those targets who suffered from the personality disorders. The pathological stalkers - ex partners are the most dangerous after the break - up. While the intense attention of our lovers can be flattering in the beginning of the relationships, the stalking obsessive nature of our exes can turn deadly after the break-up. The obsessive behavior is also a control tactic how abusive people isolate their victims from their support system (from other people in victim´s life such as friends and family). Slowly, the victims also turn into someone who do not have any other activity except orbiting around their narcissistic partners. The victims slowly lose friends, family and they are taken away from their activities. The obsessive controlling stalkers are the life stealers. The victims usually misunderstand the obsessive behavior, intense attention and stalking as a flattery
in the beginning of the relationships. But it´s actually a very dangerous and disordered behavior.
Healthy
adults respect each other´s space. Because they only freshly started to
date their person, the healthy adults know that the world does not revolve
around their new dates, they have also others priorities such as
their jobs, families and many other activities. They are not glued on the
phone 24/7. When they are on the meeting or busy at work, they might
even turn off the phone and that´s OK and normal. When you do not respond
to the disordered people right away, they bombard you even more
intensively (triggered by rejection complex and abandonment issues) and they even start to blame you that you do not pay enough
attention to them, they criticize you that you are not available
nonstop. It can feel like a flattery for a little while, but its
actually a very controlling behavior that will become very draining
overtime for any normal person. The narcissists have a giant issue with
the boundaries. As children, their boundaries have been crossed by their
narcissistic parents often and that´s why they did not developed
healthy sense of boundaries - people cross their boundaries, they cross
people´s boundaries. In relationships with the narcissists, the
boundaries are completely non existent.
Because
normal people don´t know their new dates properly yet, they want to
keep progressing their friendships with them without the pressure, they want to
organically and slowly get to know their new dates. It takes time to
establish the friendship first. It takes time to build a relationship. And it takes even more time to build trust. They keep the topics on the dates light,
they do not reveal their deepest traumatic secrets on the first dates,
neither their bank account info or how much money they make. On the
other hand, the disordered individuals are rushing into everything, the
narcissists are pressuring people to reveal everything about them
already on the first dates, they force and rush intimacy and sex too
early into the relationships and in only few weeks they are forcing
people to marry them, move in with them or they talk about common future
with them after knowing them only few days. Often, the narcissists try
to get the targets pregnant immediately to secure the control over
them and trap them. They try to make the connection seems deeper than it really is at
that point. They want to attach immediately without earning the trust
first.
At
night, the healthy adults might send one or two sweet goodnight
messages to their new date or have a short call but they are not calling each other every
night for hours, they do not speak through phone like teenagers for 7
hours till 3 AM because they know they have to wake up early in the
morning and go to work and they need a proper sleep. The disordered
individuals are crossing people´s boundaries to invade their life and
space in forced way only after few days of knowing them.
Normal
adults do not date every day. They date when they find a time in their
schedule among other activities and other people in their life. Because the narcissists are technically children, time spent with them might be fun. Time spent with children is generally always fun. They are in a child energy, they will show you the best candy shops, tell the best jokes and makes you feel like life is easy. Because for them it is. For teenagers the life is always easy because they have mummies and daddies to take care for the adult stuff and reality. The narcissists usually don´t have anything important going on for themselves so they have plenty of time to waste on endless fun. Often, when the narcissists enter their victim´s life, the victims take off their eyes from their goals and dreams because they start to co-dependently orbit solely around the narcissists. The victims suddenly start to struggle with their finances because the parasitic narcissists manipulated them and brainwashed them, the narcissists start to suck their victims - already on the first dates the victims are forced to pay for expensive restaurants, expensive trips and expensive gifts for the individuals they barely know. Its not uncommon that the narcissists bring people into the bankruptcy, sometimes in a record time. The dating is very intense with the narcissistic disordered people, they force others to date them daily and they start to occupy the victim´s schedule 24/7.
The
more rich disordered individuals are buying expensive gifts to their preys already on the first
dates. They pay for inappropriately expensive vacations only after 2
weeks of knowing someone. They shower their targets with money and gifts but on the other hand, the narcissists expect back a total control over the victim, obedience and compliance, the victims lose their freedom and autonomy and they exchange new shoes for endurance of abuse.
Many
normal adults have been sweep off their feet by the narcissist´s
irresponsibility, manic nature that they mistakenly
misunderstood as the narcissist´s free spirit nature, adventurous and
dynamic personality. But in fact, the narcissist´s manic love bombing
stage is only a beginning of the narcissistic abusive cycle. The
narcissists are very impulsive - they show up at the victim´s house or
work uninvited and unexpected (sometimes in an inappropriate night hours)
or they take the victims for dangerously "adventurous" trip driving
the car like crazy. They force the victims to meet their families too
early in the relationships or they force themselves into the victim´s
social circle immediately. The narcissists in the love bombing stage are very reckless and super intense. Recklessness, intensity and childlike qualities are red flag.
While the narcissists excel at childish love bombing, they absolutely suck at building and maintaining quality relationships. What a painful
disillusionment is it to wake up to the fact that the sweet and
passionate moments with the narcissists in the beginning were real only
to the poor victims but it was solely a sadistic mind game, twisted fun
and an illusion for the narcissists. If you do not posses an empathy,
you are technically not a human (because its the empathy what makes you
human) and you are not capable to experience a true love neither to
emotionally attach in a healthy way to other human being. If the
narcissists managed to take the dating to the next level (which most of
them usually don´t as the narcissists are here only for the fun part but
some of them do) and they entered the relationships, the victims go
through a rude awakening that their princ / princess charming turned
into a narcissistic monster.
Low emotional intelligence is a huge red flag. As the narcissism is a spectrum and there are more types of narcissists, the victim´s experiences might slightly vary from person to person, but what all personality disorders have in common is the low EQ / lack of empathy. Low emotional intelligence is actually one of the most dangerous facts about the cluster B type of the personality disorders. If you do not posses EQ, it means you are capable to steal, kill and destroy without even feeling bad about it and this red flag should not be taken lightly.
I
wish you a safe navigation through a dating scene and see you at the
next article from the serie "Red flag on first dates".
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