Psychopaths Do Not Seek Out Friends

Those we have found us...

One of the common misperceptions that I have come across regarding psychopathy is that psychopaths seek out people to prey upon, and to be wary of the people seeking to make friends with you. Some psychopaths may very well do this, but the vast majority of us do not really have an interest in seeking out other people. That isn’t to say that we don’t know a lot of people, and there are even more who seem to know us despite us having no idea who they might be.

Time and again in my life I have found out from strangers that I am “that Athena” because someone that I tangentially know knows this person and for some reason has downloaded everything that they can think of regarding me into this stranger’s brain. Why do they do this? Well, your guess is as good as mine, but I will say that it’s annoying.

I also deal with another version of this online, though part of that is my own fault. I write online, which gives people a sense that they know who I am and what I am like. I guarantee that they have no idea, but that doesn’t change the fact that people view the type of writing that I do as some sort of window into my soul, or something along those lines. They also seem to believe that if they can just talk to me that we will become the best of friends.

We won’t.

I get messages on a regular basis that are differently phrased versions of, “Can I be your best friend?”

No, no they may not.

First and foremost. Trust me, they do not know me. I am a very acquired taste for those who do, and as much as they think my writing is a crystal clear window into my very being, it is a surface barely scratched by my interest in writing about being psychopathic.

Secondly, I am a very private person. What is presented about me in my writings is infinitesimal when it comes to knowing who I am, and there is little motivation for me to change that.

Third, and likely the most important. Friends for me are individuals that have earned that title. They do not come by it through a “getting to know you” session in Quora’s private messaging feature. The people that I count among my friends are extremely few and far between because I am unwilling to put that sort of effort out on a frequent basis. If I do so for an individual, they have gotten to that position because they have demonstrated that they are worthy of my ongoing attention.

Psychopaths are also not going to be interested in group psychopathic activities. Whether someone else is psychopathic or not has very little value to me unless we are comparing notes regarding psychopathy itself, but in no way is psychopathy the primary focus of my life, nor would it be for another psychopath. We certainly can be curious about it, but it isn’t something that our entire identity is going to be built on.

You have no idea how often people think that psychopaths are seeking people out to make friends. More often than that are the people that want to make friends with me, but do not take it well when they are turned down. I had the most curious exchange some time ago on Quora that was the perfect example of this thinking:

User

Hey Athena! How are you? Thanks for replying to my questions. I enjoy reading your answers.

Athena Walker

I am well enough. Thank you for the compliment. How are you tonight

User

Thanks. I am good. I was about to sleep actually but I wanted to say hi.
By the way, if you hadn't said you are a psychopath I would never have guessed. You sound really serious but not unusual manipulative. Are you really a psychopath? I would really really like to be friends so we can talk sometimes. Send me your Skype nickname so I can add you.
That was a please. I mean if you want to. But anyway I will go to sleep now but it was really nice to talk. Goodnight!

Athena Walker

I haven't a Skype account, never had the need for one.
I am not my usual self on Quora because I figure I can meet and speak with other like minded people. It is not a common experience to meet others like me. I have a very few, but it is not a regular thing.

Yes, I am indeed psychopathic. 
What you see here is the mask partially off. I keep my more vicious thoughts to myself, text is great for making sure you have time to really be sure you want to send something. When my mask is off I am very logical. I don't have the usual trappings of kindness that i display to people in person. It's rather nice actually, as none of that is visible with typing anyway.
I still do my best here to act as though I care. Sometimes I fail at it miserably. Others I don't. Can't win them all I suppose.
Goodnight.

User

Get a Skype account! It is easy. Just go to Skype | Free calls to friends and family and sign up. Then you only have to enter an email. Be my friend! Where do you live? Is it in the US?
I know Quora is odd. Quora is not about making personal friendships. It is about being an expert in a field and makig acquaintances or partners. I want to tell you about me but I don't like to write personally on Quora.

Athena Walker

I am very much the same way. It helps not that I have had a few stalkers in my life, so I am careful about personal details.
Yes, I live in the US. However, friends are a very limited thing in my life for a number of reasons. Not the least of which is that maintaining friendships requires energy from me that I am not inclined to put out. I am remarkably self-interested.

User

Ok so one question. How can you be on Quora to write that you are a psychopath?
What is the motivation behind it?
Are you doing it for fame? What do you expect to gain from it?
And are you not worried about what other people may say?

User

Just a reasonable thought.

Athena Walker

What other people think is the furthest thing from my concern. The only time that plays into my way of thinking is when there is something that i desire to obtain, and another person's opinion of me plays into that. Outside of that, I couldn't care less.
My motivation is two fold. There is not a large opportunity for psychopaths to compare their experiences with one another in day to day life. It is not a common condition, therefore being able to have conversations with those like me provides me answers to questions I may not even be aware that i have until the subject is discussed. Also, at least a few of them here are interested in similar aims, so they are much more honest than perhaps they would be if we were face to face. We tend to be rather on guard with another one like ourselves.

The second being that the information available to the general public regarding psychopaths is annoyingly inaccurate. Even now there are professional psychiatrist/psychologists that buy into old stereotypes that have nothing to do with us, and others that create new ones that I had never heard of before.
For instance, one I ran across a day or so ago by a retired clinician. Psychopaths, he expects, would be here on Quora to brag about having sex with animals. It is the absence of such information, as well as other completely ridiculous assumptions, that he doubts that there are any actual psychopaths on Quora. I may not be the best person in the entire world, and I may do things that other people would find deplorable, but I would prefer it not get into legendary status with disgusting trappings.

This information is heard by people that have no idea to question this statement, and we are labeled as animal sex crazed lunatics, among other equally ridiculous things. This is rather annoying and is deserving of correction.
How can I be on Quora and write that I am psychopathic? I don't find it something that I should worry about telling people that I have no interest in gaining anything from. On Quora my motivation is what I have said above. Also, as with all things in a psychopaths life, this is a passing fancy. Sooner or later we become bored and find something else to do. That will happen here, not only for me, but for all of the ones that are actually psychopathic.
It will depend on each one's motivation on how long that will take, but if they are truly psychopathic, it's inevitable.

 
User

Great. So I was thinking, what is she going to say now, what is she going to say now? Is she going to get annoyed?
What pisses me off more than being wrong is being right. What pisses me off is when you suspect something about someone and you are right but they need to say it in their way. Do you think when someone reads what others write they don't understand a lot about them?
So you have a good cause. So you want to support other people. So you are self-aware. So you are intelligent. So you like to make friends. So you are reasonable.

You are full of shit, Athena. You are not a psychopath. You are a very normal, rational person. And moreover you actually want to make friends. You are so incredibly insecure about it that you don't even want to admit it. But you want to make friends so badly it is so obvious.
You just think you have to tell me in your way because then you will think I will get it.

Athena Walker

LOL! I want to make friends. Very amusing. If that's what you assume, you need a far better read on people.

Something that people need to understand about psychopaths, and something that those who are faking psychopathy cannot grasp because the inverse is part of their hardwiring is that psychopaths do not seek people out. There is no inclination to find other people to hang out with. Being alone is not only fine, but it is very enjoyable. There is no need of a mask, there is no having to concern ourselves with the emotional well-being of the other person, and we get to do what we want without having to intentionally consider the needs of others.

Psychopaths can also be difficult friends. We are notoriously self-focused. We have a difficult time understanding the needs that other people might have. We may not communicate things that other people need to hear in order to be more comfortable. We lack the ability to be uncomfortable ourselves so our cognitive empathy for someone else’s discomfort may not exist or might fail completely. We won’t seek out the other person unless there is a specific reason.

A friend of mine who is speaking to me right now says that the reasons being friends with me is difficult are:

You have to engage, you have to listen, you have to ask questions, you have to be willing to learn, you have to try to understand, and you have to develop your cognitive empathy to be able to communicate.

I think that this is a rather kind list that isn’t critical enough, but I can press her later to lay out all her complaints about where I fail as a friend. I guarantee you that there are plenty of things that I do that piss her off.

There are a ton of other reasons that psychopaths are difficult friends to have, but the ones above can leave that other person feeling unwanted and unimportant. Again, this is not something that a psychopath can experience, so we do not make the assumption that the other person would experience it either.

Friends to me are no different than family. The level of investment is the same. That said, I am a fairly passive friend until there is a need for my help in some regard or another. At that point, I will do whatever is needed of me, but until that point, unless the friend is willing to do all the heavy lifting of seeking me out, it isn’t going to happen. That’s not a reflection on them, rather it is a reflection on me, but it isn’t going to change. It is one thing to know that, it is another thing to experience it.

There is a lot about psychopathy that can seem very alluring to neurotypicals. There is an idea that we can be that impartial person who doesn’t go for the emotional aspects, such as in an argument, or emotional placation when in reality a good swift kick in the pants is what is needed. All of that is true, but we are also rather crap at being emotionally supportive.

Think about that.

For all the things that people think that they want out of a friendship with a psychopath, they are only seeing the rose part of the garden, not the manure that makes it grow. They are part and parcel of the person that is a psychopath. In very necessary times we can play the emotionally supportive role, but unless it is very necessary it is unlikely to happen. More often than not, despite the emotional state of a friend, our response to that distress is, “Why though?”

I can understand why they might be upset if they lose a parent, a pet, if something that was deeply important to them is lost or broken, but I do not have that same inclination if a friend is just having a bad day. I am more interested in fixing the problem instead of hearing about it continuously. Once it’s fixed, why is it still being discussed? Problems to a psychopath are only problems so long as there is something to be done about them. After they are solved there isn’t anything that keeps those issues occupying space in our brains. The notion that there would be anything emotional connected to a problem, especially after it’s solved, that is incomprehensible to a psychopath.

This is not something that many neurotypicals can understand it seems. Problems come with emotional implications and those implications do not necessarily disappear when the problem is over and done with. Finding emotional support from a psychopath with such things is going to be a difficult task. While it is understandable in some circumstances, the death of a parent for instance, it isn’t in others, though to neurotypicals it may seem that it should be a no-brainer such as the loss of everything you own in a house fire.

In a psychopath’s mind:

Did you have insurance that covers everything with “replacement value” (not value at the time of the loss. Seriously people check your policies and make sure that you have replacement value, not value at time of loss policies)?

Yes? Good

Do you have a place to stay for the time being?

Yes? Good.

Are you alive and uninjured?

Yes? Good.

Is your family safe and alive?

Yes? Good

Are your animals safe and alive?

Yes? Good.

What else is there?

In the neurotypical’s mind:

“I have just been through a house fire. It was terrifying, we barely all made it out, we watched everything that we owned and loved burn into firey ash, we have lost all of our heirlooms, all of our photographs, we have all been traumatized, the kids can’t sleep and have nightmares, and I am not doing very well myself.”

Psychopath: …“Why though? The problems have all been addressed. You can rebuild, you didn’t die, you didn’t have anyone in your family die, you have a place to stay and you get a new house and brand new stuff. What’s the problem?”

This is not where a meeting of the minds is going to take place. We simply do not have the emotional connections to any of that sort of event. Not the fire itself, not the things that were lost, not the ongoing fear that might come after. To us, the fire happened, everyone got out, the aftermath has been handled, it’s time to move on. Trying to get us to understand the emotional aspects of that sort of loss is… well… lost on us. We are more likely to see it as an overall positive. New stuff that we don’t have to pay for. Cool. That would be our silver lining mentality at work.

Psychopaths aren’t going to seek out friends for the sake of having them. We are also unlikely to allow someone who expresses interest in being our friend anywhere close to our lives. Psychopaths are not fond of eager beaver friend seekers. We do not trust others like neurotypicals do, and if someone is too eager I am going to assume that they aren’t emotionally stable. Especially if they know that I am psychopathic. Likely they romanticize psychopathy and think that being friends with one would be “cool”.

In some regards, it might be. I have a friend that is psychopathic, and I think he’s pretty damn cool. However, how he is cool to me is not how other people are going to perceive him. I value not having to bother with emotional feedback when I am around him. It’s a nice break. A neurotypical trying to be friends with him would find it to be a difficult prospect indeed.

If someone professes themselves a psychopath but is one of those eager beaver friendship seekers, they aren’t a psychopath. If they are seeking a group of psychopaths to create some sort of secret underground psychopath alliance complete with club card, they aren’t a psychopath. If someone says being a friend with a psychopath is super duper easy, because their best friend is a psychopath and they are a dream come true in all ways, they don’t know a psychopath. If someone sidles up to you in person or online claiming that they are a psychopath but you are just so very interesting that they can’t help but want to be around you, they aren’t, and they have bad intentions toward you.

Also, to those who are inclined to seek out a psychopath for a bestie, we aren’t the easiest people to deal with on a long-term basis. It is an extended learning process on both sides that is going to be fraught with difficulties. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise or who want to believe otherwise, likely are seeking a bridge to sell or buy.