Taking Your Inventory

It is a necessary part of life...

How many times in your life have you found yourself on the losing end of a relationship because you trusted someone that most certainly didn’t deserve it? How many of you find yourself trusting easily, only to find yourself repeating this pattern over and over again?

As long as I have known people I have been watching the good and bad sides of feelings, personalities, approaches to the world, and how individuals seem to find themselves in a repetitious cycle.

One of the largest aspects that seem to contribute to this cycle is that people don’t take their own inventory. What I mean by this is to be able to see what makes up your personality, and be able to see all the ways it helps you, and all the ways it creates problems for you. The opposite is true as well. There are aspects of your personality that you consider negative, but they assist you in ways you cannot imagine.

An excellent example of this is the people that claim that every partner that they have ever had has some sort of difference or disorder. You have no idea how many people will say that all of their exes were psychopaths, sociopaths, narcissists, or some other thing that they have decided accounts for their behavior. Now, what they mean to say is that all of their exes were toxic and/or abusive, but that is not what they say.

All right, let’s assume for the sake of argument that they are correct that they have a long history of abusive and toxic partners, certainly possible, and they have every reason in the world to complain about their behavior. What they should also be doing is identifying what it is about this person that makes them attractive in the first place for them to be able to gain a foothold in their lives and then abuse them.

To do that, they have to take their own inventory. They have to know how they themselves contributed to this toxic dynamic. Unfortunately for all of these people that proclaim in the highest peaks of the world that they are the pure as the driven snow innocent victims, they are not. They chose these partners, and there is something within themselves that not only makes that partner attractive to them, but makes them attractive to the partner.

I have had a host of toxic people in and out of my life, and without fail, I have watched them mentally decline when they are around me. They tend to have a certain bag of tricks that allows them access to people’s lives, but it is a limited bag that fails on a psychopath. This has allowed me to observe these types, and also figure out what they are using, and why it works.

I remember one person in particular that simply had no idea how to deal with me. He was a roommate, and he wanted my attention. When it was clear to him that I didn’t care about his whiny needs, he tried many tricks that I know work on other people, so let’s go through them, shall we?

First, he tried to make me want to be with him by making it clear that I wouldn’t have a chance with him because I lacked what he considered desirable characteristics. I was “too skinny” for him. At the same time that he had said this, he would also do his level best to spy on me while I did ballet exercises, so he was also clearly lying.

This tactic works on people because they are insecure and seeking approval. They don’t want to think that they aren’t physically attractive enough, even if the person telling them this isn’t someone that they would be interested in in the first place.

If you are someone that has self-esteem issues, this would be a good tactic to lower them further and seek that approval. Of course, and unfortunately for him, this has no effect on me. It also showed his hand, and as he was living with my Significant Other and me at the time, it was very inappropriate to both say anything in the first place, but also be spying on me.

The response he wanted was for me to question myself and want his approval. What he got was me very bluntly informing him that his approval on my physical form is the last thing that I consider valuable.

The response he acquired was that of a blunt response informing him that if he were so concerned with my lack of body fat, surely he wouldn’t go to the trouble of spying. He did not care for that response, nor that of both my SO and I telling him that if he tries that again, he would need to find a new place to live.

Next. I did and still do the majority of the cooking in our house. I am an excellent cook, and this is a boon for those that live with me or visit, however, I cook for me. What that means is that I am not particularly concerned about adjustments that someone else wants made to the dish, aside from my SO. He gets to weigh in. Not only does he have a superb palate, but I also want him to thoroughly enjoy his meals. Other than that, you get what you get, and what you get is delicious, but not up for debate.

Apparently, roommate man missed this memo or thought he was way more important than he was. I make a penne with lemon cream sauce, artichokes, sometimes chicken sometimes not, and sundried tomatoes. It is really good… actually I haven’t made this in a while and should change that. Maybe that will be dinner tonight… now I have to figure out if I have all the ingredients.

Anyway, I served it, everyone was very happy, including roommate man, but he mentioned that he would prefer fewer sundried tomatoes. Dude… pick them out if you don’t want to eat them. No one cares if you do. Fast forward some months later, and guess what is back on the menu? You got it, penne with lemon cream sauce, artichokes, sometimes chicken sometimes not, and sundried tomatoes, and again, everyone is really happy about it. Except roommate man.

“I thought I told you that I wanted fewer sundried tomatoes?”

A couple of things here.

1. He expects that people give a dinkus damn what he wants.

2. He apparently does not know what and where the kitchen is if he wants food a certain way.

3. This man cannot cook to save his life, yet has all the demands that a toddler would.

4. He is entitled enough to think entire recipes would be altered for him when he could just as easily pick off what he dislikes, or, and here’s a thought, not eat it. This never occurred to entitled roommate man who will now be known as ERM, and thought that I was going to change something for him. Nope. Not happening.

My response?

“I don’t cook for you, I cook for me. If you want something different, drag your lazy ass out of your room and learn how to make it, and then you can make it however you want. I make it how I like it. I don’t care if you like it, eat it, or ignore it, but what you will do is shut up about it, because if you complain that you didn’t get the dinner you wanted, you will not be getting dinner. Understood?”

This tactic works on a few fronts.

The first being the same as above. Seeking approval and wanting to please people. I do not care about this at all, so it fails.

The second front is the nurturing front. Especially inn this case as I am female, and ERM is male. ERM is also a mommy’s boy in every sense of the word and she coddled him to the nth degree. If he has said that he wanted his dinner different she would have recooked it for him immediately. Nurturing is not a psychopath’s strong suit, so again, this fails.

The third being the cook wanting everyone to be happy and not wanting strife. Now, I don’t want strife either, I prefer a peaceful house, but conflict resolution with me goes something like this.

Is your request reasonable? No? The shut the f*ck up.

That’s it. There will be no further discussion. I do not care if you are happy or not. You may not be able to cook, but you know how to warm up a frozen dinner. That much I am sure of, or you would be dead by now. If you don’t like it, don’t eat it, but keep your whinging to yourself.

Would these tactics work on you? If they would, there is a reason for that, and that is what you need to take your own inventory on. Someone can’t make you feel bad for them, or about yourself, or make you feel obligated to do something that you otherwise don’t want to. That’s something that you are volunteering for.

You would be amazed how shocked someone like this is when their tactics are useless. They don’t have another toolbag other than being a toolbag. How do you deal with someone like this? You don’t care what they want, you care what you want. This can be hard when someone that is inclined to abusive behavior is pulling on those emotional strings that ERM was attempting to pull. This sort wants you to feel a certain way because that is the only way that they can garner control over the situation. When they run up against someone that has literally no interest in their happiness or comfort, they show their true colors, which is why psychologically this sort will deteriorate around me. I am their kryptonite.

I don’t have to take my own inventory in these situations, but I have to do it in many others. Oftentimes I lack the ability to understand how the effect my inventory, specifically the rather dismissive responses like I have detailed above, can have on people that I actually have intentions of being more considerate of. When you fundamentally do not care what anyone else wants, needs, or considers valuable, you can run roughshod over them and make them not want to be around.

My inventory in understanding my effect on other people, but often the inventory that people need to take is the effect people have on them and why. I answered a question about how do I deal with gaslighters over on Quora, and will end this with my response as it deals with this exact subject.

Frankly?

I don’t. Being psychopathic I am entirely immune to emotional manipulation and self doubt. That might seem like I am singing my own praises, but follow me for a moment. I am going to use the example of a romantic partner, as that tends to be a common one where this is a problem.

Gaslighters don’t start with gaslighting. That is a manipulation that comes along when they have moved into the negative abuse aspects of a relationship, but there is a whole host of things that comes first. How did this person get you interested in them in the first place?

Ususally this is where the positive emotional manipulation is going to be found. They flatter you, they compliment you, they do nice and romantic things for you, they make you feel special, and they make everything about themselves appealing to you.

However, being a psychopath none of that works on me. Not only is the person wasting their time, they are actively annoying me. Flattery, compliments, being “the man or woman of my dreams”, all of that makes me suspicious of that person motives. I am not swayed by these things, and by trying to utilize them this person automatically puts themselves into the “do not associate with” category. They never get to the gaslighting stage, because I can’t be bothered to give them that much of my time.

It isn’t fun, I understand that, but what I suggest to people is to be very suspicious of that behavior, regardless of how it makes you feel when it is happening. I understand that this sort of interaction specifically triggers oxytocin and it is really hard to think straight, but if it’s too good to be true it probably isn’t, is not a saying, it is a rule. Believe it, and measure people that you meet and are interested in against it. The more they want to give you the world, the more you should assume that this person is full of it.

I get that it isn’t what people want to do, but I can tell you it is what you need to do if you want to miss that gaslighting stage that will likely follow.