How do you know a real person from a scammer or a narcissist?
Narcissists are a type of scammers in their everyday lives. Although there is a possibility that someone with everyday morals will become a scammer in an unusual life situation, they’re not all narcissists. Still, an everyday moral person will limit how far they go in their scam, even when they’re in the game. Still, it’s rare.
Healthy people do much of the same stuff that narcissists (and scammers) do, and it’s sometimes difficult to say which is which. The better distinction is to examine the stuff that healthy people simply do not do… and what narcissists don’t do. The key is in the absence of certain actions, rather than in the presence of them.
For instance, love bombing can be done by both healthy people and narcissists at the beginning of a relationship when we’re amazed by each other. Gaslighting, however, isn’t something a healthy person does, at least unless they’re retaliating against narcissistic treatment back to the specific person who started it.
What healthy people just will not do.
There is a long list of things that narcissists and scammers are known to do that honest people simply don’t do.
Healthy people are not confused about who they are as people.
Healthy people base their self-image to the truth of it, rather than a fancy story that they try to live up to. They are not TRYING to be good people, failing systematically, they’re not making promises they cannot or have no intention to keep, they don’t systematically miss appointments or dates, although some people can be disorganized in that way, but usually people can keep their word, or are at least aware of their bad habit and try to help you understand it and not take it personally.
Narcissistic people can be one thing one day, another another day. They may have a “go-to” self-image that they take comfort in and they resort to on a daily basis, even if it seems a bit weird or fake to other people. Normal people usually leave it alone if it’s not harmful or overtly ego-centric, but they still notice it.
I love you, therefore, I’m justified.
One of the key differences is that a narcissist can claim to love you and be in love with you, and to them, that justifies their poor treatment of you. “I love you, therefore, the fact that I punch you in the face is OK.” It’s a child’s logic: “Whatever I do, you have to accept it like you were my parent.” They believe that throwing a tantrum at their partner is a part of love: “I show you my bad side, because I love you and am honest with you.”
An honest person doesn’t excuse their bad behavior with love. They simply never could make such a connection between things.
Turn on you.
Both can turn you on, but only narcissists turn on you. (For English as a second language readers, be careful here.) When a person honestly loves you, they will not attack your personality or failings, your flaws, unfairly in an argument. They may have to address some issues, but they don’t mock you for them, they don’t try to make you feel bad about any of it, even if they have to bring something up. Narcissists will laugh at you, and remind you that you are nothing without them – MIND YOU, while simultaneously claiming to love you.
Try and make you feel bad about yourself.
Healthy, honest people don’t ever deliberately try and make you feel bad about yourself, for as long as they consider you a friend or an idol. They don’t combine these feelings. IF they are trying to make you feel bad about yourself, they do it to express how you’re no longer friends, lovers, or their idol. They try to ignite CHANGE in you, whereas a narcissist does it to establish hierarchy: “I’m a better person than you, therefore you should submit to me.” Unfortunately, a narcissist also interprets “trying to make me feel bad” as a competition, feeling threatened by their awesomeness, and an attempt to dominate them. They try to show submission to get out of the situation, but you’re looking for a change in them, not submission.
Honest people don’t cause empty drama.
When an honest person uses drama, they do it to DIFFUSE situations with a humorous drama. They may use it very skillfully to make a joke about a tense situation. A healthy, honest person may make fun of their own larger-than-life persona by creating an “experience” of it to diffuse awkwardness. This is rare, however, and most people do not enjoy drama in any form except purely entertainment on screen or in books. Even then, they may prefer less dramatic narratives.
Use mean humor.
Healthy people also do not use mean humor in any form. On the surface, it can be “mean” but the point of it is “don’t worry about it, racism is stupid”. They make fun of the same things that narcissists use as a way to make themselves superior to others.
Narcissists mock you and others as a form of humor – often the only humor they have in store. They can also enjoy pranking people, but pranks may be a bit too evolved for some of them. (They are children in adult bodies, and young children don’t know how to prank people yet.) Healthy people can also do pranks, but they’re never intended to make the target feel humiliated or scared. While the narcissist may think a big scare is just purely funny, they can cross the line between what is funny and what is not.
Make a chronic illness, sexual orientation, or any single trait their entire identity.
This may be a narcissistic trait in an otherwise healthy individual, but it is a narcissistic thing to do to make one or two traits their ONLY identity. While others use these things as one more descriptive word, a narcissist is nothing but. If they survived cancer, they want you to treat them as a cancer survivor for the rest of their lives – or for as long as they’re interested in the game. The trait is often that of a survivor or a victim, and there are no woes than the woes of a narcissist.
Use their conditions as something you need to worship.
A narcissist uses any angle to make others serve them. Sure, we all have days when we can’t get out of bed, but if you have an important meeting or something fun to do that day, a healthy person doesn’t want to keep you from it because they’re ill – unless they absolutely have to. A narcissist will want to use any little sniffle as a way to make you serve them. (There is a joke about how men do this when they get a little flu, but I don’t know. Maybe. When you always take care of others, maybe you can sometimes exaggerate a little. Also, men like feeling strong, so when they don’t, they may exaggerate a little without being narcissistic.)
Narcissistic women LOVE to use their feminine troubles to make men do double time for them, however. The beauty of a period is that a man has never experienced it, so they cannot readily tell when she’s exaggerating. And, since you can’t, if the only thing she does is fall off her feet every month, maybe let her get away with it, but even then, they shouldn’t make you run errand after errand for her during her period. Maybe she needs you to go to the store once because she’s disorganized, but she won’t send you right back on a new errand after you just got back, just to see if you would do it for her. “Oh, honey, I forgot to ask you to get me such-and-such, would you be a darling…?” Healthy women also won’t try to persuade you to miss work for their period or something similar.
Menstrual cycle… in general
I’m also going to make a mention of the possibility that a narcissistic woman excuses a lot of bad behavior by a menstrual cycle. It’s like “now I have the right to act like this,” and the next week, like so. While it may affect some women quite dramatically, I, as a woman, just don’t buy a lot of it. I swear you can’t tell where my cycle is based on my behavior, half the time I don’t know it myself. I just bleed once a month and get migraines, so there is a hormonal shift, but my mood doesn’t drastically change during it, and I don’t know anyone who it would affect like that. I think a narcissistic woman uses it for two reasons: a) to fit in the magical tribe of womanhood, and b) to excuse bad behavior and disrespect. I may be unfair here, tho. Maybe the effect is genuine in some women, but it seems like an excuse, especially when the only people copping it are the husband and kids. If it’s genuine, they should be firing at everyone equally.
Lie about another person’s bad behavior.
Now, you have to understand narcissists think differently. They can claim to someone that you have secrets, or that you do bad things, because they want to make you seem cool. They want to make you seem like a “bad boy” or a “bad girl” because they, deep down, find you boring, but they think they can “fix you”. They think cool people break the rules and live like a pig in a field, but a normal person doesn’t see that in any other way than as immature and selfish.
In fact, I think Amber Heard was partly protecting Johnny Depp’s image by painting him as the abuser instead of “the bitch who took a beating.”
Healthy people are not CONSTANTLY emphasising how they are better than you.
Narcissists are very competitive. They also react with submission to those whom they deem superior to them. However, if their superior treats them as their equal, they will try to dominate that person. In doing so, they get an ego boost, and they’ll think they estimated their own position in the hierarchy incorrectly if their superior allows them to dominate them. Healthy people aim for an equal relationship, every time, and they’re more likely to submit than to attempt to dominate. Still, there are situations where healthy men, especially, have decided that if a woman challenges their authority, they’ll dominate as a masculine obligation to do so, but don’t really enjoy it. That said, a lot of healthy men will rather submit than dominate by their first instinct.
If a narcissist cannot make you submit, they will continuously try to elevate themselves if you also don’t try to dominate them. So the only way to live in peace with a narcissist is to agree to a hierarchy. Normally, people switch: If I’m better than you at this, I lead; if you’re better than I there, you take the lead. By default, we’re equal. Narcissists can’t do this. They either submit or dominate, but they’re never able to switch between the two or agree to an equal partnership, apart from paper only.
Healthy people don’t expect you to work for them for free.
There is one exception to this rule: rich people. The reason for this is that there are SO MANY PEOPLE who don’t agree to do ANYTHING for them without a payment, so they can be a little sick of having to pay for absolutely everything – sometimes they feel like they have to pay for a smile. Therefore, they can sometimes test you by asking you to do something for free – or at least at the same price as you’d do the same service for other people.
That said, healthy people with an average income or low would never ask you to do anything for free. It is a big red flag if someone asks you for work for nothing. It is instantly abusive. Even when a healthy person is in dire need of help, they tend not to ask for help too easily, and due to knowing narcissistic abuse by instinct, they’ll also be wary of accepting help for free, as narcissists tend to be very happy to help a strong person back on their feet, so they can abuse them later. (Narcissists don’t like people who don’t accept help, because that makes it that much harder for them to manipulate them.)
Healthy narcissism – just don’t embarrass me.
Normal, healthy people accept one particular “narcissistic” trait: the contract not to point out people’s insecurities all the time. Healthy people will pretend they don’t see you’re obese, that you’re not beautiful, that you have a visibly obvious disease, and we also expect you not to point these things out to others (or in the media) to embarrass you. If healthy people point it out, it is to defend that person or to explain obscure behavior, never to embarrass them.
With one exception again: If someone is purely narcissistic and suffering from obvious delusions about their superiority, healthy people can get sick of it and decide to brutally point it out, ESPECIALLY when it puts other people in harm’s way. Suppose someone pretends to be a psychic, completely believes their own BS., and leads people into suicide cults or such. Healthy people have to point out such things before someone gets hurt, if they can.
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*) Term changed after this post was originally written. Fractions of old terms may exist elsewhere in the post. Read about term updates.
**) Narcissists are Young Souls left alone to survive and they're doing their best. Their emotional age ranges from 3 to 17 -year old. The younger, the more severe the narcissism.
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