Probing or interest? Why do they ask me all these questions?

For the most of us, someone showing interest in what we do and who we are is a positive thing; it is nice when someone finds your life worth talking about. However, when you’re dealing with a narcissist, their interest is not benevolent; they are prying for information that they can use against you should you ever fall out of line and try to do something they don’t like. They start probing early on, and they feel loved when you answer their questions: the logic being that you wouldn’t give them these weapons if you weren’t willing to be controlled by them. They believe that when you share what to them sounds like secrets with them, you’re agreeing to them controlling you. They interpret it as you trust them to know what is best for you: Pleasing them because they know how to be cool, and they know how to make you seem cool, too.

The good news is that a lot of people willing to dish out their private thoughts to a semi-stranger don’t really feel those things are anything to be embarrassed about. I often say: “Don’t keep secrets or the secrets will keep you.” Therefore, any narcissist trying to blackmail me with their knowledge of my Only Fans account will only cause me to look up and go: “You think it’s a secret? Everybody knows my Only Fans. If they don’t, they haven’t really been paying much attention because obviously they couldn’t give a fuck.” (My Only Fans is super boring; you haven’t missed out on anything. It’s just there waiting for one day, but it exists.) It is a powerful feeling to not have secrets. I fully recommend it. Don’t do anything you’d be embarrassed about if everyone in this world knew. At least thrive to that, and there’s nothing people can’t say about you that isn’t either a full-blown lie, or water off a duck’s back… And if people know everything about you already, good luck trying to come up with a lie about you that somehow credibly fits the picture.

Having said that, narcissists will easily believe lies about other people because they, themselves, are so convinced there are no such people who live leaving a clean bill behind. For their own ego and their vos, it is vital they can at least imagine you’re as rubbish of a person deep down as they are. George Bernard Shaw once said: “The liar’s punishment is, not in the least, that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.”

What is also to be noted; whatever you volunteer to people seems to a narcissist to be worthless information. They need to find it out as a secret and trust that they are the only person who knows your secrets. This is one way to manipulate a narcissist; you could wind them up quite deliberately making them believe some juicy bit of bs “you’ve only told them”. Just, don’t play with fire too much, or you run the risk of losing someone else’s trust.

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