the signs that point to a manipulator V
19. he is cut from a large part of his emotions.
He doesn’t know love, nor happiness: he has no quality attributed to the heart. The only positive emotion he knows, it’s pleasure. Most notably the pleasure of winning: money, energy, influence, power, your attention. And he is always running after it.
And so we find ourselves in he Troll movie, with the big bad Bergens who, in order to have an agreeable moment, think they have no other solution but to eat a happy Troll.
Because as I said in the precedent article, his main emotion is anger. And it cuts him from every others. The manipulator doesn’t face his emotions, he flees them. He is basically a coward.
20. he doesn’t like to give
His ego is always whispering he deserves everything. So when the manipulator gives, it’s to receive more in the bargain or to build his charitable image.
As one of the members of my family said: “generosity is just well thought selfishness”.
When the manipulator gives, he thinks he deserves effusive thanks and, if at all possible, a visible display of his gift.
21. he doesn’t like physical contact...
... unless it’s used to brand you and mark his power. Or for his personal pleasure. And there are all kind of gestures he will use to control you: his hand on your back to make you feel inferior, your hand he will grab and keep in his space to prevent you from escaping, the punishing handshake to show you who is boss...
He doesn’t like touching to give affection because he doesn’t like to give. And he doesn’t like loosing his grasp on control.
Sometimes, sadly, if his mass-scale manipulative job requires it and he must seem to care, he will force himself to do as he’s supposed to: hands displayed just so, eyes closed, big smile, white teeth. A less careful narcissist will be seen kissing the air or pretend touching his kid for a photograph when in fact, his hand is staying prudently away from the surface.
In bed, it can give a variety of consequences, from asexuality to 50 nuances of Grey. To love pleasure but to run from affection has manipulators looking for a delicate sex balance. Some will rape or enjoy sexual harassment, fully embracing their predatory nature.
And sometimes, at last, he has learned to be a good lover as another weapon to hunt you down.
22. he knows how to get your love
They all know how to be loved. You should never underestimate him. But it’s always puzzling for those who know the victim: how can it be he doesn’t see? Why doesn’t he realize he’s bamboozled?
The gas-lighted victim will answer something like “you don’t know him like I do” with a sprinkle of “he has excuses, he has had a difficult childhood/marriage/something.” And it’s true the victim won’t have seen the manipulator under the same light as his kin.
Because the manipulator uses his poisonous charm on a selected few. And for a limited period.
The victim will have thus the impression to know a totally different person than the one others describe, when they try to save him. And the victim believes he knows best because he thinks he has had access to the manipulator’s intimate self. In reality, the victim is fooled: the one under which charm he has fallen, lover, wife, friend, politician, guru... isn’t real. It’s an illusion created to seduce him. And this is, by far, the most difficult to let go. Because this illusion has been invented especially for you, for what you miss in life, for your traumatism, your faults, your dreams, your needs, your wishes and your fantasies.
The manipulator won’t always keep this illusion alive. He can’t. And even if he could, he wouldn't. He won’t make more efforts than necessary and will let the illusion progressively disappear. But the victim, dazzled by his dream in the flesh, has already committed emotionally. Or more: he can have married his manipulator, have had children with him, let his previous life go, lost his financial autonomy or his friends...
And so, in love of an illusive star or stuck in the swamp, the victim will find more and more excuses to his torturer, find justifications. And become in the deed, the accomplice of his own ordeal.
23. the more toxic the more charisma
Because it’s fairly known you don’t attract flies with vinegar. And you are the fly.
I believe in love at first sight, first and foremost when there is a manipulator involved. And it could seem a paradox, that a person I describe lacking in personality could also be so seductive. It’s because charisma doesn’t depend on personality but depends on some very clear and definite tricks: an apparent self-confidence (in fact, no shame which allows him to dare anything, lots of arrogance and self-love), this way he has to savour life and the energy of those around, and an everlasting narcissism that has him play a role to get anyone’s attention. If all that weren’t enough, some can turn an internal switch and project some kind of electric energy.
The human energy exists, the manipulator knows it.
As his total lack of conscience, his ambition and rage may have propelled him to the highest levels of money and power, we have here a classic potent aphrodisiac. And a romantic cliche à la “Pretty Woman”.
I’ve recently seen on social media, this sentence, meant to be motivational, I guess, and which could be the perfect motto of manipulators: “There is the lamp and there is the butterfly. I choose to be the lamp.”
Knowing the poor insect will, in the best case scenario, loose his time flying around an illusion, and, in the worst case, been consumed on it, you get the idea...
You can’t be too careful of neon lights.
(to be continued...)