Always having to one up you
It is impossible to share your life, your feelings or your experiences with a narcissist.
If you speak about how difficult your day was and you wanted them to listen because you needed support,
you will find that your emotions are often invalidated because the conversation is turned around by the narcissist into talking about their life instead.
If you speak about something you are proud of, they will likely disregard or minimize your achievement,
then once again turn the conversation around to being about them.
Conversations to a narcissist, is an opportunity to one up themselves in every story.
In their minds, you cannot beat them in any story.
You cannot be better than them at anything.
And you sure cannot be a bigger victim than they believe that they are.
At times you may resort in competing back with them in conversations,
just because what they are saying doesn’t even compare to your story in your rational mind.
Your reaction, can then be an opportunity for the narcissist to project their competitive behaviors onto you,
making you feel or appear like the jealous competitive person.
It truly is crazy making stuff.
One simple conversation in wanting to discuss your difficult day,
can quickly turn into you being at fault for being competitive with the narcissist and not caring about what the narcissist has to say.
When in fact, it is the narcissist who never cared about what you had to say in the first place.
If you suspect that someone you know might be a narcissist, but you have not yet experienced this behavior from them,
remain cautious when sharing your stories, ideas and feelings with them.
At times, especially in the beginning of the relationship they can choose to be good listeners,
because they are wanting to learn about your desires, strengths and weaknesses,
so, they can use the information against you to benefit them later in their game of manipulation, punishment and control.
If you spend a lot of time with the narcissist, you will eventually see this one up behavior quite constantly in their conversations with you and others.
Nothing is done for fun, only to win
It can sometimes be difficult to simply do things for fun with a narcissist.
Narcissists see most activities as a competition.
And are only happy when they are winning above everyone else.
When they are winning, it can make for a peaceful and fun atmosphere for everyone around them.
Others are not in it to compete in such a serious manner, and so, they still enjoy the activities,
and can easily accept a loss because they are only in it to have fun.
If the narcissist is not winning and the attention appears to be on someone else,
this is often when the narcissist becomes aggressive or passive aggressive in an attempt to win,
or they will try and bring other people down when they cannot win.
They cannot accept failure, and will always blame it on the situation or on someone else.
They are always the victim to their failure, and will never want to be responsible or held accountable.
An example is my experience I had with my ex narcissistic partner;
he was good at most things and would always out do me in racing go carts, riding scooters, playing mini golf and many other activities.
We would have fun often because he would mostly win and outdo me. It made him happy.
Although I like to win and enjoy a competition, I accepted my losses and still had a great joyful time.
But when we would play ten pin bowling, I would often win.
If he was winning, there would no complaints coming from him, only a smug look on his face.
But when he was losing, there would always be an excuse.
He would complain that his wrist was sore or the lights on the bowling alley was hurting his eyes because it was darker inside.
The atmosphere would instantly begin to feel negative.
He was not having fun because he was losing, he was not happy and would sometimes act like a whiny child if no one else was around.
And in turn, I no longer was having fun and wanted to leave, because of the way he made me feel.
Even when I would invite him to socialize with my friends, he would try to one up them in conversations.
And I could feel the tension of insecurity and competition coming from him.
Especially if I agreed to my friend’s point of view and not his,
because his viewpoint was very one-sided and not realistic in my perspective.
One time I heard him say things that could be implied as a passive threat to my brother in law.
From out of nowhere he stated that he lost his previous job because he choked someone out, whilst glaring at my brother in law.
The conversation had nothing to do with the comment my ex suddenly made.
I felt he was jealous of my brother in law, and instinctively, uncontrollably tried to suddenly intimidate him in that intense moment of envy.
Sharing differences of opinions and having a laugh in conversations would eventually feel impossible with him around.
Socializing is normally a positive, fun and happy experience for me.
A chance to converse ideas, share views and to learn.
But when I was with my ex, he made it feel uncomfortable,
and I often felt obligated to not socialize just to keep the peaceful feelings within our relationship at the time.
Something I enjoyed so much before I met him, became something I could no longer enjoy when I was with him.
And eventually, he would begin to show his jealousy and annoyance more often whenever I did catch up with my friends.
