Girls Gotta Eat - Are You Dating a Narcissist? feat. Dr. Ramani Durvasula

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

It's the long overdue, much-needed episode on narcissists with a true expert -- clinical psychologist, professor of psychology, and best-selling author Dr. Ramani Durvasula. We are discussing what a narcissist actually is, why people are attracted to them, what dating one looks like, what to do/how to leave if you're dating one, and the effect dating a narcissist can have on you. Dr. Ramani also breaks down the differences between narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths, and we hit her with burning questions like "What happens when two narcissists date?" and "Are we all a little bit narcissistic?" Before she joins us, we catch up on Ashley's ghosting situation, and a trash DM Rayna received. Hope you enjoy! Check out Dr. Ramani on YouTube here and visit her website here. Follow us on Instagram @GirlsGottaEatPodcast, Rayna @Rayna.Greenberg, and Ashley @AshHess. Visit our website for tour dates, merchandise, and more. Thank you to our partners this week: Article: Get $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more at article.com/gge. Native: Get 20% off your first purchase at nativedeo.com/gge or with code GGE at checkout. Pretty Litter: Use code GGE for 20% off your first order at prettylitter.com. The Pill Club: They are offering a $10 donation to bedsider.org for every listener who becomes a patient via thepillclub.com/gge. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

But now you want to go back to those first weeks or months of love bombing. You're like, how do I get back to this whole Miami thing? Yeah. Right? Well, there's no going back. Like that door is up. Okay, that part of the trip is over. No more Miami for you.

No more Miami for you. Back another episode of Girls Got to eat. Welcome back. It's still soup season. Oh my God. Still soup season. Listen, something else is in the air. What?

Just shit has been going crazy. It is crazy relationship. Everybody's relationship is falling apart. Not ours, though. Ashley and I will never break up. I'm not, oh my God, no, we're good. We're better than ever. We're stronger than ever.

Me, Rain and Bella. Um, and Azul. But I like, have had guys reach out to me from my past. Like, I was like, what other guy from 2019 could reach out to me? Like, I've just been like, oh, I know who's reaching out next. We'll update you guys. I mean, no. Like, the stuff that's happened in the last week has been like, I can't get over so much of it.

It's like, what is going on? I don't know. I didn't check like the astrology. but I don't know if there was a full moon or if the Mercury's doing something. I don't know. Don't DM us. Or do. Or do.

But let us know. Yeah, actually, if you guys are experiencing wild and crazy stuff in terms of, unprecedented relationship stuff, let us know. And then eat some soup. Yeah. All right, guys, hot episode today. Oh, my God. I mean, we keep saying this, that every week is our favorite.

This guest today, Dr. Romani, you guys, like, we've probably wanted this episode for a time now on narcissists and we found the perfect person. We wanted to do it for a minute. And it is just wonderful. We covered so much ground. It's like it just is like nonstop information overload. She's so wonderful. I really just loved her energy. She's got like bad bitch energy. Yeah. She just has like complete mastery of the subject matter. Yeah. Yeah. She picked one thing and became an expert on it. And if you guys have ever wondered if I dated a narcissist, do I have narcissistic tendencies? We all do. You know, everybody does. And, you know, know what does that look like in a relationship, what does it look like for me. So she covers all

of it. It's a fascinating episode. I loved it. We hear the word narcissism tossed around a lot. So I'm excited to break it down and define it. Yes, we get into that. We are not all narcissists. We just all have tendencies. Yeah, everybody has. We'll get into it. You'll, you can take the test. We're doing a quiz at the end. No, it's kidding. A couple things. If you guys came out to the Austin shows, we're sure they were a blast. We are recording this just a few days before we depart. We are super excited. These shows are going to be hot. And we still have a few tickets left. Minneapolis next second show, maybe. Phoenix. We heard the club might have some COVID restrictions. So tickets are like, they capped them for now. They capped them for now. So it's sold out right now.

But it might open back up. We're a little unsure. You know, everything can be a little uncertain at times. And then just tickets left for Chicago and New York, right? Yeah. Anything else? Come to King, We'll let you guys know as soon as if that cap is lifted in Phoenix. We'll let you know on Instagram, let you know right away. And then we're going to be... Oh, Boston probably just like a few, a handful of tickets left for the third show on the holiday weekend. Come the holiday weekend, guys.

And then Texas, obviously, in January. We have Dallas and Houston. So you obviously can go to Girls'Guddypogast.com for all that, for episodes, if you're interested in past episodes we've done. And then also the merch is on the website. We have the sickest merch guys. We have Tide. We have stickers.

We have great drinkwear. We have matching sets. The pink match. set is my absolute favorite sweatset I've ever owned. And we are coming out with new merch, probably next week. We will let you guys know ahead of time. We'll do a newsletter on Sunday. Sign up for the newsletter on our website. I think it'll be out next Monday. If not, it'll be the following Monday. So we'll keep you guys posted. So if there's anything you want now, again, not everything is going to be gone. It's not all new and everything right now is gone,

but some stuff will drop off. So if you are feeling like you want something now, I would get on that because new stuff is coming and hot. And share this podcast with a friend. One of your friends is dating a narcissist. One of your friends is a narcissist. Time to tell him. No. She'll talk about like the percentage of people. We're not going to spoil it. But yeah, this episode is going to be a great one to share. But it's just in general. You guys have been so wonderful. We love you so much. You guys love the episode last week with horrible decisions. If you miss that one, get on it. Make sure your Bluetooth is not connected somewhere crazy. Don't let it play at work. But that was such a hot one. We love those women so much.

And just everything's been on point lately. I just am loving our listeners, loving our episodes, was loving our guests, loving everything, loving Raina, and no one else. I love Ashley and no one else. Speaking of our listeners, we have very funny DMs from you guys to read you. I want to tell you this funny thing that happened to me last night. It's just like one funny thing. I was taking a walk, you know, like Ashley and I live in New York City. I always run into our listeners on the evening walks.

Kane and I were going out to dinner. And we walked by this girl. She's sitting outside with a guy in front of a bar. And she goes, oh my God, Raina. And I was like, oh, hi. And she goes, oh, my God, and Kane. I was like, oh, how are you? And she goes, I'm on a date with this.

She's just his fucking random. Right in front of him. Oh, not. And I thought, I, like, I thought I misheard her. And I was like, oh, is that like your man? She was, no, no, no, like, we just met on, on Hinge. And I was like, the way she just dismissed this person right in front of me. It was so funny.

I love that. I was like, I hope you're taking it as well. And I walked away. And I was like, I wanted to say, like, I hope you guys fuck at the end of the night. He was like, I'm so proud of you for really an end for once. You should, you're supposed, that's what they want you to say. That's the interaction. should have with you.

Okay. All right. Well, listen, girl, if you're out there, I'm sorry. That's what I wanted to say to you. I hope you guys fuck at the end of the night, but I was trying to like reel it in. I love that. It goes both ways, you know? Like, she saw you.

You know, she's a fan of ours. She's a listener in the show and she was like, I'm on this day with this fucking random. Like, if our fans came up to me, I would say the same shit. Like, that's sometimes why I don't want to go out with these randos like on a weekend night. But actually, she said it in front of his face. He was sitting right there. in front of a guy's pace. And then you know they'd be like,

can you take a picture of us? If you guys don't know, like with early in the podcast, 2018, like when we first started getting people to like come up to us in public, like I was on a first date with somebody and this girl was like, can you take a picture of us? Like guys were always having to do it. I was with a guy used to date one time at the comedy club. He was having to take so many pictures and he was kind of like roasting me while he was doing it.

I'm like, whatever. But whatever. Okay, can you read this other DM? Because listen, Raina got this DM. She felt a little triggered. and I had to explain to her why it was funny. I love when Ashley explains me why something's funny. You guys are friends like that where you're like,

this happens with Ashley a lot where she like says something and she's like, no, do you want, like, I'll send her something. And then she's like, this is so funny. And then it'll slowly like seep in why it's so funny to me. So last week, while Rain is pulling this up, we talked about her boyfriend throwing away some flowers. If you missed it, go back and listen. I don't know why you would miss it.

You should be listening every episode. But she got a couple. We all got some messages about it. But this one was so funny to me. And you initially thought it was going to be like annoying. Well, I just, I, listen, you, you explain you why this is funny. Okay, she said, Rain, I listen to the podcast about you talking about

Kane throwing your things away. As upsetting as this probably was, the silver lining is that you have a man that actually wants to throw things away. My fiance has never cleaned up a thing in his life slash entire year plus of us living together. You have a winner. And I was like, Ashley, this girl's like giving Kane credit for like throwing anything away.

He just picked a thing and threw it away and she was like, you should feel good about this. And Ashley explained you why this is so funny. No, it's so funny because she's like, you got a good one because a man knows where a trash can is. Like, the bar is so low. Like, you know, somebody that's going to send a message to you, like, you should be lucky your man wants to buy you flowers,

so you're not cool. But like, that's, I feel like that's where you thought she was going. And if you really read between the line, she was like, all I want is my man to throw something away. Anything. Anything. It was anything. if it was like a sentimental family heirloom,

I would just be excited he like located a trash can. It's the bar is so low for men. Like I have been getting so annoyed that I explained to he can how to like run water into a dish. And he like does it. But like he doesn't run it up to the level where like you would actually like fill the dish. And like I feel like this girl would say the same thing.

Like at least he turns the water on. Like you should feel lucky. And the bar for men is so low. I know. Our friend Jackie, more my friend, blonde Jackie. We have two. and they both are the same last initial. It's been a whole thing.

She had posted on Instagram, like, just casually wasn't even thinking about it. Like she was like, here's something my boyfriend, she lists with her boyfriend, here's something my boyfriend doesn't know how to do. And it was just like taking a dish. It was like finishing a cup of coffee, rinsing it and putting it in the dishwasher and closing the dishwasher. And she, I thought it was so funny. And I guess she just got swarmed with messages about it.

So she like made it into a reel. Uh-huh. Obviously people are like, this speaks to my soul. She put music to it. Like it's so simple, but it's like, it was so funny. That's not like such a hot take, but I was like, yes, go off, girl. It is just so funny that we like that men are like this. I just haven't had a man in my home this much like in a lot of years.

So like it's just funny that like women like run the world. It's like that means it's like they're exercising and volunteering and hanging out with their friends, checking in with everybody full time job, have a relationship and they still clean the house. And like men like you can't even get them to like fill a dish up with water or put something in the dishwasher. And it's just like their moms. It's, I blame their moms. I'm done. done with them all. And I am so happy. I can't stress it enough. People have been really opening up

to me recently about their relationship problems. A lot of people's relationships are struggling right now. Again, I don't know what it is in the air. And I just sit back, unbothered. I'm just like, God, it feels so good to not have to deal with this shit. And I mean, of course, I feel for anyone who's struggling in their relationship. I listen to my friends with compassion. I feel for them. I have sympathy for them. I'm not taking pleasure in anyone's pain. But like, just thinking about it myself, like, I don't want it. My heart is full with Azul. I have an amazing. I have an amazing. vibrating. Like my, I'm good. I flirt with guys all the time. I feel fulfilled.

I can't deal with this. People send me that Whoopi Goldberg. Like, it's a meme that people send me all the time. And her quote is just like, I don't want to live with someone. I think her quote is like, I don't want someone in my house. Like, it's just very funny. It's funny. It's like, your man is not like someone in the house, you know? I don't want, or maybe it's, I don't want a man

of my house. It's just like really funny. But thanks for the update. That was so funny. We love you guys. We love all your feedback. Someone DMed Kane. Somebody was like, The flowers! He's so sweet. He feels so bad. Listen, he's great.

He's sweet. Okay, so we do need to update on my story. No, guys, don't get excited. I'm excited. But last week I talked about this story. I'm not going to retell it. But if you guys heard it, you know. And then I did post the video of the stand-up situation on my Instagram.

So you can go see that video. People are being so great about it. Such good responses. I love the support. I do have a little bit of an update on it. Because I just feel like people are invested in this story. One girl, like, wrote my comment. She was like, Ashley's not pressed about this, but I am.

And people are like, I feel like we're more invested than Ashley is. Like, no, it's just, it's a little old for me. You know what I mean? Like this, you guys are just hearing this is a couple weeks old. I still, of course, want to know. I'm still. You guys, I am full core press into this. I love this.

So I feel like I want to provide a few more things. I just feel like people are invested in the story. We all love true crime and mysteries and stuff. So let's just talk about a few things that have happened. So if we want to back up to that guy, why he was at that stand-up show was because, I didn't mention this before, it was because he knew the host of the show. She's a comedian.

She's a fucking smoke. Her name's Natalie Cuomo. You can look her up. She's really sweet. So she runs the show that I was doing her show. He said he knew her from college, okay? After the show, again, a detail I left out. I just didn't feel it was important, but I do feel like you guys want to know all the details.

I was sitting there with him at the club and Natalie, she's like walking by. and I was like, Natalie, oh my God, like, this is your friend. Kind of like, hey girl, I'm like going to fuck your friend tonight. You know, kind of like funny. Yeah. I thought she would like light up to see like, oh my God, that's Ashley and my friend from college. And she did not.

She looked like she didn't know who he was. It wasn't awkward. She was, she's cool and sweet. She was like, oh my God, hi. And then, but it was a little like they aren't tight, right? So she walked away and he goes, I mean, we weren't like close in college. I just kind of we knew each other or whatever, which is totally understandable. I told you this.

Like, I feel like, you. become a comedian, you become like a public figure, you have people that knew you in another life want to come see you. Like totally a world in which people would come see me do stand up and say, I know Ashley from college and I would not remember them. You know what I'm saying? I don't think it was that weird. I wouldn't have occurred. First of that interaction wouldn't have occurred to me in the moment. And also, I don't think it's weird. There's plenty of people I know of from college that like probably wouldn't remember. That's what I'm saying. But like, you know, you want to go see people do like, like I have people hit me up that are like, oh my God, my friends are coming to your show.

Like people I went to college with that like I barely remember. Like people. I don't think it's weird. So you do comedy. They're like, I know that person. I want to go see what it's all about. So then this week's went by and I finally saw Natalie and I had told her the story and then come to find out they did not go to the same college. I know where he went to college.

I don't remember exactly what he said because I wasn't listening for a lie by any stretch. I don't, you know, I don't remember him saying we went to the same college. I knew her from college. For example, I would say I know Cameron from Southern Charm, quote unquote, from college. I went to Clemson. She didn't go to Clemson. She went to a school close by. Yeah, from college. I'd be like, oh, I know Cameron from college because she used to be the same bars as me. We didn't go the same college. Whatever. That's one thing. But still, like all these things together. Listen, I grew up in Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon and Pitt are right next door to each other.

You could party at the same bars. It's not, it's not weird until it gets weird. So then, listen, of course I had this thought. You had this thought. Everybody else had this thought. get the list of people who bought tickets to that show. Listen, guys, I am like, I'm on a road trip texting with Ashley and I'm like, we're going to start a true crime podcast. I thought this is the hottest take. I'm like, get the list of credit card people that came by themselves and bought tickets. Yeah.

So I was like, of course, you know, I'm not, I would never ask for people's personal information. But like, to give me a list of names who came to a show that I was on is not a violation of anything, right? So like, I was at this day on the other night. And I was like, hey, like, I'm tight with a manager. It's like a family over there. It's really a special place. And I was like, hey, can I see who came to the show?

He was like, Ashley, why? I was like, don't worry about it. And like, he just pulled up like, name, the names. These people were in the room that night. His name, his first name, not on there. What? Okay. Ashley, I don't know this part.

I know, I didn't tell you. Holy. I looked at every name, every first name. I didn't even bother looking at last names because I don't know his last name. I just looked at every first name. It was like, John, you know. Any variation of that name. No, nothing.

Like, no, his name is not John. I'm saying like I remember. No, no, I'm saying. you looked at any, if somebody's name's Bill, I would look up William. William, exactly. No variation of his name. Also, he's at an age where he should have

his own credit cards. It's not his parents' credit cards, you know? However, one thing could have been a walk-up, could have decided on the spur of the moment to come to the show. I think that show was sold out, though. Okay, whatever. All these little things are just,

I'm telling you guys because you're invested and I'm like, why not? Did you look up, did you look at the single, okay, you should have seen who bought single ticket? And looked their names up. No, no, no. It was a list that was pretty short. That was the show was in the upstairs room.

You know what I mean? Like, it was like... Is it possible that he bought tickets for two people? And the friend didn't come? Well, the friend would have to buy the tickets. Like, his name was nowhere on the list. You know what I'm saying? Right, the friend.

Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, got it. I'm with you now. So anyway, these are all the updates. That's all I got for you guys. I know you guys... I can't even if his name's not there. Yeah. It would be weird that the friend bought two tickets

and then the friend bailed. You know what I mean? He also, I also hung out with that guy on night. He said, I came to the show alone. You know what I mean? He didn't say, like, I was going to come with my friend and my friend bailed. 100%. You would say that.

100% you would say it. We have theories all across the board. I'm just going to start with mine. I mean, of course it could be a, he's just not that into you situation. It probably is. It's probably as simple as that. But, again, we don't know. So, you know what I keep thinking of?

Tell me if you know this reference. You're not as much of a friend's person as I am. There is a friend's episode where Monica is, fucking this dude. I think she takes his virginity. And he's, turns out that he's a high school senior. And like, I had this feeling that maybe he's younger. Like, he lied about his age. He's like, 22. And he's like, I can't tell this girl. I'm like, literally stone college. I don't think he's stone college. Anyway, I, that's one theory. Um, somebody said, check the obituaries. He died.

What? Our audience is so supportive of me. Like, they can't, not all of them, but like, And they can't believe that he's not in contact me. Even the ones that hate on us, we still get money because you listen. Yeah. No, listen twice. You know you do. But these girlies in the comments are just like, how dare he? Justice for Ashley.

Like I spent so time debunking. So somebody was like, he's married. He took you to an all-cash restaurant. And I spent so much time debunking this. It was crazy. Also, so the place he took you was two avenues and 16 blocks south of there. It's a very expensive restaurant. He could have paid cash in.

Yeah. Not very same. It's a very same. It's very expensive for a first day with a stranger. I'm not dropping that. He could have gone to a thousand restaurants in between and still paid cash for pizza talks, which talked about before.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I love that the girl said that. I thought that was like a funny thing. Like, oh, girl, he paid with cash. First of all, I feel like even when the bill came, he didn't remember it was cash only. You know what I mean? He had to be like, oh, should, I got to go to ATA.

He didn't have cash on him. Anyway, and also what you and I said, any guy, first of all, it's really hard to check someone's bank statements unless you're fully married and you get paper bills to the house. And plus, anybody that has a partner that they feel like is going to check their bank statements is not taking a girl out all willy-nilly out in the town. You know what I mean? So those two things don't go together. I think that like if you're if you're skeezy enough to

think that far into it, I want to go this nice restaurant. I want to pick an all-cash restaurant. That's the kind of person is making sure you don't get into their bank account. And also, I mean, I made a joke, but it's also true. At that hour, a cash withdrawal would leave me to think it was for drugs or hookers, which is worse than going out to dinner. You're so right. You take out $150 or $200, whatever, at 2 a.m. That looks sketchier. Yes. You'd actually have a harder time line about I was with this girl eating pasta as

opposed to like I was buying drugs. 100%. So listen. Dude, if you're listening right now, I hate giving you all this air time. I can't for it. But the listeners want it and I'm going to give them what they want. And I don't give a fuck about you, but call me. Okay.

So here's what he doesn't have a wife. Like that's not it. The 22 year old thing might be. but then it's just weird that he like lied about knowing Natalie. So yeah, I mean, I was with Hannah and Natalie the other night at the stand. And Hannah was like, you got to find, we got to find him and get him on the show. I'm like 100% dying to get him. So I care.

If you're out there, if you know a guy that took a girl, would you say the name on the podcast? You say a little Frankies? Oh, little Frankies, of course, not his name. I'm not saying his name. But like at this point between the podcast and then the video on my Instagram, like, I feel like someone has got to have heard this story. Like someone has got to have heard of the guy that like... 100% went to the show, went out with the girl afterwards.

She has a podcast called Girls Gotta Eat. You know what I mean? Like, someone knows. Like, I feel like he, you're right, he had to have told one or two people. Yes. There's no way that this guy had this crazy experience. He's out all night, two o'clock in the morning, he's at this girl's place.

They go out for dinner. He didn't tell anybody I met this girl as this crazy dating podcast. And I had this really fun date with her. He told someone and he probably told a girl. One of you guys knows. Just tell me. Where are you? Just tell, listen, just tell me.

People have been, like, guessing. They're like, is his name, Alex or something? His name's not Alex. But, like, someone sent a photo. People are working on it. Because, listen, I'm going to say something. One time I said something about, so vague about this guy in the podcast. I'm not going to say when it was.

It could have been three years ago. And you guys found him. And I was like, how? We found that one guy last summer through some, the weird way he described his job, the guy that I gave a blow job to last summer. Oh, yeah. We were trying to figure out what his real name was. The guy blew last summer.

whose name I didn't know. We're trying to... Kate's sister listens to this. Oh, my gosh. So we figured out because the way he described his job was like very strange. And so we found it through that.

We just, it kills me that I can't figure this out. Because I pride myself on my true crime podcast skills. Yeah. We just don't, we don't have enough. Like, you know, I am always like, I match with this guy in Hinge.

I never went out with that other guy, guys, in case you care. I don't know. We messaged. I've been really busy. I haven't had a night free. But I matched with this other guy that I felt a little bit more attracted to based on the banter and his pictures and had his first name and where he worked, found him immediately. I've never, that's, you need. I mean, you have first last name and that's all you need. But like, if you first name and where somebody works and where they live, it's usually pretty easy. But I don't, I just don't have that. Even if I knew, like, what kind of industry he worked in, I could probably find it a little easier. It's just, it's funny that, like, you said the other day, we were like, if we can. I'm like, catch him.

Like, the term, what are we? What are he? Like, the bad thing you said, catch him. I can't live. I was in the middle of this, you know, a podcast called Suspect, which is, it's fine. About catching this, like, predator. And I was having my true crime situation with you at the same time. So that's probably why I had it on the brain.

Catch him. Catch him. So, okay, here's what I'm going to do because I feel like the episode days a little bit longer. I wanted to talk about the D'Amilio show. And I just think I'll wait next week. I'm going to review it next week. But in the meantime, you guys can watch it. We can all talk about it together.

So I have a lot of thoughts. I feel like it's a part of a bigger conversation that might take a little bit of time. Like I had talked to, I had a quote from Kate Kennedy I wanted to read. I just have a lot of things. I want to chat with you about it. You might watch it in the meantime.

So let's hold off. I mentioned it in the conversation with Dr. Romney. But yeah, you guys watch it. I think it's a good watch. I think there's just so much to unpack. On Hulu. On Hulu. So the Dimealio show on Hulu.

we're recommending it, watch it, let's talk about next week. It's like we're doing like a show, like a book club, but like the shows. And then you told me to watch one other documentary, which I'm going to watch. What's it called? The Lula Row documentary. I've not watched it, though. I just heard about it. So I love an MLM story.

Lulow, if you guys are familiar, those were the leggings. I think there's a documentary called Lula Rich or something that Amazon Prime. Do we confirm? Yeah. And then while we're here, if you guys are into MLMs, multi-level marketing, you know, pyramid schemes in some cases, the podcast, is called The Dream. And I'm just looking at a headline right here.

The Dream podcast exposes the con behind multi-level marketing schemes. There's history of MLMs. It's really fascinating. I recommend that podcast hardcore. So check that out, guys. We've tons of stuff coming up in October for you guys too. We'll tease that next week maybe. But October, big, big month.

Yeah. Big month. I'm watching The Sopranos. I'm rewatching it because I'm rewatching it. Because I'm excited for the many Saints of Newark. Oh, and I did go one. I'm going to give one more update on my relationship with Azul. On my relationship.

You know, I always joke about Azul, like, kind of being distant and not wanting to be close to me. He's really, I've kind of pulled back a little and I'm not smothering him as much. And he has been so sweet. He's sleeping in the bed every night. He's been a lot more like cuddly. He's been really sweet. I feel like closer to him than ever. So I just want to update everybody.

Because I feel like people might have been upset that he didn't want to sit by me. He's been great. We're kind of, we had like a little rough patch. We're like fully back together. Okay. I, we are going to get into. It's the most important relationship. Okay, guys, we are really excited about this one this week.

We have an amazing guest. She is a speaker, a writer, and licensed clinical psychologist who has dedicated her career to, among other things, researching the impacts of narcissism on human relationships. She is the author of, Don't You Know Who I Am? How to Stay Sane in the era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility, which is a new word for me. and should I stay or should I go

surviving our relationship with a narcissist. Her work has been featured at South by Southwest, TEDx, Red Table Talk, and the Today Show to name a few. Please welcome to the show, Dr. Romney-Dervasala. Thank you so much for having me. It's so nice to be with you and get to talk about this with you and your audience.

I'm really looking forward to it. Yes. We're so excited. I think we found you. Did I find her on Instagram? You found another person about narcissism and then we upgraded.

We upgrade. Like, it was, it was something in my explore page. And then I went in like a deep hole. And then I was like, oh, I actually have heard of her name. And I passed on the rain. I was like, she's the one. So I'm so excited to connect with you today. Yes.

And you're coming to us from California. I'm coming to you from Los Angeles. Yeah. And you would practice there. I practice here. And I got to tell you, if you were going to study narcissism, L.A. is the place to do it. Because there's a lot of them. You know, I tell people, you're going to study tortoises, move to the Galapagos.

if you're going to study narcissism, live in Los Angeles. Do you think that L.A., it's just more overt, but like the undercover narcissists are all in New York? That's going to feel people. People hide it better here. I think big cities. I agree with you. New York, L.A., San Francisco, Miami. You know, I think that these are cities that have a strong industry, entertainment, presence.

And there's actually research that has been done. People who are celebrities are significantly more likely to be narcissistic, you know, because a lot of people try, only if you succeed. And there's a reason those people get to the front of the line. And a lot of it's associated with that style. So, yeah, I know it definitely, you know, I can live in L.A. You meet folks. Not every celebrity is a narcissist.

I'm always struck when I meet like major movie stars who are not narcissistic. I'm like, wow. Again, I'm digging. Like I'm like, it's in there. And sometimes it's not, you know, but that's rare. I mean, that's like finding a unicorn. Well, and I think even like reality TV, like I've talked to even like producers and casting agents that look for narcissism.

Like when you're watching somebody, and you're like, how could they act like this on TV? It's like there's a clear answer. Like the casting people recognize and seek this type of personality out because they know what they're going to be able to get out of that person for entertainment value. So it's rampant and like on the coast.

Yeah, and what's challenging, as you said, it's great for television. And the challenge with that is that then it creates an incentive around it, doesn't it? Right. Because a person could go and sort of turn this into an influencer career or something like that. Full career.

And the funny thing is, is that I get it. People want to make money. I understand that. But it's literally like their personalities made for it, right? They need validation. So the very thing, like if I could get paid for breathing because I need to breathe air, great. Well, it doesn't work like that. But they need validation.

And ironically, you can turn that into a career. And so that's, yeah, that's where it gets to be a really slippery slope. And the people that will stick with it, like a personality trait won't get to the front of the line. Correct. Because that's the person. Well, let's back up a little bit before we define like what a narcissist is and dating a narcissist to just how you became an expert in this line of work. Because this really is like your bread and butter.

We've heard you talk about it on a lot of different platforms. It was a funny pathway here. You know, it's not, this is something that, you know, when you're, I was very much a traditional academic, professorial, geeked out, nerded out gal for most of my life. And was a professor for years until recently. And I started, actually it was people who were working in health care settings. And I had one actually student who was working in a healthcare setting and was so frustrated. And I said, what is getting you?

What is what's up? And they'll say there are these people and they come in and they're so rude and they're so demanding. And it's every time. And they're driving all of us insane. They're driving the nurses. And I'm like, and I sat with that. And I thought this is interesting. This person's really bothered.

The people in the clinic were really. bothered. And there's this whole thing called a personality disorder, which is a broader term. I thought, wow, these people with personality disorders are making a mess of everything. In this case, it was in the healthcare setting. That led me to actually start doing research on this particular issue. At the same time in my clinical practice, and this is probably more in the early to maybe more like the mid, mid-2000s getting closer to 2010, I was seeing clients who were coming in and really talking about, they were all talking about having the same kind of spouse, really unempathic, really entitled, really invalidating, really prone to rage,

sometimes would lie, sometimes would cheat. But like it was the same story every time. It was interesting. They would be like deer in the headlikes. What the heck is happening to me? I'm like, oh, it sounds like they're just married to a narcissistic person. So I would teach them. I'd say, there's this personality style. And more and more you talk patterns in your relationship are like this. Right. We'd make notes. And could you just send me an email about that? You send that same damn email 30 times and you're like, oh, this is the book. You know, instead of like, giving it away, I might as well send it to give it to

everyone. Then the world change. You know this. I mean, you work in this space. The world change. Social media, reality TV. And the way people started talking to each other, we're at a really dangerous time in terms of how

people get information, how people get inflamed about information. You said, you weren't familiar with that word, insavility. Incivility is just a fancy word. for how all these people are lashing out of each other online, all the trolls, all the people dropping their cruel comments, the kind of discourse we even see politicians who were once respected, but now they're like circus side show type people,

that the world is sort of falling apart with this because it's almost like, no, everybody look at me, no, look at me, no, look at me. And I think that all of those things came together. Nobody cared about this. When I started doing this work, it was like an obscure, my own mentor. I was like, don't do this, Romani. Nobody cares about this. I said, I care about this. I'm seeing like, this is ruining people's lives. And they said, you do you. You want to study something. No one's interested in? You do you. I'm like, okay, I'm interested in it. I had no idea what was

going to happen. In 2016, it really exploded. This words, everyone started using this word. And now it's, you know, and like it gets a bigger problem is that everyone's talking about it, but not everybody's talking about it accurately. And that's caused a lot of confusion and a lot of issues. and I think a lot of people out there who've had a broken heart because somebody hurt them are now calling themselves narcissism experts. And I'm saying, I get you, you had a tough story and I'm glad you're sharing it. But people in these relationships are so desperate for information because they're confused and they're anxious and they're upside down that they just, they want guidance.

And I just want them to get good guidance. And that's how I ended up here, ironically. Like it was a very kind of a road. and here we are. I love that and I think it's such a problem with the word being thrown around. People mistake it for vanity.

They're like, that person thinks they're hot. They're a narcissist. It's like, oh, geez, you don't have no idea. This is a full-blown personality disorder. But the timing is so interesting. Obviously, social media played a ton into this reality TV,

but I remember using it with a guy I was sort of interested in and maybe like 2011 and it was like kind of new then. Like I was like, whoa, I like Googled it. I'm like, this guy could be a narcissist. You know, like, And it was kind of like, we thought we had, me and my friends thought we had this like hot take.

So you're, it's so right. Because now it's like the biggest buzzword, you know, for lack of a better term. And you're, you're out here. Like, I've been talking about this for my, you know, career. Yeah. And people tried to be like, no one cares. It's like now it's all we care about. And it's really ripping the world apart.

I was watching this show about the Dimeleos. And it was like heartbreaking, like what they deal with. And then kind of people think like, oh, but they became famous on social media. So this is what they deserve. Whatever. I'll also like it spiral, but I. And I'm a mom. You know, I'm a mom.

So when I look at the D'Amilios, I see girls. They're girls, too. I see girls. 100%. They're sweet, smart girls. Yeah, they're girls. And I hear those criticisms. Will you put yourself out there?

So a person puts themselves out there. And so now it's open season. I would say that that's the. you know, that's really the challenge to me is because, listen, when we see big name influencers or famous people kind of bearing the brunt of that, especially when it's young people like that, that really troubles me. But when it's, you know, listen, when it's an older politician, I'm like, whatever, like that you do you. But like for younger people, it's still affecting their development. Here's the issue, though, all these big name, TikTokers, YouTubers, you know, celebrities, politicians

getting this kind of treatment, this kind of conversation trickles into our day-to-day discourse. So you know what I'm saying? People are just sort of being rude to everyone all the time. And I feel it's like this idea of narcissism is sort of seeped into the groundwater. And it's characterizing. I mean, think about, I can imagine both of you, I certainly can think of being in a store, like a, I don't know, like a grocery store or something like that. And someone was going off on the cashier or someone was screaming in the parking lot

or someone was screaming at someone for some reason. public, like this behavior has become more normative. And I do think it's this intersection of us normalizing narcissism. Yeah. I mean, everybody with the phone is allowed to have every opinion and screaming at your face. And of course, you know, you have a platform. People think it's open season on you. But what I see more and more and Ashley and I get it obviously more than most people is that we get so many emails about people's relationships. And I see a lot of people maybe miscategorize the word. Every time a guy is like kind of a jerk to you or a liar, they say he's a narcissist. And that's not necessarily the personality trait.

So maybe we can just talk about what's right to forget us back on track. I can talk about this Emilio's for the hour. I couldn't too though. I can talk about TikTok of the shit people say to be on the internet forever. But yeah, let's keep in. Look, we'll stay in our lane.

Let's talk about what a narcissist is because I think the term is misused a lot. I mean, obviously, and you mentioned 2016, so the rise of Donald Trump. So let's talk about narcissists are. So narcissism is a personality trait. It's that simple. It is.

a personality trait, personality style, personality pattern, call it what you will. But it is a, and it's a pattern that is typically characterized by lack of empathy, entitlement, arrogance, grandiosity, a need for validation and admiration, oftentimes a need to be, for control, being very, very reactive and sensitive when anyone gives them feedback or criticism, very, I don't word I'd use almost like a very superficial. In the arrogance, there's almost like a braggy quality, a snobby quality to it. They could be really dismissive, contemptuous, argumentative, jealous, they're prone to lying, they're very manipulative.

That's, I mean, and I could go on and on, but all of that together, all of those qualities are all covering this deep, this deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and insecurity, right? A person who's secure doesn't have to act in all these ways. They're comfortable. They don't have to say, I'm a VIP. I need to be at the front of the line. How dare you make me wait kind of thing. So that's the core.

That's what narcissism is. Narcissism is not a disorder. It is a pattern. Okay. So I am a bit, philosophically, I believe there shouldn't be a thing called narcissistic personality disorder. I really don't.

Right, because like borderline personality toward is something you're born with. So narcissism can can grow, right? It's the nurture versus nature. nature thing. It's argumentative. I don't know that people are born with a borderline personality disorder. When we look at the research, the suggestion is that, yeah, there's some genetic involvement. There's obviously central nervous system involvement. But by and large, what the research suggests is that the majority of people with borderline personality disorder, there was something in their early environment that was really invalidating, could have been

downright abuse, could have been consistent unavailability of a caregiver. And borderline and narcissistic personality disorders are actually quite closely related. So now, there's more of a biology and a genetics that we understand of borderline. We don't see that as much in narcissistic personality, to be honest with you. And so, you know, the challenge, people will say, oh, my mother has narcissistic personality disorder. My partner has narcissistic personality disorder. I'll be like, slow down, sister. Because here's the thing.

The prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder, according to research, is somewhere between 1% to 6%. That's not a lot of people. Why is it so low? because in order to diagnose someone with something, they need to show up in front of a mental health professional. And not only do they have to have all those patterns I was talking about, they also have to feel that this pattern is uncomfortable for them or it's causing them problems in their life,

something we call social and occupational impairment. Here's the deal. There's people walking around like this. They're doing just fine. I'm not going to feel like this. I'm rocking my life. Like I got me a girlfriend. I got myself another girlfriend.

Like, I'm good. So they're not thinking there's a problem. And the way our diagnostic systems are set up, that if someone's go, think of a depressed person, they definitely walk around saying, I feel terrible. I got something going on.

That's subjective distress, right? Or it's causing problems. They're not going to work as much. That's very clearly causing an issue. Narcissistic personality sort of not so much. I honestly, if I ran the world, I'd boot it because it's caused a lot of confusion. That's why I stick to the term narcissism,

because that gets at this personality trait, whether or not it's getting in that person's life. The problem is we don't have good statistics on this. If you were to ask me to pull out a number based on what sort of the hoof beats are saying, and this is incredibly unscientific, I think it's 20%, one in five, which means all of us have these people in our other. You know, basically, if you know more than five people, at least one of them is a narcissist. Do you see this more? And again, there might not be researched this. Do you see this more as a male or a female characteristic? There actually is research on this. So traditionally, when we think of narcissism, we think of the whole like, look at my sports car. I'm so attractive. Look at me. I'm so great.

We think of the grandiose narcissist, right? That form of narcissism is more prevalent in men. Okay. Now, here's where it gets interesting. And this is where I'm saying, like, to just not having quite enough information you can start to get dangerous. There's a second form of narcissism. on the internet, and I've been guilty of this too, people have called it covert narcissism. The right term for it is actually vulnerable narcissism. These are the narcissists we miss because they come off as sort of sad, a little anxious, very victimized. Everyone's out to get me. Nobody supports me. Nothing's ever fair for me. How come things never work out for me? Victim, victim, victim. In a dating relationship, people feel the need to rescue them.

I'm like, you're so cool. Like, you're so awesome. No, no, let me help you out. I know someone who works in that industry. I'll introduce you. Like, oh, your car's not working. Take my car. Rescue, rescue, rescue, right?

Now, with vulnerable narcissism, the gender rates on that are comparable. So the grandiose, the big pumped up narcissism, more men. The vulnerable narcissism, equal men and women. Okay. Why is that? Because I think that we actually give boys and men more permission to be grandiose. If a girl is bragging about what she's about, she'll make, oh, Pride go with before a fall or come now, you know, it's a, we tend to squelch that impulse in a lot of girls where boys are told to be competitive to be number one. We still socialize them that way. We're seeing changes. Definitely in the last 10 to 20 years, there's been shifts. But what we sort of value in terms of behavior as a function of traditional binary gender, boys and girls, men,

and women, has always pulled for more narcissism in boys than girls, but not that vulnerable form, which is why people say, that's interesting you say that, because my mom or my girlfriend or, you know, my female partner is always sullen, always a victim, very manipulative to their victimhood, very passive aggressive. And they'll say, but I thought only dudes were narcissistic, and that's not true. But I have to tell you, given how the world is shifting, we're going to see more and more gender, you know, parody. Like I said, we already see in the vulnerable narcissistic stuff. Okay, so there's all these, like, negative characteristics.

So, like, why do we love narcissists? Why are we so, like, attracted to them? Why are they so charismatic? Early on when a person meets a narcissistic person, you're first meeting them as a first date, or you're meeting them at a bar or at a party or something like that, they have what I often call the C-suite, right? They've got charm, confidence, charisma.

They're often very curious about you. There's something that almost feels very, very comforting about them. So they're, again, all these seeds to keep in mind, your charm, you know, charisma. And we're told, charisma's great. And I often tell people, we see someone charismatic. You want to move very, very, very carefully charismatic people when it comes to dating can be really, really tricky because of the charismatic with you, they're charismatic with everyone. Why do you think you're the only one sitting in their sunshine? I'm smiling because I've been on dates, their first dates with these people where you're just out with them all night long.

It is so comfortable and charming. And you're like, but why are you able to do this? And like, that's why I sometimes think we got to give a second chance to people that are a little more shy and harder to get to know. Well, and I think that it's not even a second chance is we've got to stop pathologizing people who are quiet and more introverted and not as socially smooth, right? Is every charismatic person narcissistic? Not by a launch shot. Absolutely not. It's, I always say you've got to, if there's someone's charismatic super, now pay attention to

red flags. I often call it the magician's trick, right? So when we go, we see someone doing a card trick or some other magic trick, we want the magic to be real. We don't want to know where they, we don't want to know that something was hit up their sleeve. We want to believe the magic is real. People meet charismatic people. They want to believe the magic is real. They want to believe they're going to be the exception to the world, that they're going to get the nice charismatic person. It's not going to happen. The odds are not in your favor. So the question is, if they come off is so charming and charismatic and confident. Why is that? Well, it's because narcissism is often viewed as a mask. Narcissistic folks play a really great front game. In fact, there was research that came out.

It's a lot of detail to get into, so I won't put the takeaway from their study was in research, it was shown that when people were choosing long-term partners, so they were choosing like who they'd want to be in a long-term relationship or even marry, the narcissist always got chosen more often. because they look good on paper, right? They really work hard to go into the right school and live in the right part of town and drive the right car and go on the right vacations. So they're great salespeople. They have a mask, right?

Can't keep that mask on forever, which is why the first part of a relationship with a narcissist is called love bombing. That love bombing phase with a grandiose narcissist is you go to the best restaurants, you go to the best bars. they think about all the details. Things often move a little bit fast too. It's like the fourth date, like, hey, let's fly out of Miami and go out dancing. They're like, oh, that sounds fun.

Like your inner red flag detector is thinking Miami seems like a bit much for a fourth day. Like a fourth date feels like dinner. Okay. But they're like, let's go here. Let's go there. In a way, it's so exciting. But you're not on two, you're not balanced on two feet. So you miss a lot of the red flag.

it's intense and that's what a lot of people use to describe their dating relationships with narcissistic people. It was intense. It was passionate. It felt like a fairy tale. For me, when I hear people describing new people like that, I'm like, you need to break up right now. Like, end it. Do not get in touch with this person. There are no fairy tales. God, I did all these guys. But it also, I mean, there's still a world where it's like, you're just like in your 30s, you have a bunch of money and you fall for somebody quick and you're like, let's go to Miami. I mean, I don't think it's a good idea.

Actually, I'm a slow. It's like the rabbit and the tortoise in the hair, right? You know, slow and steady wins the race. Again, what I'm saying are not universals. Not everybody who goes on their fourth date to Miami or to, I don't know, the other side of Paris or something like that. Is it a disaster? But if I was betting on this like it was a horse race,

I'm going with this isn't going to work out. Because it's so dramatic. It's so intense. And what it does is, it starts creating a narrative in a person's head. This is why narcissists get away with it. Everybody wants the fairy tale. We were raised on this nonsense.

The rom-coms are about this nonsense. We really need to make the narcissistic love story. So people can really see how this sort of goes down. Because it's funny. You know what? Movie did it ironically sort of sweet and well. And it's an old movie. He's the wedding singer, right?

He had the money. He had the car. He had the this and he had the best. And he ended up falling for. And Adam Sandler, You see that a couple of times. I mean, every so often. And I think we, especially women, like, it's got to be a gut check because people can fall for each other really quickly and it's mutual and it feels right.

And you know what it feels right because you feel like safe and comfortable. But I think women know when they're being love bombed and like you said, they want to believe the magic. Like I think with a gut check, it's like something's a little off here, but I'm just going to ignore it. You know? Because you see relationships that both parties are really into. it. They kind of go fast and furious, but it works out because it just does work like that sometimes. But I think we always have a like, isn't this kind of crazy? He wants to fly me to Miami. And when you find yourself saying like, isn't this kind of wild, that's your gut check of like,

yeah. And so then it comes down to though, if you want to go on that fourth date to Miami by all means, but you've got to be willing to integrate those red flags. Say, let's say this is a person who has been acting kind of shady, even in these early days, who is often quite distracted and always looking at their phone, who's often late. Then, you know what? Just be honest, I'm going to Miami with somebody who's actually pretty rude, but I'm really enjoying this ride. Just call it what it is. Because I think the problem is like, this is a great person. Actually, not such a great person. You just want to go to Miami. Own it. Because I think that honesty with oneself, because the reason you said that it's intense and it feels so

comfortable. When a person feels comfortable with someone very, very quickly, instead of viewing that as some sort of metaphysical fairy tale, I tend to view that more as trauma bonding. And trauma bonding is that willingness to justify what feel like very intense, unhealthy patterns early in a relationship because they remind you of past difficult relationships, usually in your family of origin. So here's somebody where it's a little bit hard sometimes to get their attention or you feel like you're competing with other people for their attention. You're looking at their social media and are like, wow, a lot of people are into this person. I want to win this person.

Like a bachelor. That's how they expect. Exactly. And I wonder that every person on the bachelor obviously has mommy or daddy issues because they're so obsessed with competing to win over the unavailable parent. That's what the bachelor is about. And it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like my nightmare. Like I would never compete.

Like when I watch that show, I feel anxious because it's like my nightmare. to be competing. Like, I don't want it. I want, you know. But a lot of people need that competition. That's called triangulation. The idea that I won the partner. It's the winning over the unavailable parent,

but playing out in adulthood and being framed as, this is exciting. This is intense. This is a fairy tale. And that trauma bonding really gets people down the rabbit hole. And the problem is once the- Bachelor hard core. The second date, they're like sharing their deepest, darkest secrets.

They've hung out for an hour. top. Like, it's so true. These people are so, I think, dangerous because they're easy to get swept up in. And, you know, I think that for so many of us, I'll just use women in New York, for example, because that's me. You know, so many men are unavailable and they don't call you back and they don't show up for plans and they're not exciting in the beginning. And so, you know, when you find somebody like this, it's so easy to get swept up in it. He wants to do all these cool things. Listen, I've gone on a first date that's eight hours at five places. I've gone to the airport on a first date. I've met these men. They are all over the place in New York. And it's so easy to get swept up in them

because they are so much fun. And it feels easy and it feels exciting. And I tend to just lean into what feels good, right? I don't, I got check. I think I'm a smart girl. But, you know, I do like to lean into what feels good. So I don't really know, even for me, like, when you see these red flags, like, it's hard to be like, I'm not going to go on the trip to Miami because, like, that's fun.

So, like, how do you tell somebody to not do that? Well, let's like talk about how the mask comes off. Right. So the mask will come off. So what happens is that when that. early stuff, the excitement, and even what you're describing, right now, this idea of the back and forth, I can't get in touch with them. I can't get in touch with them. Fine. Oh, they texted me back, right? So if it's an ordinary, healthy human being, I shouldn't say ordinary. If it's a healthy

human being, right? You message them, depending on what their schedules, they message you back appropriately. But it's not this game playing. The game playing makes their responses so much more exciting. So when you finally get to see them, you want to hold on to it. Again, more trauma bonding. Absolutely. But what happens is that throughout this love bombing excitement, sometimes even people, they're again, that gut check, they're like, oh, this is a lot, what the heck's going on? I've watched Dr. Robinney's videos. Maybe this is narcissism.

They push through it. They push through it. They push through it. And one day they're like, no, I deserve the fairy tale. Of course, why shouldn't I get the fairy tale? I need to stop talking myself out of it. And they relax and they're like, I love you. Boom.

That's the day of the evaluation. I just got chill. That is when it happened. When you're just like, when you're just like, okay, I'm fine. They're like, what made you think this was a serious relationship? Yep, that's the day. Literally, it's almost like, you know, like when little kids try to capture a butterfly under glass, butterflies trying to fly away, they capture it.

The butterfly, very pretty to look at under the glass jar, but it's dead and it's on a shelf now. And that's the devaluing phase. Once they know they've got you, they're no longer interested in you. And that's when you're going to hear the, what? made you think this is a serious relationship, or I never promised that, or they'll, they may be in it with you, but they'll start criticizing you. They may start comparing you to other people. Like the triangulation starts to begin. You don't feel very safe, but now you want to go back

to those first weeks or months of love bombing. You're like, how do I get back to this whole Miami thing? Yeah. Right. Well, there's no going back. That door is not. Okay. That part of the trip is over. No more Miami for you. So it's now the problem is people are, now it has this feeling of, I got to go, I got to get that initial high. Like I got to get back to that. And the understanding is like, no, that's done. So now you're constantly peddling faster and faster to get them to notice. You're like, maybe if I lose weight, maybe if I do my hair different, maybe if I show up where they want, maybe if I dress the way they want. So now there's almost like in the person who's in the narcissistic relationship, this weird perfectionism, this I've got to be what they want. You're staring at your phone.

Why didn't they get back to me? You're looking at the, social. Who's that person they're out with? That's the devalue face. Okay. That can last months. That can last years. That can last decades. But invariably, it ends up in the discard. The discard is not always a breakup. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's the narcissist saying I'm out. I don't want to marry you. I don't want to move in with you. It could sometimes also be the narcissist being unfaithful and cheating. Sometimes it could be that they're now totally disinterested. So some people may actually go ahead, despite the love bombing and the devaluing, they may actually marry the narcissist.

The discard is like they're not interested. They're not interested in being a partner. They're not interested in being a parent. They're not interested in any of those things. So this person is checked out. All right. Now the discard may also be that you leave. They're like, I'm done.

Like this isn't fun anymore. The disc card probably a little over half the time is followed by something called the Hoover. They try to suck you back in. And that's where it starts getting really tricky because I'm thinking, Raise heaven. This person's out of this relationship, right? The Hoover happens more often than it's more likely to happen than not. It doesn't always happen. But the Hoover can happen days later, months later, or sometimes even years later. And they'll hit you up, especially if you leave them. But even if they leave you, because they'll often leave you and very quickly get into something new.

Okay. Well, that's something new often doesn't work out. And they like to think that you, their narcissistic supply, is still available. They like to think that you, their narcissistic supply, is still available. like that idea of being able to control and puppeteer everyone. So they'll hit you up. And sometimes you might have actually grieved it and put it down and feel like, I'm strong enough for this, or I really miss them, or I've been dating and it's not working out. The familiar stuff is very seductive. And so people can get sucked back in. And you'll get shorter terms. It'll be a shorter love bombing this time. Maybe you will go to Miami again, but then you're very quickly at the devalue stage. And that cycle happens. For the narcissistic person, it's a way to get supply and they like the

us for the other person, it's often the trauma bond and the back and forth, which keeps them on the chain. But that's how that cycle often goes. And the discipline is to not fall for the Hoover. It's to say, yeah, no, we're, I'm not, I'm not doing this again. You know, and that a lot of people fall for the Hoover. It's not unusual for people to go back three, four, five times. Well, especially if the, like, I don't know. I, I dated somebody that I'm not claiming he's a narcissist, but it was just like so good at saying the right things, like really getting vulnerable saying these things to like always get me back. And if you love them, it's tough. You know, like some people are like experts at apologizing. They're experts at doing the like reeling you back in

thing. And the familiarity sucks. You go back out into the dating world and you're like, these people don't know me. They don't get me. This is like pulling teeth. This isn't fun. I miss that really good stuff. And even maybe the bad stuff wasn't as bad as I thought it was. You know, like who cares if you like strays sometimes? You know, I just, I feel for people. people like this because those bonds are probably really hard to break. They're very hard to break. And you talk about, you know, saying one of the tools they use not only throughout the relationship, but in the hoovering stage is something we call future faking. I'm going to go to therapy. I'm going to change. Let's move in together. Just let me finish this thing. Let me get through

this one thing at work and then we're going to. None of it ever happens. And if you hold their feet to the fire and say, hey, you said when this thing was done, like, oh my gosh, really so demanding. and now, oh, you're the person who's the demanding, difficult one, and that's the gaslighting. Throughout the relationship, the narcissistic person will gaslight and basically leave the other person feeling like they're the one who's demanding, difficult, or downright mentally ill. And so that's another part of it. Really, what the narcissistic person does is they crumble the other person so they can always pretty much control them.

And so, and yes, the problem is that there's enough good days to keep people in. there's enough good days. There were enough fun nights. There were enough good moments. And for people who are naturally rescuers who say, ooh, they're being vulnerable. You've got to understand the difference between real vulnerability and manipulative vulnerability.

And it's really hard to tell the difference. Yeah, because who doesn't want to help somebody that they love? You know, I do have a question. It might be a very simple answer to you. But when you make yourself available to a narcissist and you're like, I'm in, let's be together. And then suddenly you are no longer attractive to them. Why is that so on a job?

attractive to a narcissist is because so many of them just have like avoidant attachment styles. It's actually not that simple. It's funny you say that. It's actually incredibly complicated answer and it goes quite deep. And again, this is more of a hypothetical structure. At some level, yeah, it's that sort of for narcissistic folks, everything's about dopamine and it's more exciting to get the short term hits, the short term hits. But remember, narcissistic folks live under the same social pressures everyone lives under. And they may feel at some point they want the marriage and the kids in the house because that's what looks good to the world. Nothing is done.

The narcissist never sets a goal unless they believe the world is down with their goals. That makes sense, which is why a lot of people say, why do these narcissistic people get married and have kids? They're not made for marriage. They're not made for parenthood. Well, because they think it looks good to the world. Right. So it's really about branding an image for them. And it's not really about what the hard work of a lifelong committed relationship, the really hard work of being a parent.

They're not thinking that. They're like, this will look good on a picture. This will look good on an Instagram. post. They really are thinking that simple. But to your question, though, this is a lot more complicated. At the core, what did I say? The deepest inner core. They're not only insecure, they feel completely inadequate. At some level, if somebody is all in on them, there's actually some contempt for them. They disrespect you because. Yeah, they disrespect you from loving them. It's that deep. And I can think of maybe in my entire clinical practice career, one narcissistic person who's able to get

there to say, yeah, I feel like I'm a sack of, you know, what? And so, So if someone loves me, that's when I know they're no good either. They're not worthy. Like something must be wrong with them. Yeah. Wow. Oh, yeah. Like, once you started talking, I was like, oh, right, that's it.

Like you're like, wait a minute. If you, if you're all in on me, absolutely not. Because, like subconsciously, there's it. Absolutely. But totally. It makes a lot of sense. So, all right. God, I have so many questions.

I'm curious about the vulnerable narcissists. let's just say that that's who you're dating and that's a man because that's really tricky because you think he's vulnerable and sensitive and again you have this rescuing or nurturing nature, I guess. So what the fuck do you even do with that? I mean? Yeah, exactly. I think women are also trained to be nurturers in general. We do take care about the people.

We play people. We pacify people. We want to make them feel better more than men. So the vulnerable narcissist takes in a lot of territory, right? So these are folks who tend to be more socially anxious, more sad. They don't have that charisma. They don't have the charm. So you're not even seeing it.

In other words, everyone's like, okay, I'm not going to care too charismatic, too charming. Oh, look, kind of rumpled guy in the corner who's attractive. Nerdy comedian, probably a lot of comedians. A lot of comedians. A lot of comedians are vulnerable narcissists. Yeah, we get it all of them. Yeah. So what happens is, so you'll see that initially, it's very much a, again, sort of socially unskilled, socially uncomfortable. So there might be the sense of, oh, you know, I want to help you. Like, I want to help you feel comfortable, especially again, if you're at all attracted to them. And then, you know, who's a great depiction of a vulnerable narcissist? Again, you, I'm dating myself because this was on, this is from Sex and the City. One of the better ones I've ever seen. We know every character. Okay. Jack Berger.

on sexual city. A thousand. Absolutely. Huge victim. Yeah. Always a victim. Always passive aggressive. Always very jealous of her success.

Yes. Always. So they can't be with somebody who is more successful than them. If they're with someone less successful with them, they have contempt for them. You know what I'm saying? You can't win. There is constantly this almost a paranoid sense of nobody gets me. Nobody wants to help me.

I didn't have a trust fund. Must be nice for these people who have all this money. Like it's constant. constant, constant victimization. Like, they're always the victim. So that's the thing to look out for. If you feel like you have to keep rescuing this person. Like they won't be able to survive without me.

Like, that's, I felt, I've had experiences like that where I'm like, I can't leave him. Right. I guess it's pity. It's pity. And pity is an incredibly strong trauma bonded gloat. Like people say, it's one thing with the grandiose narcissist. A lot of people don't really have pity for them, but they're like, they're enjoying the ride, right? Or they see what with the vulnerable narcissists.

person. They're like, I feel really bad. Like this person is just, they can't, they're so not, they're so poorly put together, but it is so victimized and it's everyone's out to get them. And so again, the passive aggressive stuff and where you'll often see it is they'll often be quite envious of your success. So if you're doing well, it will be instead of saying like, wow, that's great. They might say, yeah, well, that's great. It must be so nice that you could just say, on your sofa in your living room and make money. Okay, sure. Like they would go after people, folks like you are making this great podcast,

like this sort of must be nice. I always say, if when you hear the words must be nice, passive aggressives coming in the door. So just be ready for it, right? And so, you know, there must be nice people, right? So it's very much that sense of, it's the poking at your success. And so what people in these relationships will find themselves doing

is either downplaying their success. Like, you know, yeah, I was, did you have a good day, hon? Hey, it was all right. Yeah, like, yeah, we were doing, getting some sponsor stuff worked out. Meanwhile, you might have gotten this massive new sponsor, but you're afraid to say something because you don't want to hurt their fragile little feelings. Okay.

So I'm like, there's so many questions. Like, let's see if how the order to do this. But how do you get out of it? What do you do? And do these people change? This might be a crazy question to you because you're probably like, no, just leave. like, you know, but can you work through it with these people? I mean, to me, it sounds like the vulnerable narcissist probably has a lot of

childhood trauma, but they probably both do. But you tell us, but I'm kind of wondering, like, is this, you got to get out, you got to leave and here's how to do it? Or do these people ever come around? Not really. I mean, I'm going to be frank with you, okay? Yeah. I think that the easiest framework to use is this is not likely to change.

And it's not going to change on your watch. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. It does make sense. People are at an age where it's probably not going to change. It sounds like you can grow into this characteristic, but at the time somebody is dating you,

to undo those years would be too difficult. And you, this to, if a person really try to address this, you're talking about a person who is wanting to change. So they have to recognize something's not cool. They have to commit to the change. They have to find one hell of a good therapist. And I can count on one hand the number of therapists out there. know who are doing good work with folks like this. It is, I mean, it is like superhero level

therapy work and it mostly can't be done. I've worked with dozens of narcissistic clients in my practice that like them well enough. I got nowhere with them. And I'm actually, I think, a decent therapist. Nowhere. Nowhere. I mean, and what would happen is even if we got like a foot, we made a foot of progress, one little stressor would come up. We were right back to worse than the beginning. And everything sets them off. Everything. So if you catch a narcissist on a day where they're living where they want, making as much money as they want, have exactly the partner they want, driving the car they want, every single thing in their life is perfectly lined up. And nobody's asking them to do anything they don't want. That'll be a good day. How many people live like that?

Right. Nobody. Right. Life has stuff. So my point is that every time, there's a stress, every time there's a frustration, every time there's a disappointment, they're going to react with rage. So when people in these relationships, I'll say, you want to stay, let me teach you about the territory. If you're good with them throwing a tantrum, every time something that doesn't go their way, stay. Because that's what's going to happen. That's on a person to decide if that's what works for them. They need to know the territory. But the thing that's not on the table is that this person is going to evolve into an empathic, self-aware, self-reflective, present human being.

It's just not going to happen. This is a personality style. It really is. No differently than a person you know who is friendly and sweet, agreeable and kind, and it's always been that way, is all of a sudden going to turn into a mega bitch.

And they won't. They'll say, I can't do this. So, hey, you have a job. We need you to fire everyone. They're like, yeah, nah, I can't do this. Like, that's not who I am. They're not going to change. Why would they?

To say, right. It's a whole new skill set that you're teaching somebody. So, I mean, I'm sort of assuming, we'll do a whole other episode about attachment theory, but that somebody like this really preys on people with very anxious attachment styles, and it's easier to get them to stay. Yes and no. I think that the narcissistic folks have a mix of anxious and avoidant attachment styles, but I actually think very healthy people fall for narcissistic first and stay with them.

They absolutely do. Like people who are, they have a solid sense of self. they have good self-esteem, that they're self-aware. And they do fall for, like, I cannot tell you how many times a day. I am called some very fascinating obscenities. I didn't even know existed in anatomical pieces. I didn't know had names because I say something. It's like, how dare you say they can't change?

The brain is neuroplastic, blah, blah, blah. And I'm saying, like, listen, I agree that the brain is neuroplastic. But if somebody doesn't think, this is like an alcoholic, right? An alcoholic is like, I don't drink that much. They ain't going to stop drinking. You know what I'm saying? They're just not going to stop. They have to get to a point on who knows what it is.

And whatever that rock bottom, you know, that 12 step talks about to make a change. And the challenge is you, for narcissistic folks, because I actually have a series on YouTube we're talking about this, I say that if you indeed are truly a narcissistic person and you truly want to change, it's very simple and it's the most difficult thing you'll ever do, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the rest of your life, you have to stop and listen to people and think before you respond and realize that you're no more special than anybody else. I've had some narcissistic people that say, I just can't do it. I literally go say, I can't do that.

Okay? Then nobody's going to like you. I feel like there's a lot of narcissism with people that think they know more than scientists and doctors. Heck yeah. Yeah. And then, okay, sure, you do you. And so what I think you're, you somehow think you're on the same level. Whatever.

We're not going to go on that right. Exactly. They think they're at the same level. And I'm like, okay, I'm not going to take a guidance from you. So we need to know how to consume these folks. But no, they're really not going to change. And so I say to people, if you're staying in this relationship, you're staying in it under the current conditions.

And if you're good with the current conditions, that's what you're signing up for. It ain't going to change. You know, as we talk about narcissists, both types, the grandiose ones and the vulnerable types, I do feel like there are parts of those things that people have that doesn't make them a narcissist, right? Like I've dated guys that kind of had a little bit of a victim mentality because they had a ton of trauma

and they've gone to therapy and they've kind of come better for. And I think there are some people that are a little flashy and they like to brag about their success. And then it doesn't mean they're a narcissist. So let me ask you this. Is it at its root the lack of empathy? And I'd also like to just maybe discuss a little bit of what a lack of empathy looks like in a partner.

A romantic partner, yeah. So let's go back to the earlier part of your question. I know folks who are, who have, you know, are vulnerable to this victimized style, and they've gone through trauma, okay? There's plenty of people out there who have a victimized style, but they're not unkind to other people, right? So they feel life has been unfair to them. And they're like, nothing ever goes my way.

It's almost like the, like, Eeyore, you know, the donkey from Winnie the Pooh, like, you know, but they're not mean. They're not me. Yes. Right. That's different. The flashy people, I know people out there who are fabulous. It is like they're like human Christmas trees.

And they're all about the Instagram and they love it and they're look at me. And they're kind. They're kind. You know what I'm saying? They will, they look at me in my scrappy goodwill clothes and say, baby, you're chic. You're fabulous. I love you. They're not like, you know, I can't be seen with you.

They're not. So that my point is that goes next to your next point, which is empathy. We have got to be careful to just think that because somebody likes to, and I'm not even buying the bit like, oh, people get a lot of cosmetic surgery. They're narcissistic. No, they're not. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's not. Like, they may just think that this looks pretty on that, right? Or they saw the picture in the magazine. They want to look like that. But they get these things done in the sweet. You know, I'm not calling that person a narcissist. I might think they're a little misguided. I wish they saw themselves as as beautiful as they are. But I'm not going to call them narcissistic. I look at how people are with. other people or about other people. This inherent human kindness and empathy. So that goes to the empathy piece. So sure, that is very much the core of it. When we really get into the, again, it's more theoretical stuff about narcissism. These are folks that don't, they really, they view other people as objects to fulfill their needs, like my glasses. I like my glasses. They help me see. I don't check in to see if my glasses are doing okay. Why? Because they're

an object in my life. Glasses are an inanimate object. Narcissistic people, people treat people like inanimate objects. You do this for me. You do this for me. You get this for me. Right? And so there's that incapacity for intimacy, that incapacity for closeness that real, and a relative at times, a narcissistic person will do something that seems kind.

But their kindness is what we call agentic kindness. Again, I'm using the sort of scientific vocabulary, but agentic kindness is I'm going to give you something because I need something from you. Right. So I'm going to give you a gift. oh my gosh, that's so nice. Or I'm going to drive you to the airport. And then before you know it, you're into them.

It's very quid pro quo versus like, hey, babe, I'm driving in that direction. Let me take you. And then they never think about it again. Or they're like, I had extra tomatoes in my garden. Like I want you to have these. You know, I can't eat them. I'll please enjoy them. And there's never a further obligation.

So even the kindness always has a catch. Or they want to be like show it off an Instagram. I bought you this thing. Right. It's self-ful feeling. So we always say, you know, look at other relationships. in people's lives. So is it helpful, like, if you think your romantic partner might be a narcissist to look at, like, the friendships that they have and, like, the relationship to their parents?

Because, like, I guess a lot of people would have friendships that are born of convenience to them. So is it helpful to look at their friendships, I guess? I think it is. I do think it's helpful to look at other people's relationships. Now, you don't want to get to, like, here's what gets tricky. A narcissistic person may actually have a really good relationship with a parent because their parent is actually the person who keeps fueling their fire. Like my son is the best. No one's, like you can do like the mother who bailed him out of jail for anything.

That kind of thing. So you have to be a little careful with that. But I would say look at friendships. Look at the reciprocity in the friendships. Look at how they talk about other people, right? So if a narcissistic person is speaking about, especially early in a relationship, everyone in a contemptuous way,

look at that, like, can you believe that? Or gossipy or mean-spirited? That's a red flag because there's a certain lack of kindness. Yes, I'm thinking of somebody that I was very attracted to. It was a crazy narcissist. I'm thinking he had so many friends. He was very charming, but they all seem to be a little service level. Yes, yes.

And yes, their surface level, you know, they're they serve in need. They're very functional. Sometimes they're business associates. You know, and they're also sometimes hangers on. For narcissistic people, social networks are a numbers game. You know, it's how many do you have, not the quality of them. So these are, they're often. And again, the narcissist has money.

A lot of the people in their, social network are really parasites. They're people who like that the narcissist picks up to check or takes everyone, I don't know why I'm going off on Miami. It's one of those places where people can be very undressed all the year and have boats and very, it's very, it's fine. I happen to like Miami, but like, it's a very sort of sensual kind of, it's a great narcissism of city in a way because it's like boats and beaches and bikinis

and showing off your body and like nightclubs. Like it's really like the ultimate kind of playground. for people with these personality styles. And so they'll play for the plane and the tickets and the hotel. So basically like, you know what I said? They're like the kid with the swimming pool that nobody really likes except in summertime. They're just bringing a value ad. And that's really easy to pick up on because Rayne and I, you know, value friendships so deeply.

Like we know what good friendships look like. We've had friendships our whole lives. Like we know what it looks like when you're actually friends with somebody. And so it's very easy to tell male or female when you have a huge group of service level friends. You know what I mean? You don't really know that much about them. You never met their parents. You guys just go to like Miami together. You go in the boat together. You do the big fancy dinners. You get the bottle service together. Like I mean, again, we're, you know, we're well into our 30s. We've been having relationships for so long. But it's very apparent to me if I'm

out with a guy and he doesn't have like a real solid, healthy friend group. Now, again, it's not a numbers game. So you might meet somebody who is actually a little more quiet and introverted, but the friends they've got, or maybe they have relationships with siblings, like they've got their solid people, you know, and it's good. And they speak about them in a good way. Or you see that they've got their back. They might say, you know what? I can't make it this weekend because my sister just had a baby and I promised her I'd be there.

And they follow through on those promises to people. Like there seems, and it's not in a showy way. You know, it's very much like they're present, they're there. I guess that some of this stuff can be really subtle. And it takes a minute. And some of the red flags are in your face stuff that you see in the first week. So how do you leave? Yeah.

Like how do you leave? How do you leave? Okay. Are hard to leave, I'm assuming. They sound like a lot of fun sometimes. The earlier you leave, the better. Okay. The longer you stay, the more they're viewing you as a source of narcissistic supply. And so if you walk off, they don't like that.

Right. Okay. So earlier is better. So if the red flags are showing after date three or date four, don't say, well, let's go a little. It's like the horror film. You're like, don't go down. That whole way. Don't go to Miami.

Because Miami's a fourth date. Right. One of three when they, Miami. You're not getting to go to Miami. Okay. But like, don't go down. You know, the horror film and it's like thunder and lightning and it's dark. I'm like, what are you doing?

Like, walk towards the light. Right. You know? And so don't do that. Like, so in a lot of people, curiosity keeps carrying them. And even in some cases, I'd say, I get the curiosity. I get the desire to go to Miami. But you better, better, better, be aware.

that I'm going and I'm aware that there's red flags. And I really, it's people, again, they want to believe the magic trick. So, but the earlier leave, the easier it is. I also tell people don't, don't make too big of it. You know, you don't want this to be a messy goodbye, right? It's really, you have to take ownership for the leaving. You don't want to make it. If you try to say, well, I'm going to leave and I'm going to educate them about their

narcissism, probably not your best play. You know, no, no, I would say that you say, he's a narcissist. because I listen this podcast and I know. Well, they're going to talk you out of it. It sounds like these people are experts at that and they're experts at devaluing how you feel. Well, it's not that simple. So if you say, like if you say, listen, I'm owning it.

I'm, I'm, work is busier than I thought. You've come up with whatever story you've got, right? One really interesting trick, narcissistic folks do, and it's actually quite clever. They make it very easy for you to leave. They actually are very calm at the point of the breakup. And they'll say, no, I get it. It's a trick.

I get. I totally get it. You know, the stuff you're doing is so important and it's so cool. So I totally get that, you know, you need to focus on you. And now you're like, shit. Like, maybe they are kind of cool. Like you actually were kind of into that, right? And like it was three dates, four dates in.

You're like, I kind of like them, but red flags. But now they're being cool and they're telling me I'm cool. And now you are in like a total check. But that would trick me. That would actually, like, I feel like I know I have a lot of information, but that would make me, maybe not trick me completely, but make me rethink. Exactly. You're like, wait a minute. I was expecting rage and, you know, passive aggression.

And now they're just like cool and rational. Like, maybe I got this wrong. Like, that's the ultimate mind fuck. It's the ultimate. Ultimate. And I totally agree that that. And that happens more often than you think because it is early in the game. And for all, you know, they've already got other folks already stacked up anyhow, but they can turn to as a plan B.C.

and E. But it's also, it's a very, I mean, the most skilled narcissistic folks can use that as its own form of a Hoover. Like, they're being, they're being so calm, cool, and collected that now the person who's leaving, who's expecting the tantrum isn't getting the tantrum. And that's part of actually what they didn't like about the person. And like, shoot, did I read this wrong? Yeah. But I guess what you're saying is like, what you're saying is this is a good thing. And this sort of almost proves that you were right about the personality trait. Well, if they're totally calm. If they're calm, and if they're going to come and no.

What I would say is you have to go back to why you're leaving. Right. Go back to the original reason you're leaving, right? Because that doesn't change with their conduct. And so, you know, listen, in the very pessimistic world that Dr. Romney lives in, I hate to say it, but when it comes to romantic relationships, I judge the relationships by the bad days, not the good days. Because the bad days, and again, you're talking from a dating perspective,

but as somebody who's been, you know, through the horn of marriage, divorce, children, you know, it stops being about Miami and it starts coming down to who's going to stay up till three in the morning and what about this tax bill and somebody's getting sick. And so those red flags actually are translational down the line into the big ticket stuff. And so that's what I'm saying is how do people, how, what do those bad days look like? Because those bad days will blow off on you when you really, really need someone to be there. I love that quote. I think that's so important and I'm going to keep that in my mind because I think it's so easy to say, remember that perfect day, that perfect trip to Miami? Like you just, it's so easy. But who cares? We all have great

fun experiences. So, like, the important stuff is the way you, he or she acted in a conflict or the way that you dealt with a really hard time, the way the pandemic was. Like, I think that's such a good thing to keep in mind always. And that's probably going to be pretty telling if you are dated narcissists because the bad days were real bad. They're bad. They're really bad. And they're rough and also knowing your own vulnerability. So somebody, for example, had a parent who was a cheater, especially a dad who was a cheater, or they had a family where they had to feel like they had to win their parent over. Those are primal core wounds. So in adulthood, let's say you have a sort of a narcissistic partner who's a bit shady, you know, shady in how they conduct themselves in

social media, shady in terms of how they conduct themselves with other people, they have loose boundaries. That old childhood stuff really gets activated. Like, this time I'm going to win. This time the cheater's not going to cheat. This time I'm going to be, I'm going to be the one who's chosen. That's really core stuff. And that's your own therapy. And that's your own therapy. Yeah. And like we had this on here, like how to break the pattern.

And it's like that's your internal. Yeah. Work. Yep. Can two narcissists date each other? It happens all the time. I'm actually kind of glad when that happens because it kind of gets them out of the water supply.

Here's the problem. I don't want them to have kids. So if there's a way for two narcissists to get together and not have children, no, they don't make a super narcissist. They often create a very neglected over unseen child. I'm glad that you said that because we wanted to stick only really with romantic partners

but of course there can be parents that are huge narcissists and friends. I'm sure you have books you guide people to also. Wait, hold on. What does it look like if two narcissists date each other? If two narcissists get together, it is volatile, it is jealous, it is competitive. I'm sure there's phenomenally good sex. It is, it's intense. It is a wild, it's a wild, wild ride. It is like a lot of these flash in the pants, celebrity romances you see that are often publicists driven, right? But it's like exciting and, you know, red carpety and Miami-ish. And like a lot of that excitement, two people, but volatile. I mean, like, and that's what you went to narcissistic people get together because they're fighting over the same school.

of mirror, basically. They both want the validation, right? And so initially, and because narcissistic people, researchers show this, put a lot more time and attention into their appearance. They're often rated as more attractive. They really care about themselves, their bodies, so they're often two very attractive people who get together. So to the world, they might look like a power couple or just a gorgeous couple, right? You know, so people project a lot of fairy tale onto them just because they look so fabulous together. But it, like I said, I love it when they get together and I'd love them to stay together.

Just don't have kids because it really messes up their kids. That's the piece that I'm not okay. So a lot of these traits sound like how we talk about a sociopath. What's the levels there? Is every sociopath a narcissist or like I think that work gets thrown around a little too loosely too?

It does. And there's a difference between sociopathy and psychopathy like again, it starts getting into these really academic kinds of little corners. And I would say all sociopaths have pretty much all the qualities of a narcissist. However, the sociopaths aren't so insecure, right? The sociopaths tend to be...

So that's what you want to, you want to date them. No, you don't want to date them. You don't want to date them. No, no, no. They're more likely to end up in a ditch or, like, you know, having your bank account emptied or something like that. So sociopaths tend to be, they tend to work systems more. They tend to be willing to break rules and laws.

Dirty John. Dirty John is a psychopath. Psychopath, right. Yeah. And so, and so. So psychopaths have no remorse, right? Psychopaths are cold, calculated, cunning, callous. They are your hired assassins. They're your cool-headed CEOs that manage to, they're Bernie Madoff. They're Jeffrey Epstein. That's the, that's a psychopath, right? No remorse to the very end. It's chilling. I mean, they're incredibly smart. Psychopaths tend to be very, very smart.

That's why they get away with stuff. And in a way, the psychopaths almost are like, I don't understand why you have this rule. And so they just break it, right? It's like, this isn't relevant to me. Sociopaths know the rules and they work them. You know, they break them, they work them. They tend to be, sociopaths tend to be more impulsive. They tend to be more volatile. They tend to be angry that there are rules. So it's like, it's a very different feel. So sociopaths are more, definitely more dangerous. Sociopaths are more stocky, right? They're the ones who are going to blow up your inbox, that kind of thing. that they're more menacing.

Sociopathy is probably more in line with something we call malignant narcissism, which are the more dangerous narcissists. They're coercive, manipulative, exploitative. That's something I hope most people don't see because it's more dangerous. I think a lot of folks probably that you've experienced, that people are listening to this, have dealt with more mid-range to low-range narcissists, either more vapid, superficial narcissist

or the more like have a really good mask and the kind of low-grade cheaty-li-e narcissist or the future faking narcissist, not the more dangerous menacing narcissists. And you mentioned a lack of remorse. We've talked about empathy and remorse. Remorse is like something terrible happened and you feel nothing.

You feel nothing, right. Is that, do narcissists, can they have remorse? Yeah, they do. They do have remorse. It's not remorse the way we think of remorse. The psychopath will not feel bad. Right. They will do, you know, they can fake it.

They're like, well, I guess I shouldn't have been. dazzled all that money. That wasn't a good maneuver, but it's very robotic, right? With the narcissistic person, they actually want to be liked by other people. They really, really do. They want to be valued by other people. So to do something that is bad and they get caught on it, the shame. And shame is a huge dynamic in narcissism. It's why they get so angry all the time. Their shame, especially their shame about their inadequacy, gets activated all the time. And that's where you see that quick rage, because it's related to the shame. So when a narcissistic person gets caught out and doing something bad,

any remorse they feel is caught up in that shame, but they will say, I wish I hadn't done that. They will say, like, I've worked with narcissistic clients. They do bad things. They're like,

I really wish I had done it. But they'll say, I wish I had done that because it's made my life a mess. Right. Okay. See what I'm saying? There's still like it ruined stuff for me. I'm not that concerned with the other person.

Yeah. So a narcissist will sit across from you, their partner that's crying and says you hurt me. and they do feel bad that they made you feel bad, or they feel bad they've come to like a point in the road that's inconveniencing them. Oh, it's the inconveniencing part is spot on. Narcissistic folks do not like to be inconvenienced,

because that's that frustration and disappointment I was talking about, right? They also don't like being viewed badly. So if they do something bad, and especially if that's something bad, gets known to other people, that brings up the shame. So it's more that they don't like how doing something bad makes them look. Right. And so the only,

and they're very impulsive. So they do bad things, right? They're very impulsive. They just do them. They hope they don't get caught. If they do get caught, there's a lot of shame and because their inadequacy comes up,

but now they also don't like that they look bad to other people. Okay. All right. I just like had to rapid fire all these questions at the end. We went totally rogue off the outline, but I feel like I don't know if I have anything else.

I feel like I'm a lot of men to marinate. over at the moment. Oh, yes, I can imagine. Listen, you know, I think what you, one of the things I think you were, I thought one of your questions is going to go there is that, you know, do we all have some of this in us? We may have moments like, for example, that we have big dreams, right? Like, I hope, you know, I've heard people say, I don't know, a person says, I hope that my store turns into 10 stores and I become a franchise all over the country, right? They have that. That could be called low grade grandiosity. But if they're nice, then that's, not a narcissistic quality. Some people say, well, aren't I a little bit narcissistic if I'm grandiose? No,

you're a little grandiose. If you're nice, then that's just grandiosity. Every one of us has had the moment when we are jet lagged and a flight was delayed by nine hours and we're sleeping on an airport floor and we go up to the airport counter and say, are you kidding me? And then we're like, what have I done? Why did I talk to another human being like that? And we don't do it again. all had our moments where we had a fall from grace, right? We do, we have. And sometimes we even go and try to make it right. Say, I had no right to speak to you that way. And I'm so, so sorry. I'm exhausted and I'm hungry, but that's not an excuse, right? Very quickly take responsibility. Narcissistic folks always shift blame. They never take responsibility. So I think that there's a risk. And I think a lot of

people who've been through narcissistic relationships and are so aware of the dynamic are very quick to say, well, maybe I'm the narcissist, right? Because they'll say that they've had one moment where they weren't Well, probably not. These are, these patterns are what we call pervasive and stable. They cut across all situations and they happen just about every day. It's not like one bad moment you had in an airport. It's not having a big dream. It's not wanting one really nice pair of shoes. That does not make someone narcissistic. It comes down to how a person is present with other human beings. That's really the metric. And we had had this, we didn't really talk about it, but we can just kind of even, wrap up with how it can deteriorate someone mean in that relationship.

I mean, I think we got there a little bit, but is it just kind of like an overall lack of self-worth and value? Well, it's actually, so when people have been really been through a narcissistic relationship, they experience sort of a pattern, we call it sort of narcissistic abuse. They feel very confused. There's a lot of self-doubt. There's a lot of anxiety. There is a sense of powerlessness, of helplessness, of hopelessness.

There can even be a lot of sadness. There's a lot of rumination. Why did this happen? Why did this happen that way? Keep playing the relationship in your head. A lot of regret over missing it and the time wasted. Getting stuck and ruminating about the good moments and saying, why couldn't we keep those? Why couldn't I keep those going? There can be a lot of perfectionism.

Let me try to make myself better. Maybe this was my fault. A lot of self-blame. So it really does a number on person. And I have to tell you, I work with survivors. I teach survivors. and they sometimes get stuck in these cycles for years and years and years. It really does a number on a person.

It's no joke. And I think the thing that, you know, we're having this conversation and some of it's lighthearted and it's in a dating context and all that. There's a seriousness to this. I think that the whole world has to take this seriously because this isn't just somebody eating a court of ice cream and having a broken heart. For some people, this actually has major mental health ramifications for them for a very long time and it's not okay.

Well, something you said a few minutes ago was about blame shifting and, you know, making another person constantly feel that everything is their fault. And I guess that leads to, of course, invalidating everything you feel. And so I can absolutely see how this would just make you look back and think like, did I do this? And how could I let this have happened? And to spend years having somebody invalidate you would be so hard to crawl out from my. Oh, it's horrible. It's horrible. I mean, it really, people who have been through long-term narcissistic abuse actually look like they have post-traumatic stress. A lot of overlaps with that. Oh, man. Well, we went to talk to everyone. We went through a lot. It's never, yeah, we've had you for quite some time. I appreciate you. We appreciate you.

Yeah. Well, we'll do it again. You know, hit me up and we can talk about some of the other, you know, concepts that we didn't quite get to because there's a lot of questions here in the dating world. Because, again, you're hitting this at such an important part of the conversation. Because the best way to keep people from the harm these relationships can cause is that they don't get in them or stay in them too long. Right? To identify the red flags, to understand the vulnerabilities in ourselves, right, that make us vulnerable to wanting to stay with somebody where we feel like we have to fight or get excited when they finally text back after three days instead of saying, that's not appropriate.

That's what we just say all the time. Like, if I go out with somebody, they don't talk to me for three days. I'm like, I don't want a part of any part of this. What are you doing? Because you either, I didn't cross your mind, which is probably not the case. I didn't cross your mind, which means I don't want to go down this road. Or you are playing a game. So either scenario I don't want. In fact, that book, the rules, when it was out from the 80s or 90s or whatever the hell came out, that to me was like literally a manual on how to end up in a relationship with a narcissist. Right.

Yeah, it's almost just as bad as the pickup artist, which is a whole other can norms. But we'd love to having you. We'd love talking with you. Can you tell everybody where to find you, your books, all the things? Please come find me. Best place to find me if you want a little Dr. Romney every day, come to my YouTube channel. new videos every day. And so, oh, wow. I go there, Dr. Romney, just

look that up. I have books. I have two books on narcissism. And if you go to my website, which is Dr. Romney, do-C-T-O-R-A-M-A-N-I dot com. And I think if you type it in, it comes up pretty quickly in the search results, you can find a lot of information about upcoming seminars, books, other things that

the other people are writing about narcissism we feature. I'm on Instagram. We post, you know, more days than not on, you know, whatever sort of we feel is current in narcissism. And again, seminars we're doing and other kinds of programs. And so those are probably the best places find me. But YouTube is like I said, every day there's something new. And if you go there now, there's hundreds of videos on narcissism. Oh my gosh. So you guys have no excuse. If you can't detect a narcissist. I did my part. You know what I'm saying? It's like,

I fed you dinner. If you didn't need it, that's on you. Well, thank you so much. Thank you. really eye-opening and wonderful. And I know people will be really excited to check out your website, your books, everything that you do. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Take care. It's so good to meet you.

You too. Bye. And you guys, of course, know where to find us. Girls Gottypodiedopcast.com. Get tickets to our live shows in the cities where tickets are still available. We can't wait to see you all. Follow us on Instagram, Girls Gotty Podcast. I am Ash has on Instagram.

Raina is reina. org. Girls underscore got to eat on Twitter and YouTube. com slash girls got to eat. And we'll see you next week. Thanks guys. Have a good week.