How To Recognize People With Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Narcissists — they look human enough, but they are deficient in precisely those qualities that we use to define humans: the ability to feel empathy and the normal range of emotions.

People who suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder might seem confident and radiantly happy on the outside, but on the inside they are deeply insecure and utterly dependent on the fragile projection of an ideal image of themselves for the tiniest speck of a sense of worth. You may feel for them, but rest assured that they lack the capacity to feel for you.

Narcissists are just not like the rest of us.

While only a mental health professional (whom a person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder will never visit, as they think that they are already perfect in every respect) can offer an official diagnosis of a personality disorder, any layperson can recognize the behavioral patterns that tell you that a person has dangerous narcissistic tendencies.

Spotting the signs will enable you to know that pursuing any sort of human relationship with such a person is futile, impossible, and in some cases outright dangerous. Proceed with extreme caution or, better yet, run for the hills! So, what are the red flags that will tell you that you are dealing with a narcissist? Let's take a look. 

Narcissists Are Horrible Gift Givers

It might seem trite, but it really is a very easy way to tell whether you are dealing with a narcissist. Narcissists are notorious for their inability to choose an appropriate gift for a person they supposedly love – which is not to say they will always be stingy about gifts. If you’re in his good books, you might get a pricey present from a narcissist – but it will still show just how little he knows you and just how badly what little he knows about you compares to what he thinks about himself.

You’ll get the same aftershave he uses, as it’s the best – even though you have a beard. She’ll bring you the same set of frying pans that she has and admonish you to use them every single day to cook family meals from scratch – although she’s heard you say a thousand times that you work 12-hour days, never have time to cook, and don’t like fried foods, anyway. Your kids will get things that are too big or too small (but isn’t he too small for his age? And isn’t she getting a bit chubby?). Or they may get gifts that are age-inappropriate (but isn’t it time you potty-trained your baby so she could wear the lacey thong her narcissistic Granny got her?). Alternatively, the gifts your kids get will have nothing to do with what actually interests them (but surely something must be wrong with your son, who’s into guns, trucks, and Spider-Man, if he doesn’t like the exact same creepy porcelain doll she loved when she was little?).

And that is only if you’re currently dear to the narcissist. If she’s trying to put you in your place, you’ll know it, as the narcissist will gladly use gifts to make a point. You will get oversized clothes and be asked whether they’re too small for you, along with a bottle of diet pills – because, of course, you’re fat. You’ll be given her old mismatched plate set after she buys herself a new one – after all, they’re good enough for you, as beggars can’t be choosers. You’ll get the message that you’re somehow inferior loud and clear.

Can’t Seem To Get Any Of Their Relationships Right

She swears she’d do anything for her brother, but will then give him the silent treatment for his birthday over a petty squabble about her grades in preschool. She instantly becomes best buds with a guy she meets on a night out and shares the most intimate details of her life — and yours, and anyone else’s, and those of famous people she's supposedly best friends with but has actually never met — to impress him. All of her relationships will look eerily similar, and all of them will feel at least a bit off.

If your narcissist is an extrovert, she can manage a great deal of superficial friendships and casual acquaintances but not a single real, close, long-term friendship. Exaggerating relationships, particularly potentially flattering ones, is a clear warning sign – if she claims that she’s best friends with a famous singer (whom you find out she’s once asked for an autograph in the street) or that she’s “practically engaged” to a gorgeous doctor (with whom she’s been on one bad date), you’re probably dealing with a narcissist.

They Are Liars And Manipulators

Narcissists are masters of manipulation and they are pathological liars. In order to keep this machinery running smoothly, the narcissist constantly has to be pulling all the strings. All communication has to take place through him.

You have been dating your narcissist for several months now and met his sister, who shares many interests with you, at the very beginning of the relationship. You’re not allowed to friend her on Facebook or to call her on the phone.

Every time you want to see her, he tells you she’s too busy for you, or that you simply make her feel uncomfortable. What you don’t know is that he’s been telling her that you are jealous of her and the special sibling relationship they enjoy, which is why you hate her. Divide and conquer is the name of that game. The first time you two meet alone, all the seemingly needless lies and manipulations will instantly surface.

Narcissists Lack Empathy

You will listen to her drone on endlessly about her weight issues, that time the cab driver disrespected her, or how no one truly appreciates her genius and talents at work. If you think she will reciprocate when your mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer, think twice. She will make it abundantly clear that she’s bored out of her skull if you start actually answering the question “So, how’s your mother?” she asked only to seem like a decent person.

A narcissist can sometimes fake empathy, but they are unable to truly feel it. Do his reactions to your problems sound like trite clichés? Are they at times completely inappropriate, especially if he hasn’t had time to prepare them in advance? Or does he even seem to side with those hurting you? You likely have a narcissist on your hands, especially if his "oh, that's soooo terrible" is followed by a rant about his first world problems, which are obviously worse than your actual problem.

They Are Envious Of Others' Successes

He clearly can’t stand it when anyone anywhere is better than him at anything. He’ll sneer, invent flaws, and gossip. He will do anything to make himself feel better. Maybe Bill’s salary is slightly higher, but that’s only because he’s unethical and sucks up to the boss, and, besides, his wife is leaving him for another man. She is certain everyone is jealous of her because she’s so skinny, and has a rich husband, and her children go to the best schools.

A narcissist’s world is a hierarchical one, where one can only envy or be envied. Life isn’t worth living if he’s not among the latter, and he’ll use all his capacities for denial and projection to avoid placing himself among the former.

Too Good To Be True

He has impressed you with his fascinating careers and his interesting life story. During the day, he works at a university, where he is very highly esteemed by the greatest experts. At night, he becomes part of an elite crime-fighting squad. In reality, he’s a librarian by day and a bouncer by night. Does your new boyfriend embellish and idealize every aspect of his life in an effort to make himself sound better than perfect? Run like hell, before he makes your life hell the moment he realizes you are not ideal and, worse still, that you don’t see him as ideal.

If he seems too good to be true, he probably is.

People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder are perfectly painted shells of a human being. Look under the hood, and you'll soon find out that nothing's inside. Nothing but pain, that is.