Quote: War = deception

All warfare is based on deception.
When able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
Hold out baits to entice the enemy.
Feign disorder, and crush him.
To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.

-- Sun Tzu, the Art of War

Confronting a sociopath

A lot of people ask me, how can I confront a sociopath?  There are a lot of ways, but you should also be aware of what the sociopath feels when confronted, basically confused and unaffected or very, very angry.   Here's how one reader described it in a comment:

When people yell at me, I am confused first and foremost. Bursts of strong emotion take me completely by surprise, and it takes a second or two for me to regain my wits. After that brief moment, my brain immediately kicks into high gear to analyze the situation: Why are they yelling? What are they saying? Have I done something deliberately to harm them recently or ever? Have I done something they could indirectly assume as harming them?

When someone calls me out, manages to look past my charming and pleasant mask and react negatively, it puts me into a very cruel and cold state of mind. It constitutes a threat of the highest order, a threat to my carefully maintained persona, and I treat it as such.

If I decide it is my best interest to passively accept whatever retribution/apology they demand, I do so with the utmost affected sincerity. If I can ignore it, I do, and their subsequent nagging is a mere minor irritation. In the rare occasion that continued contact/antagonizing on their part could compromise my peace, I strike back. I use everything I've learned about their insecurities, their weaknesses, their fears, and I break them. I hurt them so deeply and thoroughly that they are either frightened away entirely or too cowed to ever attack me again. I take great, great pleasure in doing so--oftentimes, to preserve my peaceful existence in the public eye, I have to hold back. It feels good to break others. Very good.

One of the special pleasures of writing this blog and reading what people comment is seeing another sociopath describe almost exactly what something feels like for me.  I think this comment illustrates this supremely.  

  

The flipside of overconfidence

I didn't address the flipside of overconfidence. Like the photo of the cat ready to do battle with an eagle from yesterday's post, I feel like I have frequently been the eagle happening upon unwitting cats ready to do battle against what, they don't really know. There are aspects of my personality and my appearance that can lull people into a false sense of security. I can seem very unassuming, easy to not notice in some ways because I keep my own counsel most of the time. I'm not an easy mark by any stretch, but it's not immediately apparent to most people what I'm all about and for some reason that can provoke people who are used to a little more certainty, or provoke bullies that are used to a little more deference. It reminds me of the old "Nutty Professor" movie with Jerry Lewis. He harasses a bar tender and is in turn harassed by a "barroom brawler." I love the depiction of the sudden burst of violence, even if exaggerated and unbelievable, especially given the contrast to the slow pace of the first part of the movie.



I'm in a similar situation now where someone has grossly underestimated me. I don't know what makes people want to pick fights, you know? That's what I always wonder when it happens. Sometimes I pick my own, but a lot of the time people will come to me wanting to start something. If they're planning on fighting fair, I will best them. If they are planning on fighting dirty, I will fight dirtier than them. The real problem in going up against me, though, is that it is just so hard to land a punch. I have vulnerabilities, like anyone else, but it's hard for most people to find them and they're small targets that require a precision attack, not your usual wild flailing you see from a typical thug. See, for me, I'm used to fighting your average normal person and the other typical variants of aggressors (bullies, narcissists, aspies, what have you). I have had at least a few of fights with each type and they're relatively easy to spot, so I more or less know what to expect. But it is quite unlikely that any of those people have ever gone up against someone like me, or unlikely if they had, that they would have identified that previous assailant and or identified me as being in a similar fashion to that previous assailant. Consequently, I almost always have the element of surprise to the point where some fights are just so outweighed, they're not even fun to fight. When someone picks a fight like the barroom brawler, of course, you don't really have a choice not to fight. But it is some small consolation knowing that even if they won't be memorable to you, you certainly will be memorable to them.