Sunday, August 28, 2011

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Manna from heaven

A funny thing about being religious is that sometimes an exploit happens so perfectly that it must be a gift from god. I like to think that if there is a god, he must be a fan.

One time I was meeting my boss for the first time (telecommuting from a different office before). I had gone to the symphony the evening before, which although it is not an unusual occurrence is also not an every week type of thing (I happened to get fantastic tickets from a musician friend of mine with connections to what turned out to be a blockbuster performance). The next morning I traveled the hour plus to the office where my boss was located. We met, I pulled out all my seduction stops, we got on the elevator to go to lunch and I immediately recognized a threesome of men from the night before at the symphony (I had noticed one of the men wearing outlandish orange frames the previous evening, and he was still sporting them the next day). I started salivating because I knew something special was about to happen (all for the sake of my boss?). I could tell upon entering the elevator that these men were talking about the performance 14 hours later and in a different city. Coincidence? That I noticed them, that we were at the same performance, that I recognized them, that they happened to be talking about the concert, that the concert happened to be an incredible blockbuster with incredible amounts of buzz? With only four floors to go until we hit the lobby, I knew I had to act quickly.

"Are you talking about the XX performance last night?"

"Why yes!" (heavy German accent).

"Wasn't it outstanding?"

"We absolutely loved it! What passion! Maybe you could help us, which concerto was it? We can't remember whether it was the second or the third."

"Oh, it's the second" (it turned out to be the third, but who cares).

"Thank you so much! You've saved us much discussion."

And then we got off the elevator. My boss gave me this astounded glance of what-the-hell-just-happened, and from then on my boss was putty in my hands.

This sounds harmless, I'm sure, maybe god would want people to succeed in their job. But would god also drop love triangles into people's lap, purely for their pleasure (as he has several times into mine)? Would god have someone unwittingly confess a harmful secret to you so you could use it against them in a clever power play? Is god in the business of giving good little sociopath girls and boys gift wrapped victims for personal consumption? Sometimes I think that can be the only explanation for it, not that I'm complaining.

Friday, August 26, 2011

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Someone recommended that I read the book "We Need to Talk About Kevin," but I haven't gotten around to it. But, it's apparently the story of a mother dealing with the fallout of having a sociopathic son who has brought the ire of the community to the family. Luckily they have made a movie based on the book, starring the questionable Tilda Swinton:



Thursday, August 25, 2011

Bisexual sociopath

This letter to a Salon advice columnist ("A bisexual sociopath wrecked my life") made me laugh out loud. The poor jilted lover goes on to describe the many crimes to their relationship in which her man engaged (the story should seem quite familiar to followers of this site). For some reason, though, this paragraph stuck out as being particularly laden with humor:
Trying to recover from the shock of discovering his secret sexual life was very difficult for me. The most scary part is that I still to this day can not think of any clues or signs that I should have picked up on to signal his activity. He was a master at keeping that secret part of his life secret. Before I found out about his infidelity, he used to accuse me of being very jealous and his favorite example would be that he should be able to call me from a roomful of naked women and I still should have faith that he wasn't cheating, I should always give him the benefit of the doubt. In the abstract, I do believe in giving a loved one the benefit of the doubt. But considering that he was rampantly cheating on me when he uttered those words, I believe that he was very cruel.
I love that part: "In the abstract, I do believe in giving a loved one the benefit of the doubt. " I think this paragraph sums up the real issues that victims have with their victimizers:
Now, I find myself wondering how he could be so loving and charming when we were together, and be so awful and cruel behind my back? Mostly, I am trying so hard not to be bitter. I don't understand why he could be so cruel to me, and now he is literally having the time of his life without me. His career is at a lifetime high, he is in the most prestigious position he has ever had, making the most money he's ever made. He lives in the best part of town, and he goes drinking and partying every night. Since he left me, he is having the most fun of his life. It's not fair that someone could treat another person so terribly and be rewarded in life. So many people think he is such a wonderful person -- he is very well liked by many, many people -- but secretly I know the truth. I, on the other hand, am trying to rebuild a life after letting him be the center of my world for the last two years. I'm in therapy, trying to make sense of how cruelly he cheated on me and how someone I loved so much could be so deceptive. It doesn't seem fair to me that he could cheat on me so rampantly, leave me in such a cold way, and now he is at the pinnacle of his life and I'm fighting just to create a life for myself.
She concludes: "I fight internally, because on one hand I want him to suffer some consequences for how he treated me and yet I know it's not right to wish ill will toward anyone." The advice columnist gave a pretty canned answer not worth repeating.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Smelling fear

From a reader:
Nervous people have sweat that contains pheromones which in neurotypical people activate regions of the brain responsible for empathy.

One psychopath interviewed by Hare's team said quite frankly: "The first thing I do is I size you up. I look for an angle, an edge, figure out what you need and give it to you. Then it's pay-back time, with interest. I tighten the screws." Another psychopath admitted that he never targeted attractive women - he was only interested in those who were insecure and lonely. He claimed he could smell a needy person "the way a pig smells truffles."

I once noticed that I could smell some girls when I walked behind them or when they walked past me and they usually have a similar scent. Nobody else could relate to me about this. A year later, I decided to walk behind a very shy girl that was attracted to me and smell her. She had this scent, and I immediately felt like devouring her, something like having sex with her or beating her, which have a similar feel. I don't understand the sexual appeal of intercourse and my entire sexuality is based off of scents and tastes.

I have a fairly even mixture of factor 1 and 2 traits but I am by no means a "primary psychopath" because I tend to be more anxious than the average person. I'm not hotheaded like "secondary psychopaths" are said to be, but rather, I set a grandiose goal for myself (#1), so I have to watch what I say. I definitely don't have the trait "callous and lack of empathy" and I get a certain feeling when someone is crying or when there is sad music playing. It's like sadness, but it's shallow, neutral, and only momentary. Anxiety and empathy both function through connections from the amygdala to regions of the frontal lobe, I think that maybe this is intact in me but some area of morality isn't since I have shallow emotions and a lack of morality.

The primary psychopath has many brain abnormalities but mine is probably quite intact, I wouldn't think that something as peculiar as pheromone hypersensitivity would happen in my brain. But it appears to exist. Have you encountered the smelling phenomenon?
M.E.: I don't think I've noticed the smell thing, but there are certain people that I suddenly feel like violating. It does generally tend to be people who have a certain vulnerability to them, typically women although not exclusively. I wonder if that has something to do with smelling them? It doesn't seem farfetched, as some people say that sociopaths are supposed to have super sensitivities, like other people on the autism spectrum. although i'm pretty impressed with your talent.
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