Friday, April 15, 2016

Famous sociopaths: Taylor Swift (part 2)

I have never actually said that Taylor Swift is a sociopath,* but she I have said that she is a master of cultivating power. And she has been doing so since she was a teenager. So you draw your own conclusions...

A reader draws hers:

I have spent many hours on your site over the years and find it to be very informative. I was reminded of your page again (for the first time in a little while) after a discussion about Taylor Swift's behavior at last nights "Grammy's."

There is a small but growing number of people out there beginning to believe she is a sociopath. I am one of them. Would you consider doing a post about Miss Swift? I would love to hear your take on this along with any discussion in the comments.

She a complicated woman. She's often described as "calculated" which is a term she hates. Apparently she told Kanye west that she approved of a song lyric he wrote about her, only to to turn around and publicly denounce him and play the victim afterwards (this all went down last month).

I like this article: http://m.riverfronttimes.com/musicblog/2015/09/25/evidence-suggests-taylor-swift-is-a-psychopath because while it's definitely subjective and not objective fact, it does interestingly line up her words and behaviours with sociopath characteristics. Also if you google her interview with GQ magazine you can tell that the reporter throughout the interview seems to recognize these characteristics in her. 

You are definitely right, she's perfected her art! 

*And I wouldn't say anything about her other than that, honestly because she makes me a little nervous. She doesn't seem to have any boundaries as to how low she will go to get into a random fight with some nobody or shame some unsuspecting ordinary-man. She's reminds me a little of Putin in the same sense of seemingly indiscriminate life-ruining and potential for extreme pettiness? 

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

What if sociopaths looked like foxes?

A reader sent me this link to a review of the movie Disney animated movie Zootopia, in which this question is at least impliedly asked:

There’s something inherently weird about the “talking animal” genre, especially once it gets seriously anthropomorphic. What if some people in real life were goats and others were alligators? Would you still feel the same way about crime policy and immigration? It raises all sorts of ugly questions, that don’t have proper answers—because in real life, people aren’t easily labeled as pigs, wolves, geese, or tigers. Art Spiegelman’s Maus pushes this weirdness to its limits, with its Nazi cats and Jewish mice—but he makes it clear these roles are not intrinsic, by showing one of the mice turning into a cat in one panel.

Minor spoilers ahead...

The “talking animal” story is, in some sense, a fantasy both about being able to identify someone’s character at a glance—the wolf is visibly not the same as the three pigs—but also, about people having an essential nature that cannot be changed. (That second aspect of the fantasy also helps explain astrology, personality tests, and a million self-help books that divide people into types.)

I think a lot of people naturally think that sociopaths are essentially a different species -- the foxes of the human world. And I think a lot of people would love to be able to recognize them right away for that. But is that an accurate viewpoint?

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Sociopaths on TV: The Girlfriend Experience

Public service announcement: a tv show about a female lawyer turned high class prostitute premiered today on Starz, with all of the episodes available at once. The character apparently gets described by others as a sociopath, and by the way its described, it definitely seems influenced by a sociopathic worldview. From the Rotten Tomatoes interview:

Rotten Tomatoes: What do you think is the correlation between office politics — or even the legal industry — and something like prostitution? Are you trying to make that comparison? Does the show have a specific point of view?

Seimetz: As dark and sort of moody as the show is, we’re not trying to say that this is bad — that the world is bad. Or good. We’re just sort of showing it and trying to draw conclusions as to how we act as human beings. In general, whether it’s law or business or prostitution, I think most interactions are transactional — whether it’s money or what somebody can do for you or how they make you feel. You want something out of an exchange from a human being in general in your life, right? And I think any business or any sort of part of your life is also about creating boundaries and knowing when a relationship isn’t good or isn’t benefiting you anymore.  Which I think, in the world of escorting, is sort of heightened, because there are these ready-made relationships that you step into and you’re immediately intimate. The expectation is to immediately become intimate with somebody. It’s this sort of heightened — or a much more dense — version of how we operate in society.
***
Rotten Tomatoes: Christine is referred to as a “female Ted Bundy.” She doesn’t seem to like people. Then it makes her question herself. Is she a good person, and what sort of character arcs can we expect from that personality type?

Seimetz: I don’t really know what a good person is. I come from a laundry list of extremely complicated human beings [laughing]. And so there have been moments where they’re not so great and there have been moments when they are wonderful. So I don’t know. I think what’s interesting is her feelings, in general. The conflicts that occur in the show are from the aspects of her personality where she is extremely unapologetic about how she feels. She has a flicker of a moment where she wonders if something is wrong with her — if she’s a sociopath. But that’s only because somebody said that to her. But really she’s like, “You know what? I really don’t care.” And she just keeps going. Most of the conflicts come out of that unapologetic nature of the female character, because in our society — and in television — we don’t see a lot of women who are unapologetic, or are sort of OK with how they are in life, and whether or not that meets everyone’s norm. She’s not struggling to understand herself — she already knows herself. She’s just discovering her superpower, in a way [laughing].
***
Rotten Tomatoes: When do we see the real Christine? Is it when she’s working, or out socially, or alone?


Seimetz: I think that’s up to the viewer to decide. Part of the allure of what we wanted to do from the series is for the viewer to constantly question who the real person is. Whether Christine is herself when she is doing her law stuff or if she is herself when she is with her clients, I don’t think any one personality is that simple. I like to say that I am myself no matter what, but I don’t treat the clerk at the grocery store like I do my mother. I feel like we’re all playing roles every time we make a transaction or every time we are in social settings. Not that we’re all completely changing our point of view, but we are all sort of playing a certain part that participates in whatever is convenient to the situation.

Saturday, April 9, 2016

Paradigm shifts

I hesitate to write about this because it's both probably too personal and too random for anyone to relate to. But I hope there is a more meta thought about changing paradigms and what that actually means that can translate via the too specific story.

Recently, I was out with a sort of former seduction target turned long time friend, who has over the past few years retreated more and more from life. We met up randomly and by chance with a third, a stranger. The night with the third turned into hijinsky fun, the stuff of silly comedies with an undercurrent of sexual energy. The stranger skilfully flirted equally with me and my friend, keeping an amazing balance. Whenever my friend would withdraw, the stranger was there to draw my friend back in. It made me think -- this must be exactly how polyamorous relationships work. I've had multiple relationships going on at the same time, but never the same relationship with multiple people (sad!), so it was fascinating. It made a lot of sense too. Whenever there is a weak relationship between any two of the three, that weak pairing needs to be shored up with one on one connection between those two. And although I wasn't really that interested in either one by themselves, but there was something about the combination that was charming to me -- seeing them through each others' eyes.

The stranger ends up too drunk to drive home, but everyone has a car and everyone is far from home. It came down to a coin flip, but eventually it gets decided that my friend will drive the stranger home and crash there for the night, to come back in the morning to retrieve the third car. Of course they hook up, but I was surprised that they didn't come up for air for several days.

I'm genuinely happy for my friend, because I feel like it's an end of retreating from the world. And my world paradigm told me, "say you're happy for them both and then back away." But then I had this crazy thought just pop in my mind -- if I back away, this relationship will fail. Why? My mind reasoned, as if on its own, based on my observations of what I knew about them (I had tried to set the stranger up with other random strangers that night, so the stranger told me what to look for) there were at least a half a dozen ways in which my friend failed to meet the stranger's expectations. But I did meet those particular criteria. Same for what my friend is looking for -- so many things the stranger failed at, that I happened to meet. And there was also a half dozen ways that I failed to meet what each of them were looking for in ways that they matched for each other, most importantly that I was actually looking for a romantic relationship with either of them.

I had these thoughts in what felt like a moment of clarity for me, like seeing a math problem a different, better way. My mind told me that the optimal thing to do in terms of their relationship wouldn't be to adopt the societal paradigm of don't-be-a-third-wheel paradigm, but to continue to fill each's needs in the way that their new partner couldn't or didn't want to.

Again, you can imagine what happens here. I try to explain this to my friend, just to see if the idea rang true to my friend too. But it sounds too crazy, doesn't it? I mean, clearly I'm just jealous, anyone would think. Another friend told me in an IM conversation re the situation "i think you struggle a lot with things not being about you and it's something to work on." At first I wanted people to understand, wanted to explain how this was not about me this time or about jealousy.* And I did try to explain to my friend, until I realized -- this is my paradigm, and it is the truest I know, but it is not anyone else's. Neither one of them owe you any understanding of your paradigm and they certainly don't owe you adopting yours as their own, even if you believe that your paradigm would benefit them more in this situation.

Because as much as my concept of the self has been flexible, it has traditionally driven me literally crazy when people have denied a truth that seemed so self-evident. I've often fancied myself a sort of Galileo, preaching the truth of my righteous paradigm to the blind who will not see. A defender of truth. But after this recent experience, I understand that the truth is not necessarily always relative, but that in certain circumstances the truth hardly matters. Someone else's beliefs and/or their ability to have their own beliefs matter much more than any attempt at objective truth. And after I had that paradigm shift about third wheels and polyamory so suddenly, I wonder what paradigms of mine are next to shift? Finally, I see that I need to figure out a better way to allow my paradigms to shift in the future without upsetting others who aren't ready/wanting/asking to shift theirs.



*I've never been looking for love. I've never felt like that was true, at least. I've been attracted to people plenty, and I'm certain that I've wished in some way for them to reciprocate the intensity of my feelings, but even that has been oddly not a big deal to me. If it's not a straight seduction in which their passion for me are the "points" I'm scoring in some sort of game with myself, I've always been more into my own feelings for someone I care about than caring exactly how much they care back at me. Maybe this is why I have only experienced very pale shades of jealousy in my life, because what I want most are my own feelings of passion, not someone else's feelings for me. 

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Favorite masks

A reader asks which of my masks do I enjoy wearing the most:

I've been reading your blog since about 4 years now and it helped me to understand myself more. I'm now 17 years old and recently took a look at the different roles I've played so far. And I kinda figured out my favourite one.

When I identify someone as an Über-Empath, I get close to them to tell them my dirty little secret. Extra trust points for me. I'm a sociopath, you know. But don't tell anyone, because people are soooo prejudiced and it's so horrible to always hide. In Germany, the prejudice-card is like a royal flush in poker. You'll win everyone over. They always keep their mouths shut. Then I play the "good sociopath". Yes, I can read people, I can manipulate them, but I want to use that gift for good, make everyone feel better because I, the great hero can see what bothers them. But this darkness inside me is so damaging, c'mon pity me. I didn't choose this.

Oh, the tragic anti-hero. The good sociopath. It's so cute, how they believe in what they say. "No, you're not a monster, I know you. It's not your fault that your brain is wired different. Let me hug you, my brave little soldier."

Another role is the tortured artist. I'm so depressed, so damaged. Pity me. Love me. And I can do whatever I want, because "I didn't mean it, I'm mentally ill, I'm so sorry". Of course, this got me in a bit of trouble, cause tortured artists need therapy. One fucking therapist noticed my sociopathic side. But things are going well, I'll fuck up their diagnosis. Some signs of bipolar here, a little borderline there, with some other symptomes of this and that and they won't be able to puzzle anything together, but everything will suit my good old tortured artist. Messing with therapists is kinda funny.

As for other roles, I have a genius, sophisticated, well-mannered character and then well, my flexible one, always at the beginning, miss Charming.

Do you have any preferred roles? I'd love to see something like that on your blog. You may refer to me as Umbra.

My reply:

I've gotten away from roles in the past year or two. I'm not playing roles because I'm not thinking of people's reactions or manipulating them or even really calculating outcomes or consequences to the things that I do and say. But I'm trying to think what my favorite ones were. I had a charming one for social occasions that was pretty good, but sometimes it took a life of its own and turned into what my friend called "the hulk", presumably because at a certain point it was as if I couldn't control it and everything seemed sort of outsized and bizarre to any onlookers. Once I tried "perfect couple" role. There was a guy that was just the right sort of American boy charm, just the perfect tall but not too much taller than I was, and with enough hair and face contrasts that we really complimented each other. More than that, I think we looked different enough that we didn't seem like we were narcissists dating another version of ourselves, like perfect romantic comedy opposites attract (but not too opposite, just charmingly different). I was surprised how much fun that one was to play. I like unassuming genius too, I probably play this one the most still, because whenever you're smart people sort of demand that you act unassuming about it (particularly if you're a woman and particularly if you're not an actual genius like a Marie Curie type but just a bumbling otherwise relatively normal looking and acting person). You know, although I don't try to consciously play roles anymore, it's interesting to see how much of each role still manifests itself in my behavior. I think that means that there's less made-up fiction in each of my roles than I would have thought at the time. More real me than I would have imagined at the time.

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