Narcissists fall in love with the brightest, most honest, sensitive, and intelligent human beings. They aim for the best, not because they aspire to those qualities themselves, but because they lack them. They don’t have a light to share themselves, so they want someone who provides it, someone who is the whole package: gorgeous, intuitive, generous, boundlessly giving when it comes to emotions, and self-sacrificing in ways that are the best of what humanity has to offer.
But first, they test all of you in private, not by questioning, but through orchestrated events that force you to reveal your emotional code. They don’t require loyalty; they provoke it. They will encourage you to display your loyalty in actions that at the moment are sensible but wrong in retrospect when you think.
It starts as a good story, a story of betrayal in the past in which they cast themselves as the misunderstood, the abandoned, the ones who gave everything and received nothing. They tell it with emotions so raw it steals your breath, engaging you in a silent pact to never become like the individuals who hurt them. Before you know it, you are defending them against your own reality.
Then they escalate. They’ll do something absurd in a group, knowing it could make everyone feel uneasy, but what they’re doing is watching you gauge whether or not you’ll stand up for their action, remain silent, or back down. Each reaction is information; each pause, a calculation.
They quietly imply that you have someone close to you who is toxic, jealous, or cruel and instruct you to step back, not because they worry about your safety, but to see if you will step back for them on demand. When you set boundaries, they back off. They don’t fight; they leave. Their silence is suffocating; their leaving is punishing. It causes you discomfort so intense that you start questioning your right to protect your peace.
And before you even apologize or step back just to stop the tension, they cite it as evidence that your compassion is stronger than your self-respect. To them, loyalty isn’t love, it’s control. It’s all about rearranging your notion of self for their comfort, their perspective, and their desires more than anything else. The moment you have them convinced that you will compromise on yourself just to hold on to them, the trap is sprung.
Here in this topic, I am going to discuss five bizarre loyalty tests that narcissists employ to ensnare you early.
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