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What You Can Learn from Narcissists
Friendship with one taught me how to navigate the world.
The new girl mentioned she’d also been to Paris. Poor thing, she didn’t know my best friend was going to start talking to her in French. Then make fun of her accent.
“How long were you there?” my friend asked.
The new girl said, “A couple of weeks.”
“So you didn’t really live there like I did.” A fake apology followed, and then everyone had to drink even more to drown the awkwardness.
The new girl had just started dating someone in our social circle. My best friend didn’t approve of the relationship.
So the torture continued. The new girl tried to make conversation, and my friend shut her down at every turn.
Finally, she left. And I started to feel bad. But I’d seen this go down a hundred times by now. What my friend did was just a dramatic version of what we see all the time — people trying to one up each other.
It’s just usually more passive aggressive.
That night was worse than usual, though. It was the first little hint that I was best friends with a narcissist. Had been for years.
