Asklemmy

Only until I found a therapist that helped me with self-loathing and projection.

This pretty much describes half of the narcissists out there.

Manipulative people work hard on being superficially charming. Making people think they are nice and trustworthy is the first step to manipulation. When someone seems too good to be true, it usually is because they are too good to be true.

If this is something that’s coming up often in your life, you might want to consider whether or not you’re seeing through their shit or something else is going on. “If everywhere you go smells like shit, check the bottom of your shoe”.

I’m pretty sure this is how my little brother felt about me before he went to rehab. He’s happy and successful now and we have a great relationship.

I’m not saying you necessarily have any issues at all, just that this is what came to mind reading this post.

Due to my father being a student leader in his youth, and later a local socialist party worker, I happen to know quite a few Indian politicians. I know people both from the left, and the right, and more than 90% of them are awful manipulative bastards. That's the main reason I decided not to be active in the party. Even though I support their on-paper agenda, I just loathe the leadership, and don't have the patience or will to work with them. I still go to their events whenever I'm in India, like fundraisers and stuff, but I try to avoid the leadership. Fuckers make my skin crawl.

Edit: All the people talking about therapy in the other comments probably mean well, but not everything can (or needs to) be solved by therapy. I think this is one of the negative aspects of therapy when its hyper focused on individuals. This sort of idea that everyone should try to change themselves, instead of critiquing the society is what's got us into this individualistic hellhole. Sure, go ahead and disconnect from these people, or learn to ignore them and be happy; but these people are still there, and they often have real power over us. You can ignore them, until you can't; that's how we get people like Trump.

My childhood friend was like that. His name was Tim. Everyone liked him. He was loud, he was brash. He was a bigger guy. He was not very attractive, but he had charismatic personality, and people were drawn to him.

And he was such a douchebag.

I haven't talked to him in, like, a decade. But last I heard, he was still just douchebagging it up everywhere. No job broke as shit. People still coming over to his house to smoke weed and watch tv even though they're in their freakin' 30s and 40s and shit.

Yup. He wasn't very attractive (but not ugly either), but was very good at talking to people. Manipulating them and playing them off on one another, delivering just the right amount of praise or scorn at the right time. Complete narcissistic asshole if you knew him well. Not to mention really racist.

Yeah, they invariably end up being die-hard capitalist budding entrepreneur self-made blah blah blah and it all clicks why I didn't like them but everyone else did.

Yes I do.

Everybody loves him, super nice person, always available, always has the right answer.

I see he is a manipulative person with emotional issues that keeps everything always compressed inside.

I don't judge beautiful smart people outwardly, but by their actions and behaviour. For example, beautiful and shrewd woman who rises to be a principal in a school, speaks loudly on the phone when a quiet accountant is talking to me, hangs out with her 'friend' (colleague) the majority of the time, proceeds to make a student drop a subject discreetly without informing the subject teacher, and attempts to make me cover a class with a 'polite' request that didn't give the option of 'No'. It's only been one month!

They exist (think of every scandal involving a jerk celebrity) but I like to hope it's not that common.

I hate what candace owens says but boi is she pwetty. If I ever have to leave under nazi boot i chose hers lmao

Not IRL, no. Those people just exhaust and disappoint everyone, who would wanna be around them? I'm also from a normal country and not from a "the bag is all that matters, fuck humanity" one so maybe that changes things?

I've made films and one of my closest friends is a model. Nobody is all that attractive in any objective sense. Moreover, nobody cares how smart anyone else is, and if someone seems loved by everyone around them, congratulate them for finding their tribe. Go find yours and worry less about other people.