Their hidden mindset: what the narcissist wants.
Let’s begin by breaking down the narcissist’s mindset so you have a clear picture of their motivation and who they target. Imagine you’re at a dinner party, or maybe at work, or at a family function. First, let’s look at your mindset in these kinds of situations. Maybe you’re looking for someone that you can connect with, or someone who seems likable or friendly. Or perhaps you’re feeling insecure and you hope to blend in. You might also see somebody laughing and carefree and feel drawn towards them.
Now, for contrast, I want you to step into the dark and empty world of a narcissist. Narcissists are fragile and desperate, which makes them fierce predators but luckily very predictable. To best understand them, imagine you’re a predator on the hunt. They need their next meal or they will not survive. When you’re this desperate, you’re not looking for connection or kindness. At every dinner party, work meeting, date, or family holiday, you have two questions in mind: Who will give me what I want, and how quickly will they give it to me?
Recommended Book: Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself- By Shahida Arabi.
So, what do they actually want? Narcissistic supply, which is essentially time, attention, and energy that narcissists use to feed their ego and artificially boost their sense of self. This can come in the form of praise, sympathy, emotional reactions, or even the control that they can exert over others. Without this supply, their fragile sense of self crumbles, leading them to constantly hunt for new sources to maintain their inflated self-fantasy. Just like a vampire can’t live without blood, a narcissist can’t survive without narcissistic supply—your time, your attention, and energy spent reinforcing their personal fantasy.
Think of narcissistic supply as currency—currency as money, a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment. And also, currency as in electricity, the classic example of energy currency. This is what the narcissist is checking: Will you give me the currency I want, and how quickly will you give it to me? They test for this immediately by pressing on three specific boundaries. The word boundaries gets tossed around a lot, but what does that actually mean? For our purposes, think about boundaries in a super simple way—a boundary is a property line around something that you own. This makes sense if you think about a fence around your yard. That’s the boundary line—inside the fence is yours and outside the fence is not yours.
Related: 10 Signs You Are Talking to a Covert Narcissist.
The 5-second test that I’ll teach you is designed as the flip side to the narcissist’s test for you. So first, I’ll quickly outline the specific way that they test you, what they say, and how they check to see if you’re a usable target. Narcissists check for supply by pushing against a particular boundary—your invisible fence line around what they want most: your currency, time, attention, and energy. They’ll quickly set you up to state your boundary and then they’ll gradually push against that line to see if you’re willing to bend. This happens so quickly that you might miss it. So here are a couple of quick scenarios to help demonstrate.
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