You read about the warning signs every time you open an article about narcissists. You read about how to recognize them, what their traits are and that they are masters of manipulation, deceit and so on.
A narcissist will do this and that—they lie, manipulate and act to be something they are not. But isn’t it almost impossible to recognize a narcissist by the things he does because as I recall, the most common warning sign is that they pretend to be something they are not?
How could you possibly know whether they are pretending to be good or if they really are?
Since misleading you and convincing you of false truth is pretty much the best thing they do, this is not a good way to blow their cover and be sure they are a narcissist.
But what you can do is look for the things a narcissist would never do, like something that is not consistent with their personality, something that involves empathy or caring for others.
No matter how good of an actor he is, a narcissist will never do something that doesn’t concern him, something that doesn’t benefit him.
Here is where you can catch a narcissist off guard because they won’t expect you to look at things from that angle. Here is where they will definitely make a mistake because they can’t help themselves.
They can act all they want but they can’t act emotions and they can’t fake good deeds. It’s against who they are and how they think.
Here is a list of things that will help you blow a narcissist’s cover—a list of things a narcissist would never do:
1. They hate losing control
Narcissists like acting like they own you, like they are your master. They like to think that you’re completely incapable of doing anything without their supervision or their help.
But all that it takes to spot a narcissist is to see how they act when they lose control, when they are no longer in charge of your life. If the control is reduced and you come to your senses, they will completely freak out.
They’ll become angry and upset and you won’t know the reason why. If this is the case then you can be sure that his behavior is an indicator of a narcissistic personality.
2. They never show who they really are
When you first meet them they are perfect, maybe even a bit too perfect, which should be suspicious right from the start. They’ll hide their manipulative behavior by pretending to be sweet and kind.
They will reveal their true colors but only later when it’s too late for you to walk away no strings attached.
3. They don’t let anyone prove them wrong
One of their strongest weapons is an act of manipulation when they try to convince you of things that are not real, that never happened.
Even if they are caught lying to you, they won’t let it go. They’ll stick to their version of the truth.
Having a discussion with a narcissist is just a waste of time. You won’t win, that’s for sure, you can only get hurt in this painful process.
In the end, they will manipulate you into buying their story, even though you were right all along.
Related: 52 Manipulative Things Narcissists Say In An Argument
4. They will never apologize
Not only that they will manipulate you into thinking that you’re wrong but they will truly believe that they are right.
They think that they are incapable of making a mistake because in their eyes, they are pure perfection.
Even if they make a mistake, you won’t hear an apology. In their mind, everything that goes wrong around them is someone else’s fault and never theirs.
5. They will never forgive you
Their expectations is the only thing that matters. And if you fail them, if you don’t live up to what they expect from you, they will never let it go.
Even if you say that you’re sorry, it won’t cut it.
Every time you fight, they will somehow bring the discussion back to the time you did something wrong and despite the apology, they will shove that mistake in your face. They will never let it go.
When they have to choose between forgiveness and revenge, they will always go with revenge.
6. They don’t have an equal
In their mind, there is no one out there better than them. No one is as smart or as handsome as they are.
They are simply a reflection of pure perfection. They are above everyone else.
When you see a person with this much confidence, you have to realize that something is terribly wrong. No one should have that high an opinion of themselves and everyone has insecurities.
That’s your huge, red, warning sign right there—his gigantic ego.
7. They never show empathy
Other people’s suffering or happiness, whether it’s a good or bad feeling, has no effect on narcissists. They are unable to understand feelings.
The only thing they care about is themselves. They are extremely insensitive and they won’t think twice about saying something hurtful to anyone because they don’t care how that person is going to react or feel afterward.
Don’t confuse honesty with lack of empathy. Because even when you have to be brutally honest, you’re not going to be indifferent to that person’s feelings.
8. They don’t listen
They will pretend to listen to you until you shut up, and that is when they are going to blurt out everything that is on their mind. What you’ve said doesn’t interest them at all.
This happens because they don’t respect you or anything that’s on your mind. The only important thing is what they think and how they feel. Others don’t matter.
9. They are not polite
It doesn’t matter whether they are rude to a stranger on the street or your friends—narcissists can’t be polite because they don’t care about other people’s feelings.
They will act rudely and be inconsiderate to the people you love because those people don’t mean anything to them. The only person who matters is the narcissist himself.
10. They don’t give compliments
They don’t want others to feel good about themselves. They want others to feel like crap so narcissists can feel better, greater and more important than them.
That’s why they never give compliments, they just want to get them. If you get a compliment from a narcissist, you should really look into it, because it’s probably just a tactic for something far more serious.