Intimacy and catalysts 04 February 10 I'm trying to work out why some relationships are so satisfying, and some leave me feeling frustrated. This is what I've figured out. When I talk to someone, and I'm 100% in the conversation, and 100% engaged with them, and they're 100% in the conversation and 100%engaged with me, then a synergy happens, and it catalyses a new state between us, which is filled with energy. This isn't just between lovers, but between anyone you engage with. Narcissists don't want to go 100%. They want to stop at 60% and have the other person go over 100% - preferably the full 140% - with admiration, or attention or whatever it is that feeds their particular meter. Shy people find it difficult to go to 100% with people they don't know. But they'd like to (I think. Not shy, so don't know). If you've been in a relationship with a narcissist at any point in your life, you may have become a meter feeder. You only feel good about yourself, and accepted, if you always give over 100%. So you unconsciously seek out people who don't give 100%, in order to keep feeling ok about yourself.

Helen the Blogger on 10 February 10
My father was the cleverest person I've ever met, in terms of intellectual prowess. But he didn't understand feelings at all. I loved him dearly, but it really frustrated me, that he couldn't relate to things that I did that weren't also part of his interests. He just couldn't engage with you if he wasn't interested in what you were talking about. He didn't know how to step out of the box of what interested him, and to step across the empty space to what interested other people. I think he felt safe in the world where he knew he was top dog, intellectually. Or perhaps its because of his wunderkind child prodigy childhood. But unless I talked to him about his interests, he wasn't able to hold a conversation. So I pursued interests that would please him, in order to connect. I suppose that's what I mean about people who don't meet you halfway in a relationship.

Helen the Blogger on 10 February 10
@Marianne: Sometimes friendships falter because one of the parties is either unable or unwilling to bring new things to the relationship. Once you've covered everything there is to cover in the areas where you have things in common, it has to grow in a new direction or die.

Marianne Thamm on 09 February 10
Just a two cent's worth. When relationships, and I mean here friendships, are about more than just a space to do therapy, then they are dynamic. When friends can reach a stage where they do not project or assume, when they can bring new ideas, thoughts, joys, frustrations and madness to the friendship,then it gets interesting...

JaneH on 07 February 10
Like Isabbel, I think that we all have our moments. We are never 100% in every relationship all the time. Believing that we are and other people aren't may well be the ultimate in narcicssim. Sometimes we need to be able to contribute less and draw from others and sometimes we need to give others that latitude. The art is in the timing and in ensuring that, overall, the distribution is fair...ish.

Helen the Blogger on 07 February 10
@Isabbel: I realise that I'm probably freaking people out (specially the more sensitive among us) who think I am talking about THEM! I'm not, I'm really not. Promise. As you were.

isabbel on 07 February 10
The silence around this entry is quite interesting, do we all have a touch of narcissism behaviour in us at different times - depending on who we are engaging with - or is it a PSYCHO SOCIAL disease that we need to be diagnosed with.? Oh no that could be narcolepsy - which I think is totally different.

Gill on 05 February 10
Wow. Heavy stuff.

Name
Email address
Comment