H.G. Tudor - Ask 2: The Narcissist Answers

1. Are you ever happy? (From Hope and Shivali)

Our concept of happiness differs from your idea of what happiness is. Whereas you may feel happy, joyful and delighted, we feel power instead. A number of emotions have been denied to us because of the way that we have been created. The necessity to feel powerful is overriding because it is through the accumulation of power (fuelled by the emotional reactions of others) which protects us and also enables us to attract and seduce. The more powerful we feel, the less at risk we feel and the more able we are to charm, seduce and attract. By feeling power, we know that any concern and alarm we might otherwise feel to our existence has been considerably reduced. Furthermore, we experience a degree of satisfaction because of this. We know the creature can remain under lock and key. We also know we have the means by which we can continue to shine, attract and seduce other people, which in turn provides us with more fuel and in turn more power. Knowing we can obtain additional power makes us feel even more powerful because it amounts to validation that what we are is effective.

We do not feel the same range of emotions as you. This has arisen of necessity. Firstly, to protect ourselves and then to enable us to be sleek, efficient and stream-lined in what we must do on a daily basis, namely the detection and acquisition of fuel.

We are able to appear happy. That smile we wear is not borne out of feeling happy, but a sense of growing content at the power that surges through us. We know how to appear happy because we have watched you be happy. We have heard you describe what it is to be happy and therefore, as it is the case with many of the emotions which we do not have, but that which we need to portray so that we appear to fit in and thus we can continue our conning of those around us, we know how to appear happy. We understand the correct facial expression to adopt so that those viewing us believe that we are happy.

People also ask this question in another sense because once they understand more about what we are and what we must do, they reach the conclusion that our existence must be a miserable one, tiring and exhausting as we hunt down fuel so regularly. People assume therefore that we do not experience happiness, not because we are unable to do so as a consequence of the way that we have been created, but rather as a result of always being miserable because of the perceived burden that we carry. This is not the case. We do not feel miserable. We may feel on edge and unsettled if fuel is running low, but not miserable. Once that fuel arrives, the power surges and any senses of weakness and being unsettled are pushed to one side. The quest for fuel is something we have been designed for, something we are destined to do and therefore we have been created to harness this in the optimum manner. We understand (certainly those of us who are of the Greater school of narcissism) that we require this fuel and whilst occasionally it may feel wearisome, purely arising from a moment of temporary weakness, usually caused by a reduction to the required level of fuel, it is only a fleeting sensation and we acknowledge this is what we are and this is what we must do. We accept that and do not regard it as something which makes us unhappy.

2.Do you know the emotion of love and what it encompasses? (From Susan)

Our concept of love differs from yours. Accordingly, we do not feel the emotion of love in the way that you feel it. We do know about it. How could we not? Love is all around us. It is portrayed in the media, in books, it is used to sell us things that we do not really need and ultimately probably do not even want. It is a construct that has been cynically hijacked by the gods of lust and money for the purpose of control. We are no different. We have also hijacked the notion of love and utilised it for our purposes, namely controlling you and the acquisition of fuel.

We know how to portray love because of the vast amount of material that exists in the world which has conditioned you to think of love in a particular way. We absorb this information and tailor it to your particular expectations of what love should be when we mirror your desires and wants during our seduction of you. We understand how you feel when you talk about being in love, because you describe the various sensations that you experience. You describe the excitement, the desire, the want for somebody else, the feeling of being connected, the feeling of understanding everything about that other person. Let us halt there and consider the various descriptions which I have just written and ascertain whether they apply to our kind.

Do I feel excitement? Yes, I do. I experience that sense of anticipation, that jingly jangly sensation

3 Why try to come back? Why not after the discard and all the lies you tell about us just stay away from us? You always say there is plenty of fuel out there for you to obtain and since the golden period is when you actually believe youve finally found the one that will be different you would think after you find out its not you would move forward and not back to the one that failed you. (From Fool Me)

We always come back. We are like a never-ending series of sequels in some kind of horror franchise. The simple reason that we come back is because of the delicious hoover fuel that is on offer. Yes, it is correct that there is plenty of fuel out there and we will avail ourselves of those additional sources of fuel. We will attach to those people and make them our secondary and tertiary sources. Dependent on the type of narcissist that we are, we will have varying secondary and tertiary sources, for instance, a wide range of inner and outer circle friends, various colleagues we have attached to, family members and so forth. They all provide fuel but not quite to the level of the intimate partner who almost always occupies the position of the primary source. You might think that when we have discarded you, we ought to be content in concentrating on the new primary source we have found because, as you write, we believe that person is the one. We keep coming back to you for a variety of reasons though.