Narcissism Doesn’t Pay — And How Psychopathy Can
Is being a narcissist worthwhile? Would the benefits they gain from their grandiosity constitute a ‘life well lived’? When all is said and done, would the narcissist wish they had lived an ‘ordinary’ life of empathy, humility and shared humanity, or would they look back with nostalgia at all the ecstatic highs that came from being ‘superior in every way’?
Life In The Limelight: The Narcissist
What are the perks of being a narcissist? For one, you can avoid feeling shame or facing the painful reality of your life. Grew up in a family which never loved you? Become so magnetic and ascendant that people will have no choice but to admire you. Life getting mundane? Sweep yourself up with a grandiose fantasy of success, and experience the best of what life has to offer. Sure, all of this will be in your mind, but at least you have dealt with the discomfort of reality.
Perhaps the greatest perk of all is having a plethora of adorers who buy into your ‘superiority’. While a narcissist’s grandiosity is in their mind, it can be compelling enough to convince others that the narcissist is truly confident and high status. And as people fall for the facade, they make tangible offers to the narcissist; attention, time, companionship, sex, money and other services.
A narcissist would never admit it, but there are downsides to this life. A covert narcissist gets the short end of the stick. Their grandiosity is far less convincing than an overt narcissist, and they are more susceptible to falling prey to psychopaths and other predatory types.
Yet even with overt narcissism, every adorer eventually sees that the grandiose facade was bluster all along. As the years pass, the narcissist comes to realise that every relationship is on borrowed time. Either their idealisation of the person will lose steam, or vice versa.
Furthermore, narcissists do not always draw in unwitting victims who eventually break free, learn better and move on. A narcissist very often attracts wounded people who instrumentalise them in turn, and expose them to constant crazy-making drama. Many narcissists grow disillusioned by relationships after suffering too much frustration and humiliation.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Narcissists are master illusionists, and this applies equally to themselves. They may remain defiant until the end, convinced that everyone else was the loser, even as the narcissist sits in solitude with nobody to care for them.
Narcissism ‘pays’ so long as you can fool people into buying into your fantasy world. Yet when everything is based on bluster, nothing of substance remains. A narcissist’s life has little real-world benefit. All they leave behind is a legacy of failure and heartbreak, as the world carries on without them.
So no, narcissism most certainly does not pay.
The psychopath, on the other hand, has a different set of challenges which brings different rewards — some of which might stick.
