The Biggest Red Flag of the Narcissist

I want to talk about the biggest red flag to spot the narcissist or the psychopath coming from a mile away so you don’t get sucked into the abusive cycle.
This is the question that everybody asks at the end: “How did I get sucked in?” “How didn’t I see it?”
Well, the answer is that it didn’t look like abuse at first. In fact, it looked nice. That’s why I want to explain this to you. This is about the difference between flattery and compliments.
It’s not the same thing.
It’s important to recognize the difference because that’s how you can get pulled into an emotional manipulator like a narcissist or a psychopath, through the flattery.
Flattery is like a shallow praise. It’s very calculated. It expects something in return. There’s a need for approval. There’s some sort of trust-seeking with the other person. It’s very mechanical, it’s very false.
In the dictionary, it’s defined as excessive praise and it’s also defined as insincere and almost always has an ulterior motive.
So, essentially when someone is flattering you, they want something from you.
And the word “to flatter” comes from the old French word flatter, which actually means to stroke with the hand or caress.
So, when you flatter someone, it’s like you’re stroking their ego to get what you want and that’s what they are doing with you at the beginning.
A compliment is a genuine expression of respect or admiration. It’s saying something nice about someone.
It’s not expecting anything in return. It’s not like I compliment you and then I expect you to compliment me right back or to say the same thing right back or to find something to say about me, that’s not what it’s about.
Complimenting is a genuine expression of admiration. It’s spontaneous, it’s given, it’s very natural.
So, when you first meet a narcissist, sociopath, or psychopath, there’s this intense part at the beginning of that relationship that they call the idealization or the love-bombing.
This is when they’re constantly bombarding you with communication like texts, phone calls, drawn out long phone calls, or long emails.
They’re spending all their time with you or they want to know what you’re doing all the time.
Essentially, they’re trying to secure your love and trust. During this time, they’re going to be constantly flattering you.
They’re going to be telling you all sorts of wonderful stuff about yourself.
What they’re doing is, they’re warming you up to become a reliable supply of nourishment, to provide them with what they need, which is the praise, admiration and attention.
They will get you addicted to that pleasure and gratification. Your brain gets high on dopamine and oxytocin. And then while they’re flattering you, they’ll also very subtly learn what your vulnerabilities and insecurities are. Then they’re going to hone in on those and flatter those over time. So, what’s happening is you’re learning to transfer your sense of approval from inside yourself to this person.
This is the first stage of abuse. Maybe you meet this person they’re constantly giving you all this attention, attention and attention. They’re telling you how amazing you are and then at some point as you learned, things take a sharp left turn. That flattery very quickly turns into a hundred and eighty degrees.
Now, maybe they’re subtle digs at first and then it just becomes cutting criticism. You always want to be aware of when this person is genuinely complimenting you or not. Are they saying something nice to you or about you, or do they have an ulterior motive like they’re trying to stroke your ego to get you to give them something, to get you to do something for them?
It’s important to recognize the difference between the flattery and the criticism.
Your response is to stop that immediate, instinctual urge to transfer your approval to that person and just melt into the flattery. Know who you are. Have that self-esteem, that confidence in yourself. Don’t rely on someone else to give you that. Then you don’t have to fall for it. Then you don’t have to melt in front of them. So, that’s the thing, the narcissist can’t survive without that.
They can’t survive without the constant flattery, attention, and adoration. They always want to look good. That’s why they’re starting to flatter you first because they want this in return.
Then, if you’re not giving them that supply, they’re going to punish you. They’re either going to start putting you down or use cruelty, humiliation, and criticism toward you to get what they want.
Maybe you’ve even observed this in social situations. You walk into a cafe or something and typically you’ll see this more with groups of women.
You’ll see a group of women together and this is like the best example of flattery. It’s like everybody is going around flattering everybody else and it’s disgusting. You almost want to vomit when you hear it and see it because it’s so fake. You know it’s not real but they’re getting off on it. It’s like they’re feeding each other’s egos. You don’t want to get involved in social scenes like that because when it goes to that extreme in that direction, it’s going to flip in the other direction. And it’s going to start very subtly. Those friendships are going to erode into full-on criticism, cruelty, humiliation, cutting down and you don’t want to be a part of that.
Sometimes that initial idealization phase, the love-bombing phase, goes on for a long time. It could be a period of weeks, it could be a period of months, it could be a period of years.
The difference has something to do with the narcissist eyeing you up. They’re trying to decide, are you going to be the person who is just going to be there for a short while and then you’re eventually going to realize what’s going on and leave? Or are you going to be that enabler that they can keep in their life and always have there to blame, to take responsibility, to doubt him or herself and accept all the responsibilities in the blame of what’s going on, to make excuses, to always forgive and keep staying and coming back for more. Or are you the kind of person that is going to realize what’s happening and then going to leave?
So, if they think that you’re going to be there for a really long time then they’re going to butter you up to be the enabler and it could be years of love-bombing.
I’ve talked to people who have been in decades-long marriages and they didn’t see that flip, that other side of their partner, for a really long time.
Sometimes, it’s only a few weeks and then it goes from the flattery directly to the putting you down phase. That’s when the abuser knows that you’re a transitional supply to them, you’re not a long-term thing. They’re going to get in and out and get what they want from you. They know that you’re either going to leave or they’re just going to discard you before you can discard them.
So, what’s the answer? What could you do? I think the advice is this simple. Are you ready?
Slow down.
People talk about the slow food movement. So how about starting the slow love movement? Give this person some time to show you who they are and if you’re afraid that person is not going to hang around, that they’re going to leave you if you want to take your time to get to know them before you jump in bed with them or before you go on vacation with them or before you move in with them or before you become best friends, if that person is so anxious to lock you down, that’s not a good sign. That’s definitely a red flag. Let them go. The thing is that people paint themselves over time. So give them the time to do that and resist the urge to see what you want to see. Observe their communication.
How are they communicating with you?
What is it like?
How are they communicating with other people?
What can you observe?
What’s their communication like with their friends and their family?
Are they constantly bombarding you with this intense amount of attention at the beginning, even though it seems like it’s positive attention?
If that’s the case, that’s your answer. That’s definitely a red flag.
So, that’s the most important thing you want to be aware of from the get-go, from the point when you just meet a person. You want to give them the opportunity to show you how they’re communicating with you. Observe that and see if it’s meeting these red flags.
Are they offering you excessive flattery? Do they expect you to flatter them in return? That could be a new friend that you meet or someone at work and not just someone that you date.
Maybe your new friend is even flat out telling you that he or she loves to be around groups of people that are flattering each other all the time and don’t you just love that?
What they’re doing is they’re telling you indirectly, “I need you to flatter me”, “Can you go ahead and flatter me because I really need this to survive!”
That’s the biggest red flag of the narcissist.
I hope that’s helpful to you. I just wanted to put that out there because I keep hearing this question over and over again.
I’ve been thinking back to past relationships, intimate relationships, friendships, roommates, neighbors, etc. with narcissists, sociopaths, and psychopaths, and I kept thinking what was that one sign? What was the one thing from the beginning that just repeated over and over again and this is it. It’s the flattery.
You don’t want to be like your abuser either. So, keep that in mind, when you’re approaching your own social situations. Are you offering flattery? Or are you offering genuine compliments?
