Thank you for creating this forum. I came across it over the past week while educating myself on NPD, and I'm really grateful for the chance to read about the experiences that others have struggled to overcome. I had never heard of NPD before (not being a psychologist) and most of what is written is about abusive men, lotharios, power-mad CEOs and the wake of destruction they leave behind them. I'm not that kind of man, but I'm not passive or co-dependent either.

I want to share my story for two reasons. The first is that I need to get it out, to know that I am neither dreaming it up nor am I alone. The second is to make other men aware that this can happen to them, even if they are happily married and are not co-dependent personalities, drawn to dominant people. I learned, to my horror, that compassion, combined with bad timing, is perfectly sufficient to suck you into becoming Narc Supply. I have survived so far because before I knew what I was up against, I at least knew that my Narc (let's call her Mandy) was behaving abnormally, and that almost certainly something was very wrong with her. These instincts (which I trust implicitly) flew in the face of her most engaging attempts to hook me, but there were plenty of warning signs along the way (jealousy, entitlement, grandiosity, lack of empathy, attraction to power and control, outright lies about her personal history) that caught my attention.

Mandy is a gorgeous, intelligent and very interesting woman with an unusually expressive face, and can be vivacious when she wants to be, secretive or haughtily dismissive when she doesn't. She is a mystery to most of her peers. Superficially, she is every bit the "prize" that many women on this blog have described their male narcs to be. She has a hovering husband, who either is lost in denial or is hopelessly attached to her. I met her in the work place... although we do not work together, and the power dynamic between us is dangerous (I hold a higher position, but she works with powerful people and could use that to entrap and wound if she saw fit). She initiated the connection with me through bold but furtive smiles and attempts to gain my attention, without actually talking to me, wanting me to pursue her, which I did not do. When we did eventually meet, which was charged with intensity, she was not put off by my references to wife and family; instead she promoted herself aggressively, almost recklessly. But what I could not avoid/resist was that pathos-laden smile. Nobody had ever looked at me with that combination of hurt, longing, need, and I was going through a tough time and responded emotionally to the need to be needed. But the body language was strangling me, and I could not work. I invited her out to break the tension and was shocked by the change: she showed up dressed to kill, but hardly looked at me. That tortured smile was replaced by the cool gaze of a predator about to make a kill. Many of you have referred to this as the moment when "the mask comes off", and it shocked me with its audacity. I made myself as un-sexy as possible, talked about my struggles, asked about her family and interests and made it clear that i was not whisking her off to a tryst. She took it badly and disappeared shortly thereafter, and we did not see each other again for several months. I expected it to be long forgotten when we did, a conquest that didn't happen. But it wasn't. She behaved as if she was deeply wounded, altered her circulation patterns to avoid me, and acted hurt when we did see each other. Eventually I reached out to her, again to break the tension, and she surprised me by being completely willing to talk to me, totally composed and confident, as if nothing had happened. We slowly found ways to have short conversations, about a month apart, always ended by her after 5 minutes or so. I just wanted her to relax around me and to be able to work in the same building. But while she publicly either pretended not to know me or gave me looks of fear/distrust, when we did encounter each other privately she was completely, disarmingly comfortable, even friendly. But I noticed two strange things. Mandy never reciprocated or shared anything about herself, nor did she ever honestly express empathy for anyone else. There was an emotional black hole in her that terrified me. The other thing was that she seemed happy to speak with me when she was doing so, but afterwards acted as if we hadn't spoken; there was no way to build on any progress, no way to reach any mutual respect. The last conversation we had was really friendly and humorous, and then she avoided / ignored me for three months. I think, now, that the chemistry is all an act, and that she's an incredible actress, even able to fake a blush. She must be to survive without the ability to feel. She has never in almost 2 years addressed me by my name, just swoops in when she wants to and ignores me when she doesn't (again, the entitlement). And Mandy's very clever at it. There are no witnesses, ever.

For the longest time I was just completely confused: what kind of person invites themselves into a stranger's life and miscommunicates with such baffling signals? I wasn't uncritical of myself... once I had turned her down, why did I feel so hurt and violated? What did I hope to accomplish by reaching out to her? Why did I desperately want her to be a real person (or a victim of a predator) when all of my instincts identified her as a remorseless predator? Why did I think I could change that by treating her with respect and interest, having deprived her of a chance to conquer me? The one time I tried to confront her about all of this, she glared at me as if I had asked her to fly to Mars with me. Complete stonewall.

I didn't understand any of this (and very few of my friends have understood this) until I began reading this site and Sam Vaknin's site. I'm somewhere between the gobsmacked "I must have been out of my mind" phase and the angry "Sigourney Weaver fighting back against the Alien" phase. I have accepted that there is no middle ground, and maybe now that Mandy feels that she has me safely under control she can find Narc Supply elsewhere. I should feel grateful for that. I'm doing my best to reduce / eliminate contact, and I think that realistically I cannot hope for anything more than the present stalemate. But it has been mentally, spiritually and emotionally exhausting, a marathon chess match with no closure. Its her presence in my mind, more than her physical presence in my work place, that is the most disturbing thing, and of course, the most difficult to understand or explain. So I am really grateful to read that this is a hallmark of most NPD "victims", and requires the most concerted effort to overcome and move on.

It could have been much worse for me. I didn't compromise myself, my job or my family. But I lost some of my soul and I remain incredulous that I could have walked the earth for so long without even knowing that people like Mandy exist. For far too long I asked "why me? was I targeted? what did I do to bring this on?" But now I can accept that I was just in the way, and it wasn't even personal. Deep down I understand that it must be so empty to be her, to suck men dry and discard them and torture her husband and pretend to be real and keep moving on, hoping to keep fooling everyone. I'm left with the irony that someone so deserving of compassion so abused mine. I'm not ashamed to have felt for her, just exhausted from having had to wrestle with and share her madness. And I want my life and mind and heart back.

I'd appreciate constructive comments, even criticisms, but mostly the chance to get it off my chest and know that I'm not alone.