 hmm you look too cheerful I have to restore your reality testing and take you down a peg you think this is going to be a good year not if you keep watching my videos so today we are going to discuss romantic attraction why do you want to be intimate with the narcissist why do we want to create a couple or a diet with the narcissist in a previous video we discussed sexual attraction not romantic attraction the first of all before we proceed there's a big difference between sexual attraction and romantic attraction sexual attraction is usually premised on sexual differentiation sexual orientation and sexual preference so for example you could be bisexual sexually but heteroromantic in other words you could sleep with both sexes but you would have love affairs only with a member of the opposite sex the combinations the permutations are endless you could be homosexual and heteroromantic you could be asexual and heteroromantic etc etc so sexual attraction and romantic attraction have different manifestations and different etiologies etiology means reasons psychological reasons the psychodynamic processes involved in sexual attraction and romantic attractions are very very different that's why I divided it to two videos why are you attracted to the narcissist sexually and now this video why are you attracted to the narcissist romantically and I'm not sure at all they you're gonna like the answers and a proper romantic attraction to the narcissist my name is Sambaknin I'm the author of Malignan self-love narcissism revisited I'm a former visiting professor of psychology and currently on the faculty of see ups which stands for Commonwealth Institute for Advanced Professional Studies Cambridge United Kingdom Toronto Canada Outreach Campus in Lagos Nigeria where else first of all before we before we enter the topic before we peruse the topic remember that the narcissist has two major instruments two major tools to get you involved in his life and in his shared fantasy to render you in a complex and a collaborator and an element of the shared fantasy the first tool is called empathy the narcissist is able to scan you to sport your vulnerabilities and weaknesses and frailties and needs so the narcissist does possess empathy but it is only reflexive and cognitive the emotional component of empathy is missing in narcissism as well as in other disorders such as psychopathy and to some extent borderline so the narcissist called empathy allows him to map you create a map of you the terrain the topology the hidden treasures the streams the forest the hills the valleys and the narcissist gets acquainted with your topography psychological topography to the very minute detail this of course allows the narcissist to manipulate you to leverage this knowledge of this intimate knowledge I would say to his benefit he presents to you a set of enticing incentives which you cannot resist for example the Hall of Mirrors the narcissist broadcasts to you come and see yourself idealized perfect through my gaze another element is the dual mothership I will be your mother says the narcissist I will love you unconditionally all you have to do is regress to infancy infantilize all you have to do is give up on your personal autonomy and independence agency and become a dependent a surrogate of me an extension so this is the dual mothership and then there's of course the shared fantasy which includes strong elements of evading avoiding and withdrawing from reality on the one hand and a promised rosy pink future future that is blemishless and embodies and reifies the perfection of the narcissist and of yourself your newly acquired perfection through the narcissist gaze so the shared fantasy includes an element of a present it's a fantasy it's not a reality so it's not bruising it's not painful it's not hurtful it's not challenging and an element of the future which is going to be perfect you will live happily ever after all your wishes and dreams and aspirations will come true within the shared fantasy which would render you even more perfect if possible so these are the transmissions and messages of the narcissist and he tailors them to fit your profile he uses his cold empathy to delineate your contours to peruse and study in depth your content so to speak your essence your quiddity who you truly are and then he generates sometimes on the fly a shared fantasy that fits you like hand in glove so this is mechanism number one the cold empathy the second mechanism is an entraining the narcissist ability by repeating structured sounds known as speech the narcissist ability to condition you to reshape literally physically your brain rewire it create new pathways and generate waves which tally which clone which replicate the waves of the narcissist brain this phenomenon is known as an training and it's been recently discovered in music in the field of music but the narcissist uses speech especially verbal abuse to render your brain an exact copy of his he clones you he entrains you he installs in your mind introjects his own voice and his own voice in your mind his introject collaborates with other voices in your mind which are not friendly to you there's a coalition a hostile coalition an axis of evil operating inside your mind the serpent's voice so these are the basic tools of the narcissist but why would you why would you gravitate towards something like this why would you consent to such a pernicious nefarious deal why would you in a way subject yourself to mistreatment and torture and abuse more than willingly I would even say addicting I've mentioned some of the reasons maybe you're not happy with reality and so you want to escape reality avoid it run away from it the narcissist offers you a paracosm an alternative of virtual reality a metaverse where you can ensconce yourself cocoon yourself under the narcissist's auspices in firewall and protection and within this shared fantasy which is essentially kind of matrix within the shared fantasy it's a womb within the shared fantasy you feel reborn the experience of a second child would being loved unconditionally by a mother figure a maternal figure which is a narcissist something perhaps you have never had the chance to experience a mitigated self-love for a perfect being that you had become through the narcissist gaze a maternal maternal love this is your chance to to your chance at a second childhood which maybe this time would end much better so these are strong motivations to collude with the narcissist to conspire with the narcissist to create together a space which would cater to these deep psychological needs pathologies deformities and deficiencies in you to the outcome of an autobiography which is suboptimal less than optimal so it's a question of also a question of modeling in early childhood you're exposed to the examples of role models role models such as parental figures but also influential peers and maybe teachers mass media actors singers and so on so forth so you're exposed to role models in childhood especially early childhood deformity years up to age six and then later on well into the end of adolescence and modeling creates something called typing you become a type you become you but you usually conform to some type now you came up with the idea of archetypes that's not what I'm talking about not about a type of personality the five-factor personality model tries to capture some of these elements to some extent the MBTI and so on so forth so you become a type modeling which is social learning theory Mandura and others starting in 1985 modeling leads to typing and so these are your formative years there are two periods zero to six and then adolescence and maybe you have learned during this period that abuse is a normal acceptable mode of communication it's a way to manipulate other people and regulate them control them and accomplish favorable outcomes you come you have come to identify abuse with self-efficacy abuse becomes your comfort zone you feel good when you are being abused because you know the rules of the game you know the ropes you don't feel lost you know you can anticipate and predict behavior of people around you abuse becomes a preferable mode of existence existential mode so modeling and typing could lead you to become a perfect example a perfect sample or specimen of an abused victim and you would be attracted to abusers because only abusers could provide you with this ambience where you feel safe and stable and secure and protected this is one reason you would gravitate towards the narcissist and find him romantically irresistible resonate with him powerfully to inflames soul soulmates and so on so forth don't forget that the narcissist has an advantage he comes from the very same environment typically not always he comes from the very same environment as you do he has had his own share of early childhood conflicts and trauma and abuse so he understands you on a ve on a deep on a profound level he can engineer himself and reverse engineer you so that you click into each other like so many Lego blocks become a single symbiotic entity merger infusion the worst sense of the word this is reasonable reason number two you may have a bed object inside you maybe inside you there are voices that keep informing you how unworthy you are how unlovable you are how inadequate you are failure stupid ugly slattish you name it voices inside you that are harsh sadistic inner critic superego call it what you will and they keep chastising you putting you down criticizing you demeaning you debasing and degrading you challenging you doubting you this is known as a bad object this constellation of voices is known as a bad object and then the narcissist feels familiar it's as if the narcissist is your bed object externalized outsourced it's as if the narcissist resonates extremely powerfully with a bad object inside you concurs with the voices that keep telling you how unlovable you are or how imperfect you are or what a failure you are and so on so forth even in the love-bombing phase even in the love-bombing phase when you're being idealized totally idealized and even then it is a bed object strategy what does love bombing mean idealization it means a narcissist rejects you as you are the narcissist doesn't want you as you are imperfect sometimes ornery unlovable atrobilious look it up traculent I don't know this is doesn't I don't argumentative opinionated the narcissist teams up with you but then he doesn't see you he rejects you as you are the narcissist from the first second from the love-bombing phase keeps broadcasting to you I don't want you as you are I want the idealized version of you I'm falling in love with your idealized version I'm internalizing your idealized version I'm gonna continue to interact with your idealized version because you are not ideal you are imperfect you are not good enough you're inadequate it's absolutely a bed object extension of the bed object externalization of the bed object so the narcissist is your bed object come alive and you find this irresistible you find the attraction in exorbitant cannot stop yourself from gravitating towards the narcissist and then becoming his plaything his instrument his tool his extension an object you can't help being objectified by the narcissist because it feels like you are being understood so fully that it's unique it will never happen again and you are understood so fully because the narcissist brings to the open to the surface surfaces your bed object your innards this extra revision of the narcissist and say oh my god he really gloms me he really digs me he really understands me no one has ever understood me the way he does and that's quite true but the narcissist aim the narcissist purpose in getting to know you so well is in order to devalue and discard you it is an integral part of the shared fantasy it's ineluctable and inexorable outcome devaluation and discard are the equivalents of separation individuation in the narcissist relationship with his mother of origin with his biological mother so whatever you do and whoever you may be narcissist going to discard you and devalue and to do so he needs to understand how to hurt you the most he's converting you in his mind at the latest stages of the shared fantasy into an enemy persecretary object and he wants to eradicate you obliterate you evaporate you vaporize you I mean ruin you not because he's malevolent not because he's evil because he has to you stand in for his mother who had abused him and traumatized him and abandoning or instrumentalizing parentified him did something bad to him and in flicks his aggression and punishment on you thereby allowing him to separate from you and become his own person acquire personhood and assemblance of self and ego which he lacks so this bed object validation the narcissist validates your bed object this bed object validation feels like having found your perfect resonance and this is where all these legends of twin flames and soulmates and I know what else emerge from next the narcissist offers you external regulation most partners of narcissists suffer from regulatory problems self regulatory problems they are either they are emotionally dysregulated borderlines or they have problems with control like co-dependence or they can't regulate themselves for a variety of reasons maybe they're in a vulnerable moment in time or they've just broken up with someone some bad things have happened to them I don't know their parents have died or whatever so they are in a vulnerable moment but for whatever whatever the reason may be the partners of analysis is have a self regulatory deficit and he and this creates in them anxiety because in the absence of self regulation there is dissonance their internal conflicts that erupt including cognitive dissonances and this creates anxiety you don't want to be dysregulated dysregulation means you're losing control of yourself of your life and of course it is very terrifying who creates anxiety so here comes analysis is and he offers you external regulation he's so self-confident so self-assured displays such a high self-esteem or if he is overt and grandiose or on the very contrary is so humble is so modest he presents as a safe bear of hands is stable that's the covert narcissism either way you feel that he is trustworthy you feel that you can deposit yourself hand over yourself in his hands you feel that you're in good hands so he can then regulate you externally he can stabilize your moods he can regulate your emotions is a rock is safe place in a safe space this is particularly appealing to borderlines but not only also to co-dependence and other types and also to healthy people sometimes healthy people are tired of being so strong all the time they need to be weak for a while they need to be dependent and clinging for a while they need to let go of the need to control and master others for they even healthy strong resilient people need a break from time to time and here comes a narcissist and says leave it to me I will bear all the responsibility you will not be responsible anymore you will not pay the consequences of your actions it will be on me and so this is very anxiolytic this surrender of control mitigates ameliorates and modulates anxiety the narcissist becomes your anti-anxiety or anxiolytic medication you self we begin to self medicate with the narcissist you begin to rely on him more and more refer to him more and more defer to his opinions more and more and perceive reality as mediated through him in other words the narcissist impairs your reality testing but it's a very attractive package deal if you're with me says the narcissist you need to worry no more the next reason you are attracted to the narcissist romantically is because you hate yourself not all partners of narcissists hate themselves I want to emphasize there is no type of partner everyone is attracted to the narcissist borderlines and co-dependence and other mentally disordered and mentally ill people of course but also healthy people in a bad period in their lives so but some people are attracted to the narcissist because the narcissist guarantees punishment he is punitive and they are self punitive the bad object inside them informs them that they are deserving of penalty or punishment or sanctions because whatever they do is wrong insufficient misbehavior or misconduct and so on this is these are usually parental voices and this harsh inner critic pushes people towards the narcissist because abuse is guaranteed teaming up with the narcissist is a form of self-harming trauma bonding is a form of self-harming self-trashing self-defeat self-destruction is like committing suicide by narcissists you know like suicide by cup suicide by narcissists I have been told that I should never use the word suicide that's one of the reasons I'm being shadow band on on YouTube because I don't use the idiotic word and alive suicide honey's and bunny's suicide when you team up with the narcissist is because you are spiraling down you're out of control you're dysregulated perhaps you have suicidal ideation you hate yourself you load yourself you abuse substances you're going nowhere your life seems bleak and destitute and hopeless and you just want to die the narcissist is the agent of your self-destruction he is the grim reaper of your own he rips your own self-loathing he harvests your self-hatred and so he amplifies him he magnifies him and he hurls it back at you and he becomes the perfect fountain source of your disintegration it's a good reason to choose a narcissist and finally there's the issue of projective identification sometimes you choose a narcissist because the narcissist is a child and as an infant the narcissist uses or deploys infantile primitive defense mechanisms such as splitting projection projective identification and others now this is very useful if you're the manipulative type if you're the controlling type for example if you are codependent codependence control from the bottom codependence control the partners with their self-sacrificial helplessness and with their clinging and neediness form of emotional blackmail it's much easier to emotionally blackmail the narcissist for example because the narcissist is so invested infected in the shared fantasy that he would assume any role you want him to assume just in order to actualize the fantasy it's easy to project on the narcissist and then to force him to behave the way you want him to be and equally at the same time the narcissist does this to you it splits you so you become all good perfect godlike a goddess a princess if you're a woman or a stado whatever if you were a man so the narcissist splits you and at the initial phases love bombing and so you're perfect because you're all good and now this is projects on you so initially he would project on you only his good qualities and the narcissist then uses projective identification he this is what I call coercive snapshotting he takes a snapshot of you it and idealizes photoshop the snapshot and then he what he forces you to become to conform to the snapshot to become the snapshot he doesn't want to see daylight between you and the snapshot he and the divergence of deviants from the snapshot provoke aggression provoke aggression so many partners like this game they want to feel transformed at the same time they want to feel in control it's like owning the latest smartphone or the latest car or something they perceive unconsciously they perceive the narcissist as a kind of instrument of self-transformation a ladder to climb someone who can bring them places make them act self actualize or realize the potential or simply someone who is going to be at their back and call service them somehow so this is a minority of people who are attracted to narcissists and these are usually other narcissists or psychopaths and similarly dark personalities personalities who are Machiavellian and some subclinically psychopathic and subclinically narcissistic so narcissists very often end up with dark personalities and with border dependence I agree but narcissists also end up with healthy people resilient people otherwise normal people and only the combination of all the reasons that I've just explained can account for this fact the attraction the romantic attraction to the narcissist is a very complex process because it involves self infatuation self attraction auto erotism self love self discovery self exploration self rejection of some parts on the one hand and on the other hand a fantasy pseudo or quasi psychotic space where it is the dyad the combination with the narcissist that becomes a separate entity so the members of the couple the narcissist and his intimate partner are emotionally invested not in each other but in this joint creation the shared fantasy and the grieving process is a grieving process of the shared fantasy the partners of narcissists never see the narcissist for who is or at least until very late in the relationship and the narcissist never sees the intimate partners for who they are both parties idealize each other and both parties enter the twilight zone of the shared fantasy and there both parties pursue their own agendas actually interacting with internal objects in figments in their own minds this is the amazing quality of the relationship with the narcissist it's a hallucination it's self delusion it is a dream or a nightmare it is a dream state or a dreamscape you the narcissist not really there you're talking to yourself you're loving yourself you end up hating yourself you're arguing with voices in your head including his voice oh the narcissist voice and similarly the narcissist doesn't see you he sees an internal object that represents you in his mind which is totally divorced from reality and from you and yet he's able to grant you access to his mind and to this object in his mind that's the reason you mistakenly believe that you're having a relationship with another person you're not you're resonating with and interacting with an inner internal object in the mind of another person but this internal object is not that other person it's actually you