 Well hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Jonathan Asley of JonathanAsley.com and I'm so excited to be shooting this short video for you today. The topic, not all guys are narcissists but they might be this. Or is it this? Really quickly, if you're new to my YouTube channel, please hit the subscribe button, hit the bell. I shoot about three or four videos per week so hopefully enjoy the content. Okay, not all guys are narcissists but they might be this. Now I suspect that if you've experienced a narcissist in your life, it has to be one of the most traumatic things that you've ever experienced because a narcissist is a person who truly lacks empathy. They lack caring for another human being because their whole world is centered around themselves. Now I happen to be a Leo so I can kind of relate to that. The world does a revolve around me, I'm just kidding. But what I mean to say is they're completely unaware that other people's feelings matter and I suspect that the reason why this happens to a narcissist is because they were so deeply wounded in their childhood that they created a protection mechanism around them that literally is the world is just themselves. And so they lack the ability to actually care about another human being's feelings and sadly that the weight that they leave behind can be incredibly damaging. But what's interesting is a lot of male behavior that isn't narcissism gets labeled as narcissism, that's what I want to address today. In fact, I had an interesting experience some years back when I was in a very brief relationship and I was dating a woman that was interesting because we were talking about our marriages and I said what happened in your marriage and she asked about my marriage and she said well I was married to a narcissist. I said got it. And then the next then that she dated was a narcissist and the last man she was a dated was a narcissist. So I thought to myself well I'm not a narcissist so I'll be her hero right? And sure enough we dated for about six weeks the relationship ended and then I saw a Facebook post that said oops another narcissist was in my path right? I got labeled as a narcissist. Now what oftentimes gets labeled as narcissism and this is what happened in my case. I'm just giving an example of someone who is following a pattern of calling male behavior a certain way as narcissism is that a lot of men are very myopic. In other words they only view they're do care about everyone else but they're literally in their own bubble. Now a couple reasons why this happens and if you're not familiar with the work of Amir Levine he wrote the book Attached. Attached and you definitely want to check out this book because this talks about avoidant love attachment style. Avoidant love attachment style. Oftentimes people who are avoidant have a very difficult time expressing themselves in relationship and that sometimes is labeled narcissism. I'm not saying it is narcissism I'm saying it gets labeled as it. In addition if you're not familiar with the work of John Gottman. John Gottman he wrote a great book I talk about all the time called Eight Dates. Eight Dates by Dr. John Gottman and Julie Gottman. Now he doesn't talk about this in the book but in his work he talks about the three stages of love and stage one is I need my needs met. I need my needs met. In other words that myopic behavior is really focused on getting their own needs met. And for a lot of men they struggle either being able to cross that barrier because quite frankly a lot of men were stifled as boys. We were told to stuff our feelings in don't show emotion don't show we care because if you show you care that means you're weak. So this behavior of being myopic like I said or only focused on our own feelings is because we haven't really been able to feel safe with someone to open up. And a lot of times we go into the dating practice almost setting women up for failure because oftentimes we expect them to want more in the relationship with them what we do with what we're able to give. So we have this expectation you want more than we can give. And then the minute you ask for something it becomes an emotional weight to us and we might start to deflect or detract from the relationship when really inside all we want is more closeness. This is why I always say to the women who follow my work you're in charge of your relationship destiny and you're in charge of the emotional aspects of the relationship. This is why I highly recommend checking out the book nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg. The reason being is this is going to give you the tools to be able to express yourself when he's in that myopic behavior because he's not these are men I'm talking about the men who genuinely care for other people they they have children they have family they have friends they care about everyone else the difference with the narcissist is they pretend to care but they genuinely don't care because all they care about themselves it's the old adage enough about talking about me let's talk about you what do you think of me that's kind of the narcissist everything centers around themselves not every man is a narcissist but they might be myopic they might be tunnel vision and all they need is a little bit of encouragement to get out of that space. In fact I always pimp my book out on every video but if you haven't checked out my book what the heck is self love anyway this is a book I wish men would start buying because this opens up our heart so we don't have to be in that myopic space that space of kind of in a bubble of our own world and and really being able to open up to this humanity open up to other people and that's my invitation I'm really here to say is you know yes there are narcissists and they have done some horrific things in relationship I get that but just like that woman who labeled me just because we broke up with one another she labels me a narcissist not every guy's a narcissist bad behavior isn't also always narcissistic behavior oftentimes it's just unconscious behavior and all they need is just to have a little bit of awareness and draw some attention to it and you might see that your relationship shifts that's just my invitation you take it for what it's worth. In fact you might have some thoughts on this you might have experienced something like this please post a comment below ask a question I read I do my best to read every single one and hey look if you're have been interested in coaching and you'd like to have a discovery call with me to see if working with me is right for you please check out the link below for a discovery call we can talk about this stuff I mean it's a call to see if you want to hire a coach okay we're not going to talk about everything because that takes time but that's my invitation for you as well. Alright I'm going to wrap up this video as I always do first off giving myself a big gigantic Jonathan bear hug I'm going to reach into the camera and give you a gigantic bear hug of love if that's okay I'm going to ask you to turn to somebody and give them a hug of love because we can all use more hugs because hugs are a great source of love. Thanks so much and wishing you a fabulous day. Bye bye now.