It is amazing that we have so many words for different types of rain such as pouring down, bucketing, deluge, lashing, shower, drizzle, spitting, soft rain etc. Yet we only have one word for love, there is no spectrum or a love scale and love is a very simple word for a very complex weave of emotions in most cases but not with narcissists.
Narcissists by definition, cannot love other people but that does not stop them from using the word liberally and inappropriately, it is used as a hook rather than from any genuine sentiment, to make you feel obliged to take care of their feelings simply because they said “I love you”, not because they have behaved in a loving or intimate way. Everyone wants to be loved, so it can seem flattering when someone endlessly tells you they love you, but it is a trap that they use to ensnare you into not rejecting them and treading softly around them. If there were a love spectrum, narcissists would register on a below zero value because they do not respect other human beings and are so cut off from their own feelings that they do not recognise or feel empathy for them when they see them in others, in general they find emotionality in others annoying and they may well get angry or rage at someone for showing emotion and try to “correct” their behaviour by telling that person “why you shouldn’t feel that way” they also do not consider it inappropriate to tell people “how they are allowed to feel”.
If you come from a narcissist family of origin you will probably be asked by your narcissist parent if you love them on a regular basis, very few children would dare to say they do not for fear of the punitive consequences. They will also use the love word as a leverage “if you really loved me you wouldn’t do/not do that” or “if you really loved me you wouldn’t ask me to do that”.
Often the literature on narcissism refers to their “love”, but love doesn’t hurt or enjoy seeing someone in pain, afraid or in difficulty. Love doesn’t try to destroy the reputation of others, tell lies, cheat and steal. Love doesn’t make someone feel constantly anxious and unsafe and have them retreat further and further inside themselves so that the grandiosity of the narcissist can sparkle.
What a narcissist feels towards the feels about others is the opposite to love, it is indifference. Most people think that the opposite to love is hate, this is not so because if you hate someone you are very invested in that person (albeit negatively), a narcissist couldn’t care less about the other person as an individual and are only and exclusively interested in what that person can do for them.
If a narcissistic parent tells their opposite sex golden child that they love them what they really mean is that they want the child who they have put on a pedestal to admire them back. To get the admiration of this favourite child they will flirt and enter into a bizarre psychosexual “dance”, for example they might let their 18 year old sit on their knee and or touch them inappropriately for their age such as kissing their teenager on the lips or patting their backside, a father may grope his pubescent daughters tits “to see how much they have grown”. All of the above behaviour is said to be done out of love but it is only about control, dominance and their perpetual desire to seek attention.
