Uniqueness and Intimacy

Chapter 2

Uniqueness and intimacy are strong rivals.

Intimacy implies a certain acquaintance of one's partner with privileged information. Yet, it is exactly such partially or wholly withheld information that buttresses one's sense of superiority, uniqueness, and mystery which, inevitably, vanishes with disclosure and intimacy.

Additionally, intimacy is a common and universal pursuit. It does not confer uniqueness on its seeker.

When you get to know people intimately, they all seem unique to you. Personal idiosyncrasies surface with intimate acquaintance. Intimacy makes unique beings out of us all. It, therefore, negates the self-perceived uniqueness of the truly and exclusively unique - the narcissist.

Finally, the very process of getting intimate creates (false) sensations of uniqueness. Two people getting to intimately know each other, are made unique to one another.

These traits of intimacy negate the narcissist's notion of uniqueness. Intimacy may help distinguish us to our loved ones - but it also makes us common and indistinguishable to all others. Put crassly: if everyone is distinct, then no one is unique. Widespread acts or behaviours are anathema to uniqueness. Intimacy eliminates information asymmetries, obviates superiority and demystifies.

The narcissist does his damnedest to avoid intimacy. He constantly lies about every aspect of his life: his self, his history, his vocations and avocations, and his emotions. This false data guarantee his informative lead, asymmetry, or "advantage" in his relationships. It fosters disintimisation. It casts a pall of cover up, separateness, mystery over the narcissist's affairs.

The narcissist lies even in therapy. He obscures the truth by using "psycho-babble", or professional lingo. It makes him feel that he "belongs", that he is a "Renaissance man". By demonstrating his control of several professional jargons he almost proves (to himself) that he is superhuman. In therapy, this has the effect of "objectifying" and emotional detachment.

The narcissist's behaviour is experienced by his mate as frustrating and growth-cramping. To live with him is akin to living with an emotionally-absent non-entity, or with an "alien", a form of "artificial intelligence". The partners of the narcissist often complain of overwhelming feelings of imprisonment and punishment.

The psychological source of this kind of behaviour could well involve transference. Most narcissists fall prey to unresolved conflicts with their Primary Objects (parents or caregivers), especially with the parent of the opposite sex. The development of the narcissist's intimacy skills is hindered at an early stage. Punishing and frustrating the partner or spouse is a way of getting back at the abusive parent. It is a way of avoiding the narcissistic injury brought on by inevitable abandonment.

The narcissist, it seems, is still the hurt child. His attitude serves a paramount need: not to be hurt again. The narcissist anticipates his abandonment and, by trying to avoid it, he precipitates it. Maybe he does it to demonstrate that - having been the cause of his own abandonment - he is in sole and absolute control of his own relationships.

To be in control - this unconquerable drive - is a direct reaction to having been abandoned, ignored, neglected, avoided, smothered, or abused at an early stage in life. "Never again" - vows the narcissist - "If anyone will do the leaving, it will be me."

The narcissist is devoid of empathy and incapable of intimacy with others as well as with himself. To him, lying is a second nature. A False Self takes over. The narcissist begins to believe his own lies. He makes himself to be what he wants to be and not what he really is.

To the narcissist, life is a jumbled amalgam of "cold" facts: events, difficulties, negative externalities, and predictions and projections. He prefers this "objective and quantifiable" mode of relating to the world to the much-disdained "touchy-feely" alternative. The narcissist is so afraid of the cesspool of negative emotions inside him that he would rather deny them and thus refrain from knowing himself.

The narcissist is predisposed to maintaining asymmetric relationships, where he both preserves and exhibits his superiority. Even with his mate or spouse, he is forever striving to be the Guru, the Lecturer, the Teacher (even the Mystic), the Psychologist, the Experienced Elder.

The narcissist never talks - he lectures. He never moves - he poses. He is patronising, condescending, forgiving, posturing, or teaching. This is the more benign form of narcissism. In its more malignant variants, the narcissist is hectoring, humiliating, sadistic, impatient, and full of rage and indignation. He is always critical and torments all around him with endless, bitter cynicism and with displays of disgust and repulsion.

There is no way out of the narcissistic catch: the narcissist despises the submissive and fears the independent, the strong (who constitute a threat) and the weak (who are, by definition, despicable).

Asked to explain his lack of ability to make contact in a true sense of the word, the narcissist comes up with a host of superbly crafted explanations. These are bound to include some "objective" difficulties, which have to do with the narcissist's traits, his history and the characteristics of his environment (both human and non-human).