How a psychopath views you

One of the reasons I’m allowed here is the extent to which I am able to ‘reveal’ or illuminate the psychopathic condition through not only what I say but how I say it. Some posts, through their subject matter, will reveal more than others. That is not something which especially interests me, but since it’s important to someone, it is fair to say that this is probably one of those extra-revelatory posts.  

People are resources to be used like any other. But they’re not all the same, they are individuals. I don’t need to label them in order to interact with them. All the same, for the people I come into contact with, I categorise them into four different groups based on their value to me. I say “I categorise them”, it’s not something I’m overly conscious of, but when I interact with a specific person I conceptualise and treat them based on their group. And like I said, I’m not talking about people’s objective value, just their value in relation to my needs and wants.

So enough waffling already, what are the groups?

  • Useful – people to be used for something of value they have. They’re a pretty common type. Analogous with tools.
  • Entertainment – people with whom I interact for pleasure. Not too many at the minute, though obviously their number goes up and down as people come and go. Analogous with toys, and in some favourable cases, pets.
  • Threat – people who may cause problems for my wellbeing. The least common group by far.
  • Unimportant – people who have no value, either positive or negative, to me. Basically most people on the planet.

One issue with this list is it could be argued that entertainment is just a more specific form of usefulness; the person’s utility lies in their entertainment value.  People whose entertainment value is very great may become my friends. I’ll have to talk about friends in another post.

So which are you? Well, you’re reading this so I guess you’re helping to support one of my hobbies, which makes you a cause of my entertainment. On the other hand, most of you are silent readers and for all I know you’re not the same crowd from week to week, which would make the individual reader rather unimportant. Nevertheless, that status belies how I really feel about you who read my posts; I greatly value your continued interest in what I’ve got to say – why else would I write?

Should you leave a comment, you’d certainly stand a good chance of an upgrade. And you’d be able to tell whether it worked from my reaction. If I reply, you’ve become entertainment in yourself. It doesn’t take much, just a comment that isn’t completely unintelligible or boring. Who knows, you may even share information so valuable that you become useful, for a while.

You can of course be more than one thing at a time; people I make use of may also be people I like. It’s when you’re just the former but you think you’re the latter where problems are generated – for you. So if you had a really charming friend or lover who left you one day without a backward glance, and whom you now believe to be a psychopath, it was almost certainly the case that you were only being used for whatever your ‘friend’ or ‘lover’ wanted at the time. When they left, it was because they decided that – what is that phrase again? – your usefulness was at an end. Still, at least they didn’t snap you in half on their knee.

Unimportant or not, your views are bound to interest someone. So leave a comment!