5 Signs Your Ex Was A Complete Narcissist

1. The Narcissist Is More Interested In Being Liked By You Than Liking You

When you’re dating a narcissist you can’t help but feel like they’re more interested in the fact that you like them than they are in establishing a meaningful relationship with you. Often rich, extremely good looking or otherwise believing they are God’s Greatest Gift, a narcissist holds this over you to make you feel privileged to be with them.

But there’s a difference between having confidence in yourself, in your intelligence, or in what you have to offer and not engaging with other people’s emotions. Narcissists can’t see beyond themselves. They can’t see how they’re hurting you. And if someone can’t understand how they’re making you feel bad, what’s the point?

2. They String You Along

I think it was Carrie Bradshaw who once said that there can only ever be one “Star” of the relationship, the person who is tended to, coddled. That’s one thing. But narcissists don’t just want to be coddled: they want to lock you in a position so that you are always stroking them while they lay emotionally limp, doing nothing. You’re shouting through the walls, doing all the work to be with them but you might as well be screaming at no one in particular.

3. Narcissists Love To Make Excuses (And Cancel Your Plans)

Sometimes you need to cancel your plans from time to time, but it sucks when it becomes a pattern and you’re not the one doing the cancelling. You are forever getting cancelled on. You’ve been looking forward to seeing and spending time with your person but suddenly “something came up” and now they’re unavailable.

The narcissist is full of excuses for where they were last night or why they didn’t respond to your text until 20 hours later (leaving you as a ball of anxiety) or why they cancelled your plans. But where the narcissist is concerned you don’t even need to hear their excuses: it’s because they don’t care about you. If there’s one thing you should know about dating and being in relationships it’s that if somebody wants to see you or message you they will make time to see you and message you. You’re on their mind. If they don’t message you or make time to see you, you’re not.

4. DRAMAAAAA: Everything’s Always Your Fault

Probably the number one trait of the narcissist is projection. They’ll pick fights with you and create lots of really unnecessary drama and everything will always be your fault. They’ll suddenly accuse you of cheating because they’re cheating on you. They’ll blow up in your face about things and pick fights with you and make you feel really tiny and you’ll wonder how someone you love so much could make you feel so numb inside.

5. You’ll Never Know Where You Stand

When you’re with a person who’s really into you you’ll know exactly where you stand in the relationship. Sure, maybe you’ll have doubts from time to time, not about the relationship but that whole “oh my god does he still think I’m attractive?!” thing. In general you’ll trust that the thing you two have going is really good.

When you’re with a narcissist, though, you’ll never really know where you stand because they’re forever toying with your emotions. They make you feel loved and adored then hated and ugly and back again. All told, the real trouble of dating a narcissist isn’t that they love themselves because you should love yourself and lots of people have narcissistic tendencies. The real trouble of being with a narcissist is how the way they love themselves so much makes you feel like you’re sinking.

And that’s no relationship.