Imagine poking someone with a needle one hundred times, and acting baffled when they finally react or when they choose to explain why the needle affected them. Or giving someone 345 missed calls, only to label that person “obsessed” when they finally return one of your calls. This is what narcissistic and otherwise manipulative people do on a daily basis. Survivors of narcissists note a fascinating phenomenon that occurs when you encounter a narcissist who pursues you ardently and love bombs you initially. If you give an ounce of that attention back to them in any way or respond to them at all, even just out of politeness, they will suddenly withdraw their behavior and pretend you are “obsessed” with them even when you are doing the bare minimum to maintain rapport or to be polite and courteous. This is a power play designed to destabilize and gaslight you into believing you were the one who pursued them, when they were the ones chasing you all along as they position themselves as the “chooser.” In reality, this is akin to the narcissist calling you 345 times and you finally answering their last missed call – even if it’s just to tell them you’re not interested. When you’re seen breathing in their general direction or finally respond to one of their texts, you’re suddenly deemed in love with them, even if they were the ones who spent years chasing you, provoking you deliberately, love-bombing you, and attempting to connect with you for whatever reason by showering you with excessive attention and affection.
How This Looks
Imagine a narcissistic person who was laser-focused on someone for years finally getting that person’s attention, “catching” the person they were chasing. The person decides to engage with the narcissist and the narcissist is suddenly and patronizingly telling their victim, “There, there, I’ll let you down gently,” even though such a reversal is ridiculous to anyone witnessing it. The narcissist, who has been the one begging for the victim’s attention all those years, positions themselves as the “chooser” in these scenarios even if they’ve been the one regularly rejected or sidelined. Victims may think, “You wish,” when met with these bizarre antics and presumptuous claims, but the narcissist will weave a tall tale about how “obsessed,” “lovestruck,” “clingy,” and “heartbroken” those victims were. In the context of romantic relationships, this can also look like your narcissistic partner suddenly withdrawing and withholding affection and attention after intense periods of love bombing and acting as if you were the one chasing them when you dared to reciprocate an ounce of that same energy. Here are some reasons why they pretend their victims are obsessed with them.
Self-Absorption and Projection
Have you ever met someone who assumed everyone had a crush on them regardless of the lack of evidence suggesting this? Your occasional smile is seen as an inevitable sign you’re falling in love with them. Your ability to respond to them the same way you do to everyone else is deemed a deep-seated infatuation – it can’t be the fact that you’re just a generally friendly person of course. You merely existing is you trying to “seduce” them. At least that is what the narcissist claims, even when they’re the ones who have been spending time and energy tracking your every move. Projection, much? In reality people are dealing with a million different situations and a hundred different people that have nothing to do with the narcissist in their lives, but the narcissist will assume that they are the ones who are at the center of every conversation, thought, or experience.
This self-centeredness goes beyond just them pretending their victims are obsessed with them. When you’re going through a tough time, they’ll be the first to play the victim to take the focus off you. When you are achieving at high rates, they may try to sabotage you because they want the limelight for themselves. They are the first to project onto you their own neuroses and obsessions when you try to hold them accountable or blameshift by accusing you of the same actions they engaged in. Such self-absorbed and unempathic behavior also translates into manipulation to erode your sense of self and boundaries. This is what narcissists do to the victims they pursue and withdraw from. You’ve got to give them some credit – narcissists would make great manifesters because they really do assume everyone is in love with them, no matter how presumptuous that would seem – or at least try very hard to believe that – talk about thinking big.
Gaslighting
Another common reason narcissistic individuals pretend their victims are obsessed with them is it facilitates gaslighting. If they are able to convince their victims that they are in fact the obsessed, clingy and needy ones, even if they were the ones who started out in the relationship as possessive and suffocating, they escape accountability for love bombing and future faking them with false promises in the first place. In addition, they have a handy excuse for any new partners who may be warned by an ex. They can claim that victim was “obsessed” with them when, in reality, they were the ones excessively contacting, provoking, or stalking them.
Intermittent Reinforcement
As narcissists position themselves as the “chooser,” after chasing their victims endlessly, they can inhabit a false sense of superiority over the victim they want to hold power over. Abruptly withholding attention and affection starts a vicious cycle of intermittent reinforcement and continues hot-and-cold behavior that is targeted to make the cycle addictive for the victim. For example, many survivors note that their narcissistic partners sexually withheld from them after pursuing them ferociously in this manner, or suddenly behaved as if they were being bothered by contact from the victim after months of constantly contacting them. Victims become trauma bonded through this intermittent reinforcement because it wreaks havoc on the nervous system, hijacking the brain to respond the way it would to drug addiction. Dopamine tends to flow more readily in the brain when there is that unpredictability and adverse-ridden cycle of hot and cold behavior. This is why victims can feel addicted to the toxic cycle of the relationship, even though they know the narcissist is not compatible with them. However, it does not negate the fact that it is narcissists who are often obsessed with their victims, and will continue to pull them back to the cycle whenever their victims attempt to move forward in any way.
