Grew up with people like that. My dad and my brothers. They're so out going and funny on the surface. Great in their element of drugs and alcohol. The moment you dig deeper they're cesspool level human beings. I'm the opposite. People usually tell me I'm so intimidating or quiet, but once they get to know me I'm a big teddy bear. That's because I got to listen to you speak first. See what type of BS comes out of your brain. What actions you take.

This happened many years ago for me. A guy at a party was giving me massive red flags. The final straw came when he outright lied to me and doubled-down on it when I asked if it was true, just to brush it off as a joke later that same day and make fun of me for believing him. I avoided him at every friend get-together afterwards.

A few years later, after I'd moved away, I learned that the rest of the friend group left him too. Turns out he had a habit of trying to hook up with teenage girls and after some event (that I never learned the details of) brought it to light, everybody abandoned him.

God, the vindication felt good.

so many YouTubers.

everyone else is shocked when it happens.

I even brought up text messages from years previous about how "they give me the ick, so I don't watch them" which is responded with, "well they got caught after you said that".

people are stupid, they believe what they want to believe. this is why I'm unsurprised that a pedophilic administration has a cult following.

Narcissists tend to have a certain "charm." They know exactly how to behave to gain the approval and admiration of others, especially in a society that rewards Dark Triad traits.

When you've been a victim of narcissistic abuse, you tend to see through it. But no one believes you, and they all turn against you because they admire the narcissist, and narcissists tend to be pretty manipulative to get what they want.

This is why it infuriates me when people conflate all Cluster B disorders into one thing. Borderline Personality Disorder is more common among the victims of abuse, while narcissists tend to be the abusers and generally from privileged backgrounds.

Narcissists are infatuated with themselves, whereas people with BPD tend to hate themselves. It's two different kinds of self-obsession, with completely different causes and consequences, yet people try to treat them as if they're the same. While failing to identity narcissists, and mislabeling BPD as narcissism.

BPD traits in general are far more stigmatized, even though people without BPD are the ones who both require and deserve more compassion, understanding, and acceptance in order to recover. The treatment for NPD involves removal of the social approval they're so used to and expect; whereas the treatment for BPD requires a more affirming and validating social setting. The conflation keeps people with BPD suffering, while simultaneously enabling people with NPD to continue.

Long story short, if you've been the victim of narcissistic abuse, you're far more likely to be ostracized by society while the narcissist continue receiving approval, admiration, and promotions...

My wife is like this with nearly perfect accuracy

Used to work with a dude who took great delight in belittling others. He was quite Sr.

I thought I was taking crazy pills. "Oh, he's actually a sweetheart once you get to know him", "He doesn't mean to be that way". "He actually really likes me"

People were bending over backwards to defend a guy who was literally getting off on abusing his position of authority. Everyone seemed to think they were the special one who he liked and respected... they just wanted everyone else to "earn it" like they had.

It was scary! This guy had essentially formed a cult!

Anyways, our company got acquired and he was let go during HR vetting. The company doing the acquisition obviously had better due diligence then there was when this guy had been hired: sex crimes against a minor.

Everyone was shocked (STILL DEFENDING HIM). I was like "oh wow it's actually crazy how perfectly that tracks".

Talked to my therapist about this just this Friday. I have a friend, let’s call him Saul. He’s got an air about him, the way he carries himself. Good looking but not great looking, wears a certain kind of goatee that looks a little devilish. He presents as he is a gentleman, has manners, good listener, has a light touch - masculine but also effeminate in a way.

Women adore him! Like every woman I’ve ever met says she likes Saul. Not necessarily romantically, but just generally likes him and enjoys his company.

I’ve lived with this man on multiple occasions. He has caused my friends and I emotional harm. He will act overly aggressive about the smallest transgressions. I put a day bed in the common room one time, for a few weeks, and rather than approaching me about him not liking it, he demonstrated overt sex acts on it. The last time I lived with him a decade ago, he and my ex would berate me and the other roommate, in very toxic emotional ways, like in some kind of sadistic hedonist thing that they shared doing together - I think it came from them both tortured souls from their respective upbringings. Likewise, when he didn’t get his way or the rise he wanted, he would just yell or throw things. Rather than approaching in a discussion, he’d go nuclear.

But that’s not the worst part, because it wasn’t all about what happened to me. A good friend of mine and him started dating about a decade ago. Started out great, romantic, etc. but then he started doing the same things to her, so she broke it off and moved back home. The dude, on multiple occasions, drove the two hours down the road and would just stalk her. Like follow her all damn day. Would make sure she knew he was around.

We’re older now, I see him around town. We have coffee on occasion. He seems to be doing better, got an education, and has a little business that’s woman centric that seems to be doing well.

But I won’t ever forget what I know about this man. The closet is full of skeletons, and damned if this meme wasn’t on point.

my brother's mom is like this. she radiates anger when things don't go her way, and it gets worse when people don't acknowledge it. you feel it in your chest.

i make a point of not acknowledging it. it's childish and it causes my brother trauma.

Adore, maybe a couple times, but usually its even just being tolerated. If a toxic person is part of your friend group, I'm not going to be apart of that. And I hate the whole "friend group" thing anyways. I prefer to just maintain personal relationships and spend time doing what we enjoy. I'd rather hang out once a month with just a buddy or two than spend every weekend with a group.

There's a clerk at the neighborhood grocery I am certain will be caught with bodies in his cellar.

I don't think there's a singular bad vibe detector though. And even within a narrow type, there's still multihlevels of threat perception, often paired with expectations vs one's ability to handle it.

Like, some people have experienced trauma or other bad shit with certain things and get a bad vibe from some stuff, but not other stuff or situations.

And also imagine a manipulative person in a group of, let's say, ten people. Let's call them person M (for manipulator). Then there's person A and person B. Person A sees person M doing shitty stuff, but person A is way smarter than person M, and knows they (person A), is gonna shut down person M's behavior. And all of that just fits regular, casual conversation for person A, so they don't see it as really that "shitty", it's just an attempt for sway or favor or whatever.

But, person B sitting in the corner only has mild experience with person M's actions and classifies it as a "bad vibe" and doesn't know how to handle it very well, and so makes a mental note to poop in person M's food later.

Person A may be a 900 year old sith CEO and this just isn't an issue, whereas person B may be a 6 month old drooling wet nosed monkey. Both can notice, but they perceive and handle the situations VERY differently.

🌞 🌈 vibes~ 🌈 🎉

Nah, i was born without the vibe detector. So I'm probably the one giving away bad vibes.

Yes, although occasionally it is a false positive.

All the time.

Had a situation twice where one particular friend would antagonize other one (different people in both cases), and after some time rest of us would have that "oh!" moment, with that second friend no longer being a friend now.

As for myself - became good friends for almost 10 years now with a person who's first impression to me was not good to say the least.

Me with most people

Yes, although occasionally, it’s me