Have people who have been super nice to you ever changed?

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I am sorry to contradict, but experience tells me it actually works the other way around. They want to maintain a public facade of "nice/reasonable person" around others so in public or around other people they are sociable, and when you are alone with them they are more likely to be nice/gentleman (to win trust) at first and less sociable/sullen sometimes later... and get them under the influence of something that lowers their inhibitions and they are downright scary.
A "very nice person" in my life had a major change and this wasn't due to something going on with me, but due to something going on with him that predated meeting me. I suspected but did not fully realize it wasn't due to me until I did a real background check on the facts. The sort where you get a friend to take your overwhelmed self through the mess of downtown to get into the public records. It was worth it, but I was floored by what I found. I have my faults, but this person was cracked before they ever met me, and their current behavior is part of a past pattern and not in reaction to mine. I am merely providing stress, and that is a trigger for people with certain kinds of problems...as seems to be a theme in this thread, and in my life. I am sorry to say I'll be doing more background checks on people from now on before I get involved. I do recommend it for us, because we are so trusting and so easy to target.

That said, most people don't seem to have much trouble with my issues. It's troubled people who have problems with my issues. So if my wierdnesses stress them out and banish them from my life...maybe that's not a bad thing.

It can probably work both ways actually. I've known a good number of people in my life that I suspected were sociopaths for various reasons, and they were all very two-faced people. I can see how what I said would be the other way around though especially for women. Most sexual-predators are sociopaths(ASPD), so that goes along with what you were saying.

Yes, a lot of people.

So I'm going to risk playing devil's advocate because I've been on the other side of this dilemma. Essentially, clingy = bad. Well, for me, anyway. I've let go of clingy boyfriends as well as a friend-turned-housemate because it was expected I 'take care' of her. No thank you. A clingy, sycophantic friend is not a friend. They're time and energy-consuming and I can't handle it. It's not cruelty, it's self-preservation.

Sure, I've also had friends where they'll just start putting me down for no apparent reason. I used to put up with it, but now I stand up to them. If they don't change their tune I stop interacting with them. Problem solved.

I have known kids in my childhood who were so afraid of being bullied and out casted they would pretend to be mean to me when they be around other kids. I don't think that would make them a sociopath. Just them trying to survive. People will do anything to survive rather it's being mean to someone to doing things to please their abuser and stick up for them or how siblings won't stick up for their abused sibling because they would get the same treatment as them if they did or how a parent may not stick up for their child when their partner abuses them or else they will get it themselves or how a rape victim may pretend to please the rapist in their attempt to get away and keep them calm. That's how I view bullies who bully to keep themselves from being bullied themselves and singled out.

I also knew a boy in my neighborhood who was mean to me but yet when his parents be around, he be nice to me. I see that as him not wanting to get into trouble so he knew how to act around them and would wait until they were not around.

I also knew another boy my brother was friends with and he lived on my block and he would only be nice to me when he wanted something. I suspect he was a sociopath because he truly didn't care about people and his mother knew he had problems but she always prayed to god because she thought praying to him would make her son a better person rather than spending money on a therapist.

Last edited by League_Girl on 27 Oct 2012, 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with League_Girl; people who are nice in private but not when others are around, are just cowards who look out for themselves but aren't actually against you, nor are they sociopaths.
Also, like she pointed out, most bullies know when they have to behave nicely towards someone (like when parents are around) no matter how much they'd bully them otherwise. They're not dumb. It also clearly shows hoe ridiculous it is to claim that bad parenting is the cause of bullying. the parents don't see that side of their kids, yet parents are always blamed. As if kids need any incentive to be cruel.

I've known lots of people who are only nice when they need something. It doesn't make them sociopaths though, even though using others others is a sociopath trait. It just makes them uninterested and somewhat fake. Unless their niceness is simply politeness, then they're just uninterested in the person.

It's a sociopath trait if the person exhibits other sociopath traits along with it. Virtually every person I've know that I suspected of having ASPD would completely change whenever it suited their purpose along with other sociopathic behavior.

Sociopaths don't have a conscience, so they just act however is convenient at the moment.

I wouldn't say they're cowards or by that logic siblings of an abused sibling are cowards and partners too of their partner who does child abuse because they didn't want to be beaten up and get the same treatment. Would you want to be a bully victim yourself? That is what calling them cowards implies that they should become a bully victim. Instead I think something needs to be done about the bullying itself so kids aren't pressured into doing it just to keep themselves from being a victim of bullying. But what can be done?

As I have read somewhere else about parents and bullying, your own child may be a bully and you won't even know it.

I wonder if it's possible to have sociopath traits but not have the condition? Probably. I wonder how many people actually have traits of it?

There's tons of mild-sociopaths that pass themselves off as being NT their entire lives. Doesn't the "socio" part of that term mean: pertaining/related to other people(anti-social)? That explains why it's usually other people coming or going that triggers the personality change. The anti-social in ASPD means "against-people".

I'm pretty indifferent to what people think of me TBH. Being bullied isn't fun, but as long as it's just words and not physical harm, I would stick up for someone I care about if I thought it would help.
I'd probably make matters worse though, because I'm not popular or well liked, and I'm a more likely target, so me trying to defend someone might make them more of a target, as might their mere association with me.

If the friend/sibling is popular though, they might be able to make a difference directly.
If they're outcast they might make things worse for the bullied one by sticking by them (as well as for themselves) but if they are outcast and they both stick with each other, they could support each other so the victim isn't alone.


I did get harassed once for trying to help another harassed girl in my class. A boy was giving her a hard time and she just took it. With all the problems she had at home, she really didn't need that in addition. I knew my sticking up for her would be no service to her so instead I deliberately got the boy's attention by simply looking at him. He jumped at a chance to go at me, and forgot about the other girl. I didn't care about his dumb comments so I just tried to keep working on my task (this happened in class). It was the best way I saw at the time. And I was happy about her being left alone, while I just thought the boy an idiot, so it went fairly well. He quit after a few minutes when I just ignored him.


I recently read Izzy Kalman's "Bullies to buddies". It described some techniques for how to deal with bullies. I wonder if they work. It said that you shouldn't get mad and not tell on them but show them that you were unaffected, then they'd lose interest in some days.
It also suggested that a way of interfering by seemingly taking the bullies' side in order to help. If anyone has read this book, I'd very much like to know if Izzy Kalman's techniques work.


As for a spouse abusing a child; if the other parent sees it and doesn't dare do something while it goes on, then she must take steps to leave him afterwards. If she stays with him after that and lets the child be subject to abuse she knows about, then she is almost as guilty as he is.

I like the idea of "get a bully to pick on you instead" to save someone from bullying. Assuming the bullying is verbal and/or I can take the bully physically.

I've dealt with those two faced people over the course of my life. I've had many people act sympathetic towards me in high school. After one meltdown, they dropped me like a brick. That's why I go off about NT females from time to time. It's because most of my peers who did this to me were female.

I used to think that too, and the same idea went for 'get people to blame/hurt you instead of someone else because you can deal with it'- I took the blame for a lot of things when I was at school, and in friendships, i always said things were my fault because I didn't want the other person to feel bad or get upset. I still do it a lot of the time, but it's a lot harder as an adult to work out what's going on and people tend to get more impatient.

Rant alert.
I can relate to this. I have a "friend" I've known for decades, who really would use me as a sounding board and to boost her ego, but was not particularly interested in me, and had an air of " well I'm only letting you hang around as a favour as I have nothing better to do" Other people noticed it, so it wasn't just me. For this reason we drifted apart. I heard through family that her father was dying, and she suddenly turned up - presumably to have a deep and meaningful because my father had died many years earlier. She mentioned that she was having trouble at work because , for the first time in her life, she didn't have a boss who thought she was the best thing since sliced bread. My response :" welcome to my world!"

This may seem harsh , but she really had no interest in anyone but herself. She had no interest in what I had been through. Her father was 80, had lived a full and blessed life, she got to say goodbye, and essentially her life wasn't going to change. My father was not yet 40, died suddenly, left a wife and 4 kids. My grandmother also dropped dead at my kitchen table five days later when her husband , my brother and I were the only ones there - we were barely in our teens, and we had to try mouth to mouth. I had to take on most adult responsibilities as my mother was loath to crawl out of bed till she smelt food cooking. I grew up neglected.

She never asked about it, then or now. She just suddenly dropped around for tea and sympathy cause it suited her and thought I would understand and be supportive, but I was going through my own s**t and didn't have any energy to spare.

Some people have no idea.

I think it's totally possible to be a sociopath and not have ASPD, and vice versa. I also think they're trying to eliminate personality disorders from the DSM.