Sociopaths and normal NTs

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Do NTs know a sociopath and a creep when they see one but still play the sociopath's "game" and not indicate in any way they know the sociopath is a weirdo?

I have a difficult time believing that NTs don't realize a person is a sociopath. I believe they are just unaffected by the sociopath and just play along with being friendly with the person.

People with AS on the other hand also know the sociopath is a weird and are uncomfortable around the person and shut down around the person which makes them a target for the sociopath.

Not really. We have a sociopath in our family, well, he took my cousin away with him when she was 18 and is still with her now 6 years later, and won't let her come anywhere near the rest of the family, It's all a long story so I won't go into the whole situation, but to cut a long story short, I, or the rest of the family, haven't spoken to her (or the sociopath) for years.

When the sociopath first came along, he acted all nice to everyone so we were willing to be nice back. But then we all picked up on the signals when he first started the relationship off with my cousin's mum. So we tried to tell them that he's not the right man but they wouldn't listen to us, so we soon backed away to leave them to it because there was nothing we could do. The sociopath had brainwashed the mother, but soon she came to her senses and came back to the family, while the daughter was so brainwashed that she wouldn't come away from him.

But this girl has got learning difficulties, and she used to miss a lot of social cues when she was a teenager.

Sociopaths(especially mild ones) are passed off as being NT most of the time in real life. They appear relatively normal on the surface as a result of not saying what they're really thinking.

I've noticed on Wrong Planet the term "NT" is often used when referring to someone that was acting like a prick in some way, so the person in question could possibly be a sociopath and not NT.

I don't think NTs generally diagnose people with psychological disorders when they meet them or interact with them. Generally it's just "that _____ is an a**hole." Or "_____ likes to BS/make up things/lie a lot."

I dunno, I got one friend that's sociopathic in some ways. He's my best friend. Sociopaths can be great allies if they're not sociopathic to you. It depends if the friendship alliance is mutually beneficial. Obviously anyone with sociopathic tendencies isn't out to manipulate and ruin everyone's lives intentionally, just they consider their lives to be most important compared to other people, and don't care about the results of their actions and how they affect others (most of the time, again if you're actual friends with said sociopathic person, they may actually care about you.)

As far as abuse goes, my friend besides being regularly beat by his parents when he was younger, his parents abused him in...interesting, ways. His parents wouldn't let him read silently when he was younger, they'd make him always read aloud so they'd always know what he was reading. Despite him being able to read since like age 3. Also, he went to private school for elementary school, but got kicked out (or something?) and his parents for punishment made him wear his school uniforms to public school. Because of that, obviously he got ridiculed and messed with in public school. So yeah.

As far as what exactly NTs think of sociopaths, well, I'll try to answer that better. They don't really care as long as it doesn't negatively harm them/their family/friends. There might be some unwilling to hang out due to true moral convictions against sociopathic behavior, but I don't think most people care if it doesn't affect them and/or the sociopath doesn't make them partake in his sociopathic activities.

For example. Let's say you have a friend who shoplifts from stores. Your sociopathic friend might steal you an item if you said you liked it, for example. While some people might go "hmm, this is bad" and would not accept the item and would try to distance themself from this person as much as possible, most people probably would be like "oh cool!" And that's my dim view of humanity. But anyway, how it would affect you is if your friend brought you along to shoplift with him, or had you involved in his shoplifting scheme reselling things on ebay or something of that nature. One, your friend's behavior either has no real effect on you or very little, and the other can have high potential negative effects.

As far as sociopathic acts directly against another person, well, again, it only depends on who it affects. For example, the bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde basically ended up folk heroes, despite being murderers. Because people hated banks. So they were sociopathic towards a group of unpopular people (bankers and cops.) However, if Bonnie and Clyde decided they wanted to rob churches and hospitals or something, they'd probably be unpopular.

Basically, sociopathy is modus operandi for much of the world's population. The vast majority of people aren't really all too altruistic. Basically sociopathy comes into play when a person takes said ideology of importance of self vs importance of others to an extreme degree or pisses off other people around him. It also depends on who "wins" too. History is written by the winners. If a sociopath wins (let's take the founding of America for an example) then he will be remembered by all but God as being "good" for simply winning.

Sociopathy is also a good feature for lots of professions. Law enforcement, lawyers, CEOs of companies, politicians, military people, etc. Those jobs require you to win at all costs, no matter who gets crushed under your feet in the process. So those jobs, they harness people with sociopathic tendencies and turn them into trained dogs to fight other people's battles (generally those people the battles are being fought for are also sociopaths.) All those jobs require control and manipulation of people. The other important thing to remember in a sociopaths mind (or in a sociopathic group,) sometimes (or probably most of the time) they believe whatever they do is for "the greater good" as in the case of government/etc. So with government, in their thought processes, it allows them to be abusive and still feel OK because they feel they've been mostly good.

tl;dr, NTs love sociopaths and sociopaths make the world go 'round.

Sociopath is just the latest term used to describe a PSYCHOPATH. In our politically correct society, we are constantly changing words to more ambiguous titles- its a way of removing the true meaning behind words.

For example, you would rather associate with a Sociopath than a Psychopath because Psychopaths are known to be scary, but really the terms are interchangeable. Some people will see this as an opportunity to engage in a semantic argument outlining the differences between the two, but that will get you no where.

What you need to know about Sociopaths/Psychopaths is that they are like robots- empty vessels- soul-less. They do not feel feelings- they see a person crying- and they wonder why is liquid falling from this person's eyes? They are incredibly dangerous people. They are completely selfish- they will sell you down the river when the right opportunity presents itself.

Aspies and Sociopaths have an interesting dynamic- I think they are arch enemies. Aspies are typically logical, truth-telling, socially awkward, hard to adapt, clueless to what another person is thinking; sociopaths are compulsive liars, they can blend into any situation, they know how to manipulate other people, they always know the right things to say and how to act in most situations. It is interesting when the two come together- i think a fair number of Aspies would know that a sociopath is taking them for a ride- they would not fall prey to the same tactics that work on NTs, because we are not bound by NT social mores. An aspie looking at a sociopath for any given amount of time will begin to realize this person is not an NT- and the worst thing to happen to a sociopath is for the sociopath to be found out- Sociopath don't want others to find out they are Soul-less, because to be soul-less means to have a lack of empathy- empathy is a control mechanism in most people that stops them from committing atrocities against others, because you would on some level feel their pain. A person without empathy is a person without limits- a person without limits is able to horrendous things that most would never conceive.

I think it's easier for aspies to point out a sociopath - speaking from own experience.

My mom got into a relationship with a guy when i was 15. Since the first day i met him i instantly noticed there was something off about him, something that made him stand out from "Normal people". And boy was i right. Soon enough when the opportunity hit, and no one else was watching/listening he would say something cruel to me, with the attention to piss me off, just for the hell of it. And then when i couldn't take it anymore, and decided to defend myself, he would always - always make sure that whoever was there during at that moment looked/listened that exact moment - making me look like the person starting the fight. I tried telling my family many times that i thought he had sociopathic tendencies, but he had them all turned against me, believing his words over mine. And boy did he love seeing how that crushed me.
It took my family about 4 years (when i was about 19) to finally see what i had seen all along. It was to late at this point though, he had already made a mess for a lot of people - there was even this woman that used to call us 2 at night the first year my mom met him - she was always drunk when she called, and told my mom to stay away from him. He always told us that she was a stalker, when in fact it turned out he had played the same game on her as he did on my mom - That woman had lost most of her money to him (having to turn to welfare), and gone alcoholic because of the things he put her through. Luckily my mom had us to rely on and get help from when she finally realised what he was. But somehow he stills has his ways sticking around - he still controls her like he did before - That's the thing with sociopaths when you wan't them to leave, that's when they like being around the most.

So yes, like i mentioned Aspies can detect sosiapath's.

From my observation, society is comprised mostly of sociopaths and those recovering from having been conned by a sociopath because they had thought: "he wouldn't do that to me".

My family is a perfect example. My sister is a sociopath exactly as described above so wonderfully by 1000knives and SoulSurvivor. Everyone else in the family worships her for the charm and magical influence over others. They all know that she's a sociopath, but they all believe that she wouldn't harm them ("I'm strong", "I'm one of the few people she really appreciates in life, because I'm one of the very few valuable people out there", "She needs me", "I'm nothing like those poor stupid, pathetic people that were on her way to success", "I'm more clever than her", "I know what she is so I'll see it coming"). They're in shock when they see that she manages to turn on them too when the opportunity arises (that is when, for some life circumstance, they become vulnerable, isolated, weak - eg. old, sick, dumped).

just like autistics, sociopaths can learn how to act neurotypical, and most indeed do so.
neurotypicals usualyl assume that their way is the normal (and often even 'only') way to be, so it is easier to pass of as NT, if you try it's usually good enough.

however, becouse we have also learned how to act; we can detect other 'actors', so it is a lot easier to pick other autistics and sociopaths (and several other different neurologies) out of a crowd: we know what to look for...