Is NT posturing predatory?

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Or am I just oversensitive? I don't mean normal human behavior, I mean when people put on an act where they are trying to be cool to others, it reads as predatory to me and creeps me out. This even happened to me yesterday with a five year old. I can never understand how this is a socially accepted thing. Maybe it's one reason I don't have friends, I don't buy in and feed their egos enough for them to stick around?

Can you give some specific examples?

5 year old trying to assert he's the "best" at an activity even though he's obviously not and covering insecurities.

Family member trying to use reverse psychology on me.

Colleagues gossiping.

How most people treat each other all the time to show off to and one up each other. I can't help equating this behavior to how gorillas beat their chests and it makes me cringe.

> 5 year old trying to assert he's the "best" at an activity even though he's obviously not

That's normal and healthy for a 5 year old.

> and covering insecurities.

I don't think there's any evidence to support that.

> Family member trying to use reverse psychology on me.

Sounds like half the family members in the world.

> Colleagues gossiping.

Sounds like three-quarters of the colleagues in the world.

> gorillas

Primates like us.

Just curious, how high of self-esteem do you have? Would you consider you feel good about yourself or is your self-esteem pretty low?

I'm just wondering because sometimes when people have low self-esteem they may see the actions of others as being conceited or boasting, when in reality it's completely normal.

That's normal behavior for a five year old. They're naturally self-absorbed and brag about things they accomplish.

Are you talking about people who want to "Fit in" so they do so at the expense of their good friends or family members who are "Outsiders?" They do things like start shunning, bullying, excluding. Start acting like they are better than those outsiders because they are scared of being excluded themselves?

I guess this was my point. Why is this normal? I am confident in myself, but I have zero interest in putting on an act to make myself appear better than others.

My original post said beyond normal human behavior. So 5 year old bragging doesn't bother me because that's what they do. This was a kid obviously working to put on an act that he learned from a parent or big kid and it came across to me as predatory. Colleagues gossiping is normal behavior as an extrovert decompression mechanism, but when it turns into mean girl gossip it seems predatory. I just can't figure out why it is socially acceptable unless I'm the only one oversensitive enough to react to it.

Yes, that's it.

I think for NTs projecting personality is normal and healthy, even though it can become unhealthy and is done by predatory people. I don't think this is at all natural for NDs. I feel like most people create a self-mythology and are very theatrical. They don't seem that way to each other (well, not exactly--Shakespeare seems to have figured this out), but they do to me because I can't relate to doing that. It's part of their way of thinking and communicating. The ones who are truly empty inside are the ones you have to watch out for. Otherwise it's silly, but pretty harmless. They are just as confused by our lack of desire to speak for ourselves, and let our work speak for us.

That's a much better take on it than I was having! Self-mythology indeed.

I think it sometimes is. A lot of the people who bully me seem to do things like make poses and show off a lot. They also seem to speak in an arrogant sort of way.

For a social animal making a kill on a larger target isn't what you save your energy for, you save it for fighting the other social creatures for the spoils. That in essence is society: it doesn't matter who actually does what to drive the group forward, or make the biggest contribution, it's about who can strong arm the rest of the group to take the spoils. So yes, a lot of NT posturing is predatory in nature. Also don't forget humans are a species that's been known to practice cannibalism, and not always out of necessity, sometimes out of pure hatred, and sometimes simply for a sense of power over another.

I have had people like this stab me in the back on a few occasions but my thing is that I don't let them get away with it. There have been quite a few situations where I have been known call these people on the carpet.
Especially my childhood ex-friend who started dating at 12 and getting in with the popular kids. Like everyone else, she became very mean and made fun of me for my interest in Disney films.

This was 18 years ago...

There was one time where we didn't speak for nearly 3 years and then we appeared to re-connect. Yet, she still didn't respect me as a person and jerked me around.
She..
1. Refused to invite me to her 16th birthday party because she was afraid that I wouldn't approve of she and her friends drinking
2. She promised to sleep over but postponed twice and stood me up the third time- three days in a row. Her mom also jerked me around and let her daughter let me down which was the last straw.


So I spent the rest of the summer retaliated by pranking her all through the summer and calling her up and yelling at her on their answering machine.

Once I said, "Isn't a shame that you couldn't invite me to your birthday party?" Another time I pretended to cry, "How could you do this to me? You meanie."

Yes, humans are rather unique in our habit of killing for sport, not just survival.

I think I'm just going to hang out with my cats for a while.

I suspect it is not meant to be predatory in most cases. I think for many people it is just the norm to compete in a friendly way.

I'm kind of curious, is this tongue in cheek?

I read a little excerpt of Jordan Peterson's "rules for life" book. (This does not necessarily mean that I endorse him or views that he expresses. I was just curious about what his rules might be.) He seems to hold this view that most animals exist in a dominance hierarchy and that humans are no exception.

So does the average person continually assess their position in a "dominance hierarchy" and try to improve that position through behavior? Beats me...