Predator Blindness
I think blindness is a good word, as I assume people have good intentions if they are befriending me.
Yes I have found a good deal of my friends were people who actually didn't like themselves very much and the basis for their friendship with me was for them to have someone to ridicule or feel like, "well, at least I'm not like THAT weirdo." Some saying as much. Which is funny, because I generally felt like I was mostly biding my time with a lot of these people, they didn't offer me conversation that I found particularly engaging. But we were activity buddies and had fun things to do together. Really I feel the best advice is to just focus on what you enjoy doing and find ways to monetize it. Few things make me feel better than knowing I'm making 2-3x more monthly than some of these people.
I made friends with quite a few predators because these people seem to pay attention to me. It's when I would like them I would have the hardest admitting these are not really friends.
- When I was 20, I made friends with this older man who claimed to share the same beliefs. I made the mistake of giving him the address of my roommates. After one letter, we ran into each other the next night where he started getting pushy
"When are we doing to do this or that?" "Why didn't you write back to me?"
He also hugged me and kissed me on the cheek.
I got away from him and said "You get away from me."
-Then last year, I tried to network with this man on the bus because we had similar profession but he had an agenda as he was lonely.
1. He invaded my space
2. He asked me lots of personal questions
3. He started bossing me around
4. He put his arm around me and tried to steer me into a train car
Not the same kind of predator, and probably not as bad in most cases, but-- I've long tended to attract people who want me to buy them things, give them money, or drive them places. It's frustrating, because I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but when I see the pattern, then I start to distance myself from them.
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...and stuff.
Disclaimer: Views I express are my own and don't reflect any employer or associated entity.
There are different predators
1. Roommates can be predators if you don't know them especially if they think you look gullible
2. Employers can be predators and especially if they exploit their employees for their benefit by making and breaking their promises.
As for your commentary, I have learned to pick up on the fact that someone is a predator and one hint is if they get tog know you way too fast. They will also ask you lots of personal questions.
Another red flag is guilt trips.
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...and stuff.
Disclaimer: Views I express are my own and don't reflect any employer or associated entity.
Other signs of a predator are those with narcissistic traits
1. Those people latch onto you as a friend but what they want are a "Narcissistic supply."
2. Meanwhile, they work on undermining you by gossiping to other people
3. Do things like gaslighting - making you question your insanity.
1. Those people latch onto you as a friend but what they want are a "Narcissistic supply."
2. Meanwhile, they work on undermining you by gossiping to other people
3. Do things like gaslighting - making you question your insanity.
My spidy senses are tingly that this very much describes my boss and I am unsure what to do about it.
I definitely get the feel in the air this woman gossips about me. She shares my ideas with the team for specific niches I'm looking to work in. I just all around get the sense this woman is pathologically two-faced and hellbent on undermining me and I am at a lack of ideas what to do. I know as much that I can't openly tell her any of this. But if I avoid her she has a problem with that, if I appear too positive she has to rain on my parade. If I'm cautious she says I'm too negative. If she wants me to do something I don't want to do she will push and push and push to the point where I have to get really short with her and then she makes it seem like I'm being unreasonable.
I kidding/not kidding generally think of this woman like a succubus and would love to be transferred to another team. Problem is, I don't really have a legitimate business reason to ask for the switch without it just making me look like I'm overly sensitive or just crazy.
czarsmom
Pileated woodpecker
Joined: 17 Aug 2011
Age: 62
Gender: Female
Posts: 182
Location: midwestern USA
I definitely have had predator blindness. Not only am I ASD, but was born to a high level narcissistic mother. This is definitely a setup for being targeted by predators, since I also learned to become codependent in order to survive being a child of a mother like that. I have spent lots of time learning all about narcissism, sociopathy, psychopathy, and just general nasty people, not because I enjoy focusing on the dark side of humanity, but because I've been repeatedly targeted by these types of people, and want to learn how to spot and avoid them right away. There are some specific traits of predatory people, such as charm, slick speech, playing the victim, being overly helpful and generous, being too friendly right away, gaslighting, and a lot more. Some of these people can be very sneaky and hide their predatory nature quite well. I just went no contact with a "friend" who was like this. I've learned to be very wary of people who are overly friendly, and who use flattery. I've become choosy with who I allow to be my friend. I believe that in general, there are more and more predatory people in the world, due to the anonymous nature of our electronically dependent culture.
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Czarsmom
I'm honestly not sure if I've been successfully targeted by predator types in the past, because I was genuinely that blind to their existence.
I do know that there was at least one boss who got incredibly frustrated because all her predatory and gaslighting techniques had absolutely no effect on me because I simply did not respond "properly" - not only was I unable to recognize that they were manipulations, I wasn't manipulated because I had no idea that she might even want something. I only actually learned about it after she left, from another co-worker.
My general approach to people is that sure, they might be predators, but generally this comes with a large serving of them trying to manipulate me, find out information about me, or manipulating others into affecting me. I plow through the first like a supertanker, never give out personal information to anyone anyway, and don't even notice the third. Trying to manipulate me is like trying to shoulder-check an office block - not only won't it work, I probably won't even realize it happened, unless it's something ultra-blatant like most sales techniques.
Yes! I very much agree with you, unfortunately. My first thoughts when meeting most people, "can this person sense I am a good natured person and thereby are they just biding their time when they can inevitably play that against me..."
This is still a big problem for me. All people I used to call friends have tried to manipulate, take advantage of or simply ditch me at some point.
I think the reason is that I don't know how to make friends. I never try to befriend someone who seems sympathetic, but I simply wait for someone who would come and make friends with me. Unfortunately, most of such people are just seeking easy prey. Additionally, I think that nice people don't want to deal with me and my issues and they avoid me after getting to know me better.
I definitely have this. Or used to. I think it is because I was brought up by my mother, who turns out to be a highly skilled predator. I always thought it was normal for mothers to be nice/nasty/nice/nasty and you would never know where you were with them. But it seems it isn't.
So I have watched a lot of videos on narcissism/toxic people and now I listen carefully to what a new person talks about and tells me about themselves, and then decide whether I like them or not. Before I used to be so grateful for someone liking me that I'd just be friends with them no matter what.
An example: M, a friend online (who I trust) said that her friend (W) was really nice and I should chat to her. It turned out that W just went on about herself all the time, she kept picking arguments with what I said and just had no interest in me or my life. So...bye bye! M doesn't like W anymore either, she realised this too.
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That alien woman. On Earth to observe and wonder about homo sapiens.
I would say that people have become more lower nature'ed and spiritually lost.
Haven been brainwashed for decades to be good workers and consumers, working their entire lives so they can afford to keep their few apple electronic toys up to date, so they don't lose status on facebook.
And they thought it was Lucifer that got humanity hooked on apple... I would say that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have as much to blame as Lucifer now days... (only joking, please don't murder Bill Gates, he is worth keeping alive for the good he does through his philanthropy).
It's worth taking note of this fact:
Humans are top class, highly efficient predators. That is what we have evolved into and why we have taken over the world. In modern times we have no creatures that prey on us enough to make a difference. Therefore humans prey on each other.
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That alien woman. On Earth to observe and wonder about homo sapiens.
Humans are top class, highly efficient predators. That is what we have evolved into and why we have taken over the world. In modern times we have no creatures that prey on us enough to make a difference. Therefore humans prey on each other.
I don't often see humans biting into each other...
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