As I’ve observed before ¹, the greatest danger, we present to ourselves when we fall in Love is that we don't see them for who they are but as a catwalk model … a walking clotheshorse if you will … upon whom to hang our idealised selves.
To a certain extent, how grave the danger is of this happening depends greatly upon the extent to which they (as a ‘Cluster B’ personality disorder) deliberately reflect us back to ourselves but, if we are brutally honest with ourselves then … even in such an instance … had we not been so inclined to fall narcissisistically in Love with ourselves to begin with, that danger would not have been so great, for we would have seen through their ruse and noticed the absence of substance behind the facade (because we’d have looked behind it in the first place rather than being quite so taken with our own reflection).
It’s not quite that clearcut … we are, at the end of the day, the victims and not the villains when it happens to us as a result of our being taken by such a predator … but it’s a concept that I think it behooves us well to bear in mind — not merely because it may save us from the next predator but also because it will afford us the opportunity to treat others with the dignity they deserve rather than as what might as well simply be ‘pleasure model’ replicants for all the individuality and humanity we accord them.
Are we in Love with them … or with our own reflection in their eyes? Do we really care about them … or do they just make us feel good about ourselves because our admiration of them reflects well upon us in our own eyes? Is it, perhaps, that we project ourself onto them … using them as no more than a clotheshorse upon which to hang our own self love … refusing to see them, insisting they be someone they aren’t, denying who they are?
“La la la … I can’t see you!”
Both are possible … and sometimes they even coincide …. to disastrous end — been there … done that … both ways around.
The greatest insight for me came after the most devastating breakup … the one that left me not upset/angry but zombiefied (an ambulant catatonic) for a year … three fucking times:
After the third (and final) breakup … when I (once again) went through all the stages of Grief and came out the other side, I realised (with a profound sense of my own failure as a human being) that I missed my imaginary friend — I didn’t miss her, I missed who I thought she was … believed her to be … wanted her to be … saw her to be … not who she really was. I missed how she made me feel about myself. I missed me — for that was all I’d ever seen: an idealised me I could fall in Love with with because it’s alright to fall in Love with someone you can fuck, right? That’s normal, right? Not at all weird or perverse. If you can fuck them, you can legitimately fall in Love with them — it’s not narcissistic … you’re not (quite literally) a wanker jerking off to your own photo … are you?
So,yeah , you're spot on there ... and your observations are what I was referring to when said "a projection of myself with which I could be narcissistically infatuated"
But, on this particular occasion, it didn't take me very long at all to see what was going on and ... for the first time in my life ... I didn't hang around to try and 'make it work', but just got out sharpish.
It turned to shit so quickly ... and so extremely ... even I couldn't blind myself to the signs and I promptly left the country without wasting time trying to see what could be done to salvage the relationship and 'set it back on track.' You can't reason with a Cluster B and I wasn't going to waste time trying: not even if the personality were the result of a severe hormonal imbalance — the fact that it's not the dog's fault it has rabies and thus merits pity/sympathy, doesn't make it less dangerous and you don't stay to pet it and calm it down (it won't ...you'll just get rabies yourself for your pains).
