Narcissistic Personality - Extreme Self-Absorption

Extreme Self-Absorption

Home Contents

Extreme self-absorption is another red flag. Unless a narcissist is a "doting" narcissist who keeps a "star" child he's exploiting under a microscope, just ask him about his family. You will be astounded at what he doesn't know about them.

That's the dead give-away.

To test a person, write a basic character description of each member of his immediate family. Note things like whether this person is religious, excitable, highly motivated — that's all, just basic stuff that anyone who sees them regularly should know about them. If you ask a narcissist to match each character description with the family member it belongs to, he will gape at you as though you just asked him to show the derivation of E = mc².

It will astound him that you would expect him to know such things about his wife and children.

Because you know more about cartoon characters than a narcissist knows about the members of his immediate family. For, he can learn nothing about what he willfully, relentlessly, and reflexively pays no attention to.

Narcissists are notorious for being unable to remember people's names or to even recognize their faces outside the usual setting. That's because people all look the same to you when they all look like this.

In your encounters with them, you make sure you get 100% of their attention while giving them zero of yours. So, what did they say? Anything? Did they even get a word in edgewise? If they did, you didn't hear it.

A narcissist may, for example, recognize her son in the home but not when she runs into him in the grocery store — giving him a stupid stare as he approaches, until he clues her by saying, "Hi, Mom."

Here are some other illustrative examples from narcissists I have known or heard about:

Does not know how to spell his daughter's name.

Never had any idea what kind of grades his kids got.

Does not know his wife or children's birthdays.

Has never visited the major Website his/her child/sibling published.

Does not know how old his children are.

Does not know that his daughter was a National Merit Finalist.

Has no idea how good his kids are at any sport or other activity.

Does not know what perfume his wife wears.

Has never read the book his child wrote.

Never does learn the names of the students in his/her classes.

Cannot get the names of people "with two first names" straight. (viz., Jean Paul, Howard Dean, John Kerry, or even John Edwards)

Does not know the names of his children's spouses, let alone his grandchildren.

Has never shown up to watch his son play varsity sports.

Does not know what his children majored in at college or what degrees they earned.

Does not know whether his teen-age son/daughter is dating.

Has never met the boy his teen-age daughter has been dating for three years.

One could hardly be less interested in a fly on the wall.

© 2004 – 2008, Kathleen Krajco — all rights reserved worldwide.
The URL of this page is: http://www.narcissism.operationdoubles.com/extremeself_absorption.htm.
It was last updated on 11/20/2007.
SITEMAP | INDEX
Email a friend about this site.