Characters And Hiccups

When something happens to the project you are doing with several other people, you feel this urge to talk about it, discuss it, recall past conversations, elaborate on different ways of moving forward, and describe possible outcomes. It is impossible to be silent. Your mind is absorbed in it and you feel that you have to talk about it. Otherwise, the internal pressure will consume you like a flame and reduce you to a handful of dust.

However, it just happens that one of you is a little narcissistic. Let’s say this person’s name is N, who can be either a man or a woman, but for the sake of using one specific pronoun for this post, I will say N is a woman. N is not a severe or malignant narcissist who destroys everybody and everything wherever she goes. She is not really that bad, but she has several mild but conspicuous narcissistic traits. Probably she grew up in a narcissistic household, and emulated the speech patterns and bad behaviors of her relatives; probably she had some traumatic experiences, from which she survived, physically unscathed but not mentally unscathed. And the scar is in the form of several narcissistic tendencies.

And at first you don’t notice N’s mild narcissism since she looks so normal to you. However after a while, you start to see and feel the subtle signs of her antagonism whenever a joint project encounters a bit of glitch or hiccup. It is like the following:

Talk Or Not Talk About It

Since there is a hiccup in the project, you and your teammates start a discussion and try to get things resolved. However N is involved in this. The discussion touches on N’s work, which is not reflected in the best light–whenever something goes wrong in a project, nobody is reflected well, which is understandable. N would rather not talk about it. However you and other people try to solve the problem, and you have to talk about it. N feels that you in particular have dwelled a bit too long on a part of the project that N has worked on. To N, you seem to mark her out and put her on the spot, which you have no idea she is thinking this way. You have no antagonism towards N but N has developed antagonism towards you.

Change The Topic

N tries to change the topic, but not very successfully. When you drag the topic back again, N is quite annoyed. N thinks that you deliberately come back to the topic she doesn’t want you to come back to in order to make her feel inadequate and uncomfortable. Being a very polite girl, N starts to prod you with mild verbal attack that combines complaints, shame, and praise, such as “drink a bit of water to calm yourself down”, “you are so focused on this point”. Such kind of prodding eventually produces the result–you realize that N is not happy. You feel a sense of guilt. You have never had any intention of hurting her, but unwittingly you did.

Your Fault

N suddenly brings up something in order to take you down a peg or two. You didn’t do well in that incident–you didn’t remember the appointment, or you forgot somebody’s name, or you completed something with obvious flaws. At first you try to brush it off, since it is a blatant divergent from the topic at hand, but then it dawns on you that N is doing her little revenge on you–you talked about something that didn’t reflect well on her, and now she wants to talk about something that doesn’t reflect well on you.

“Actually I really want to talk about this incident since I didn’t do well. I tried different methods, but none worked. Remember I brought this topic for discussion, but we couldn’t find any solution. I would love to talk about this and wish somebody will shed light on this. Actually let’s schedule a time to talk about it specifically ….” You hear yourself say. However N has no intention of discussing this incident for any period of time–she only wants to bring it up to dampen your spirit and she has no intention of helping you find a solution.

The Aftermath

Now you start to wonder if N is more like a normal person or more like a narcissist. You can’t be sure since the line is blurred rather than clear and straight, and the area is grey rather than black and white. If N is a normal person, you can just go to N to apologize for making her feel uncomfortable while discussing the project being cooperated on. You didn’t intend to do it, but somehow in the heat of the argument, you became too absorbed in one point while forgetting that N felt it unfair that this point was being selected, discussed, and highlighted as if to show that she didn’t do a perfect job. The two of you can make peace quickly and the whole thing is over.

If N is leaning towards narcissism, it can be a challenge. If you don’t apologize and don’t tell N that you recognize her discomfort with sympathy, N considers you an enemy; if you do apologize, N thinks you try to get an upper hand by faking a good gesture, which must have a sinister intention hidden behind. So N considers you an even more formidable enemy.

Now you wonder what is the best way to deal with N in the future…

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