Have you ever had to deal with a narcissist on a regular basis? Perhaps someone you work with? Maybe a family member? If not, you are lucky. Unfortunately I have one in my life that I have to deal with pretty often. Its sucks. At first I thought this person was just an exaggerator, then it seemed more like a drama queen....and probably a little too old for that sort of thing as well. But after a conversation with someone else who is familiar with this person as well, I have realized that its simply that they are narcissistic.
Not only is this person narcissistic but they are forgetful, so I get to hear about everything in their life four or five times. Let me tell you, when you don't care the first time, you sure as hell don't want to hear about it four more times. Add on the fact that my little narcissistic friend is often at times incompetent, and now we have big time winner. So the question is how do I handle this person? I have this problem where I have a need to correct people, even if its trivial (my wife can attest). Well that doesn't really work when you have someone that is narcissistic; corrections or criticisms, even when constructive, don't seem to go over too well. In fact at times this person has even stated that there is clearly a conspiracy against them....because they were criticized (not by me in that instance).
So what is left? Well, the only thing that I have found that keeps me sane and from not going absolutely crazy on this person is to simply ignore them. My hope is that eventually they won't get enough of the attention that they want from me, and go bother someone else. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so adverse to conflict or I would just tell this person off and cut all ties sooner but in the meantime this will have to work. Wish me luck.
