For a narcissist to flourish, they need two simple ingredients: A willing sacrifice, and weak boundaries. Yet how the narcissist operates in the world depends enormously on the environment they choose to inhabit.
Narcissistic supply can take many shapes. Sex. Money. Attention. Adulation. Acknowledgement. Compliments. Service. Submission. As the narcissist navigates their community and the greater world, they learn to utilise what is available while appearing to conform to the rules and norms of their environment.
This can take the following forms:
The Schoolyard Narcissist
Narcissists first flex their grandiosity muscle in friendship groups. They begin by spotting someone at school or work whose body language betrays their low self-esteem. The narcissist then showers the target with attention and begins their charm offensive. Any person with low self-esteem who lacks meaningful relationships will grow giddy and feel flattered by such ‘good fortune’.
The narcissist then keeps that person around as a ‘reference point’ for their grandiosity, using their new friend’s low confidence as a way to feel superior. The narcissist will also ridicule, question, judge and attack their friend to lower them even further, and hence bolster their own grandiosity even more.
The schoolyard narcissist can also recruit multiple similar targets and form a friendship group. The member of the group with the highest status will become the narcissist’s number two, while the rest tag along as sources of narcissistic supply, happy to simply belong to a group.
The Private Realm Narcissist
Whether it is a narcissistic family, a cult or a yoga retreat, the narcissist who ‘rules over’ a private realm draws most of their narcissistic supply close to home.
In the private realm, the narcissist sets the rules, and gradually sucks the other members dry. The narcissist remains the central focal point while the rest orbit around the narcissist.
In the narcissistic family, the spouse is the ‘number two’, and the children take up other positions. This same dynamic also applies to any other private realm. The narcissist maintains control through enforcing ‘the rules’, shaming, attacking and questioning the other members.
The private realm offers the narcissist legitimacy for their addiction to narcissistic supply, as being a parent or leader is an important position. However, a leader’s role is to support the members of their realm in their growth. The leader must put others first, and has a responsibility to ensure the group’s cohesion and continued prosperity. In the narcissist’s case, their only interest is narcissistic supply.
Remaining in a narcissist’s orbit for too long is detrimental to one’s health. The narcissist is rigid, controlling, and hungry for narcissistic supply, while giving little in return except for criticism, ridicule, shaming and other forms of abuse. If any member remains in the narcissist’s private realm too long, including the children and spouse in a narcissistic family, they eventually develop mental and physical illnesses.
The Lone Wolf Narcissist
The lone wolf narcissist is someone who has broken free of their dependency on institutions and social groups, and therefore needs to source narcissistic supply on a case-by-case basis.
With little accountability by other members of their group, and no group standards to abide by, the lone wolf narcissist’s inner psychopath quickly rises to the surface.
A lone wolf narcissist’s realm is therefore the wider world and the online space. They typically cruise dating websites, amassing matches and hookups, using sex and ‘notches’ on their belt for narcissistic supply.
Because the narcissist does not rely on a small pool of people for narcissistic supply, they value people even less, and always have multiple sources of supply on the go at the same time.
The lone wolf narcissist drifts in and out of social gatherings, cities and groups, and also cycles through the idealise-devalue-discard cycle much more quickly. They move from relationship to relationship, group to group, place to place, quick to connect and exploit, and even quicker to disappear.