Narcissistic Nirvana: Sweet, Sweet, Sweet Attention
If you ever get a chance, watch videos of all these leaders' speeches: Hugo Chavez, Adolph Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Kadafi, Fidel Castro. See how their eyes light up before a crowd as they undergo a transfiguration in their glory — all that sweet, sweet, sweet attention.
They rant or ramble on and on and on for incredibly long speeches, making their people stand there for hours, even in the rain, while they yak off the top of their head about whatever comes to mind, certain that the whole world is hanging on their every word and dying for the fruit of their lips on any topic they care to expound about.
They milk a moment in the spotlight for all it's worth. Bill Clinton does this best. Notice how long he pauses to milk every last second of applause. He can milk one with a pregnant pause for over 60 seconds. In fact, he is so good at wringing out an audience that he can get the applause to start up again after it has died out several times! All without even saying anything! Watch.
He gets a nice welcome and acts as though it's a sublime one that has him deeply moved and overwhelmed by it. Never underestimate the power of suggestion: the people in the audience begin to share this delusion and act it out for him.
Then, after the applause has completely died out, he just starts out as if to say something, then does his giggle into a pause as if he's so gratified by all this warmth that he is speechless. Everybody's hanging, hanging, hanging. And people tend to fill gaps, you know, so eventually the audience finally gives him more of what he's extorting from them, just to fill the giggly silence.
What a piece of work.
I never knew a narcissist whose eyes didn't just sparkle at the sight of a crowd with all eyes on them. They just beam in the glow. It's like they're transported.
Never ask them to write an autobiography. You'll be lucky to get them to stop at two volumes and 200,000 words.
We're all so interested in every minute detail of their whole lives and every extraneous thought they have on the way of telling it to us, you see :)
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Another that comes to mind is Farrakhan. He blabbed on endlessly at the Million Man March about "crap". And all the lemmings just kept on applauding even though all he said was nonsense.
P.S. dimwits: "The emperor has no clothes."
Abel
Michael Jackson also did that 'drawing out the applause with silence' thing all the time in concert. He had this stupid girlish giggle that was pretty much his standard segue between sets and songs.
No real surprises there.
To your observation, is that a "tell"? Is the person whose eyes glitter like that in the face of the applause, and who draws it out and feeds on it like that - is that person certain to be a Narcissist?
I can find deep malice in a certain facial expression that passes across a person's face sometimes. I stay away from people like that because they're like vicious dogs and you don't know if you're going to be next.
And I can find real compassion in people's faces - it shows up when their understanding is not wanted, and there's an expression that passes through the eyes that shows me. This person is one who knows what other people feel.
But this glittering need for the applause and attention and approval - the response to it and the drawing it out like a puppet master - is that a Narcissistic tell?
I think so. Most of the narcissits I knew, I saw do this at one or other. It's quite striking.
The people could be laughing AT the narcissist, but he thinks it's because his joke is so funny. He thinks his "responsibility" to the crowd at his high school football team's game is an "awesome" one.
Silly. Like thinking you got a standing ovation when you didn't. It shows how grandiose and out of touch with reality they are.
Normal people don't really enjoy being the center of so much live attention. If it's their job they learn to handle it well and comfortably, but they don't get off on it like it's some kind of drug. They don't prolong moments like that wringing every bit of applause out of a crowd either. Usually, they would tend to continue (and cut it off) too soon.
So ... the tell is the hunger. That's what I see in the eyes. It's hunger - of a kind that can't really be filled by anyone, so they always want more.
Thanks.
A look into a narcissist's eyes at the wrong moment can be a very scary thing.
Their assumption that everyone loves them is but one earmark; another is that they are--literally--perfect. This generally masks their subconscious certainty that they are in fact "worthless" as my NPD said in frantic moment of random rejection. Also, they tend to suffer w/ depression and ALWAYS blame their intimates for its cause--a pernicious problem, based on the npd's assumption that THEY have no problems, except...the one who loves them (and causes their depression. The "serial" offences noted on this site is very interesting; if their wife of 25 years finally drank herself to death, their next 'victim' girlfriend will virtually be destroyed by their insanity. Suggestion: if you think you're getting involved w/ a narcissist, ask to see his ex's pictures--'before' he destroyed her--and 'at the end' of the relationship. Visible (sometimes shocking) physical deterioration of the victim is a hallmark of their handiwork. Thanks for this forum. - tw
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