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On medium this, to my great surprise, has become my most successful article yet, being my most viewed (767) piece with the largest read ratio(595 reads) of 78%. I shared this article in only two narcissistic abuse facebook groups before I went to bed around midnight and only 6 hours later both posts have gathered over 20 likes and much praise. And the thing is, this is one of the simplest things I've written. A piece which my inner critic usually opposes by telling me the next piece has to be a dazzling display of my analytical capacities being pushed to the max, with research and sweeping rhetoric. The lesson? Empiricism is the way to go. You just don't know if that thought you're having is boring or not until you share things. The “Narcissistic Dull” Much has been written about narcissists, in great length and in great detail. Such work has even spawned the invention of new terms and lingo to better describe characteristics that are typically displayed by narcissists as well as to establish a clear distinction between a behavior when its exhibited by a narcissist versus someone like you or me. For example, there’s rage and then there’s “Narcissistic Rage.” Anybody who’s encountered such fury will know that there’s a clear difference between the two. For example, I rage sometimes, like when I yell at electronics that aren’t working the way I want them to. However, it’s totally a guilty indulgence for me and something that if you happened to witness on accident, I’d feel pretty embarrassed about it and would be keen on persuading you that it’s not something I do a lot or think is ideal. When a Narcissist rages she feels no such shame. She does not consider the boundaries of others nor how her screaming tirades impacts those around her and if she does, she feels self righteous and that the abuse is justified. Even if she’s aware of how immature and mean her behavior is, she does not care. If anything, she feeds off the thrill of power and feeling of omnipotence she gets from provoking fear in others. However, there is one such characteristic that I’ve encountered repeatedly in narcissists I’ve interacted with that I don’t think I’ve ever read about, which is that they are so often incredibly, painfully boring. I’d like to introduce my own term by calling it the “Narcissistic Dull”. Think about what makes a conversation enjoyable. For me, it is when the other person brings curiosity into the interaction, is truly interested in what I have to say, listens and asks questions. This is what helps to keep me engaged. But, despite the narcissist’s wit and charm, that flashy novelty wears off during conversation because they never ask you anything, don’t listen, they never are interested in you and they just go on and on and on about themselves. And because they (wrongly) think that they are interesting, they won’t neglect to mention the tiniest details. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to listen to my mom say while we’re at Subway, “You see, I’ve never really liked bread. If I eat it, I like it burnt.” Sure, anyone can be dull, but if what I’m saying is a little boring to a friend, we can express ourselves and find a way to make the conversation fun again. When the narcissist is dull, she is extremely dull, doesn’t notice how bored you are or does notice, in which case she doesn’t care about your experience in the conversation and if so so happen to make your experience known, she will not take kindly to receiving any kind of feedback that isn’t what she wants to hear.

i was talking to my girlfriend yesterday about food. she really likes eating well and knows a lot about different foods. i was asking her why food is sorted by country, and not by flavor. it was an interesting discussion, and we theorized that it was a traditional thing, biased on migratory patterns to England. a wave of Indian migrants brought curries, and now we think of curries as an Indian dish, despite the fact that countries all over the world make curries. The next thing i was asking was is it the best system of categorizing food, or should we invent a new way?' we were debating the merits of this system, when, seemingly out of the blue for me, my girlfriend became agitated. she said that the conversation was boring her. i was taken aback, because my girlfriend is always talking to me, and we often talk about food, but now she was bored by the topic. i asked her why she was bored by the topic now so suddenly, when earlier she she seemed passionate and interested. she told me that the subject wasn't very interesting. i didn't really understand this response. a subject of conversation is rarely just boring. how interesting a topic is usually comes down to the speaker. since me and my girlfriend are often talking together, i think it is safe to say she dosnt find my company boring. even if my girlfriend is bored by a topic, she usually finds a way to change the topic without becoming agitated and unhappy. lastly this still didn't reflect the suddenness at which this boredom seemed to strike. if the whole conversation was boring to my girlfriend, she would not have been engaging in the conversation at all. this is not the first time my girlfriend has used 'im bored' as a way to shut down a conversation, but this was the first time i recognized it as what it was. earlier, i would be attacked for being 'boring', and self attack if i felt i was becoming 'boring'. the only time i would be boring however, was whenever i talked about logical principles, anarchy, Stephan Molynux, rtr, Austrian economics or anything related to freedom. so the emotion call boredom is categorized by a lack of affecting stimulus. my girlfriend was receiving stimulus from the conversation, and being emotionally affected by this stimulus. i asked her if she felt bored, or upset. she told me she felt upset. i asked her to theorize why she felt upset. she told me that she felt that i was not listening to her, or giving her enough time to speak. i didnt feel this was the case, we were talking quietly and slowly in our bedroom. i had been simply asking her questions about this food thing, and listing to her responses. i asked her if she had felt this way before. she said she felt like when she was young, and her dad and her brother, who were both religious catholic at the time, would have these debates over her head, and not allow her to talk. she talked about how when she didnt want to go to mass, her dad would dismiss her opinion and force her to go to mass. i myself remembered several family arguments i witnessed which have were ended with her dad saying the line 'i dont want to talk about topic now, im bored of it'. this line makes the person talking seem like a crazy obsessive, who is refusing to stop talking about a subject everyone knows all about and is of little importance. the last time i saw my parents, i was explaining to them for some strange reason, how an anarchistic society would work. it was a good conversation, because for the first time ever, i seemed to have these new fdr spectacles on which let me see through all my parents attacks on my character. At the end of the conversation, in a complete parody of this line of attack, my mum tells me that i am boring her. my dad had called me a twat loudly several times, his face was all bulbous and red, and all he had been doing for the last hour was literally shouting 'haidus corpus, show me his body, it is the law if the land'. It was about 3 in the morning, my mum and my dad had both been passionately arguing for close to 5 hours and had failed to find a single hole in the theory of a free society, and now suddenly, the topic is a bore. incidentally i dont want to give the impression that my girlfriend is a bad person. she was happy to talk about her emotions in an honest way, and we reached some conclusion. i am just interested if anyone else has been made to feel 'boring' because they have talked about the truth in a public setting, and also what are the causes of this form of passive aggression. just to relate it to the original point, in its abstract, my girlfreind was happy to talk, but as soon as it became a question of her own values being called into question she became 'bored'. i want her to be able to tell me if i am actually being boring but i dont want to reenforce her perceived boredom by dismissing her feelings and i dont want to dismiss my own feelings to preserve her delusion. When my parents tell me i am being boring i am fine with it, because i know it is corrupt and hollow attack. my girlfriend however dosnt want to hurt me, so the approach i take is telling her how i feel and asking her to be honest about how she feels. she has responded wonderfully to this approach so far. its really cool also, because after we had this conversation, we became a whole lot closer. it was still a sudden and interesting realization however to see a tangible application of Stef's philosophy