I remember several things I dreamed about this morning--cutting my own hair, finding kittens and puppies, a knife in the Harry Potter universe that makes unhealable wounds because it "cuts the soul" (cool idea!)--but the one I want to talk about here a little bit is about two exes of mine, and why they were so incredibly damaging.
abusive relationships
the two exes have blurred into each other to the point where they were both represented in one person in my dream last night. they were superficially physically similar, but more important, they both played the "be my friend" game.
to play that game, a person needs to be very charming, to set the bait. the more people *want* to be friends with them, the greater their power. then they pick the most interesting/useful people in their sphere of power and groom them.
abusive relationships
"you're better than everybody else because [characteristic]," they tell these people. multiple people at once, too; that's important, because the point of this isn't to cultivate a few special friends; it's to force people to compete with each other for attention and affection. IT IS A GAME FOR THEM. it's a blood sport for their amusement.
abusive relationships
I've had other exes who have been bad for me for various reasons--most spectacularly the one I refer to as Assmonkey, without a speck of affection, but Assmonkey was a mean-spirited coward. these other two, the ones I've conflated in my mind, were actively evil. they enjoyed manipulating people, they loved being able to cause pain, they had no loyalty to anything but their own amusement and ego.
anyway I wanted to vent about that this morning. vent over. :P
abusive relationships
they set a standard of cruelty, and demand that anyone who wants to be their Special Friend display the same level. cutting down other Special Friends is fine; when it's just you and Special Friend, they'll actively participate in this, but in public they stand apart, either (overtly) ignoring the interactions or (subtly) lending support to one side or another, on their whim.