that’s the peter principle.

people only get promoted so far as their inadequacies/incompetence shows. and then their job becomes covering for it.

hence why so many middle managers primary job is managing the appearance of their own competence first and foremost and they lose touch with the actual work being done… which is a key part of how you actually manage it.

you should stop using it and use wikipedia.

being able to pull relevant information out of a larger of it, is a incredibly valuable life skill. you should not be replacing that skill with an AI chatbot

Most people here don’t seem to understand what narcissism is. It’s not someone who feels superior to others or is insecure or any of that. It’s much deeper. It’s not a lack of empathy either. They are very good at faking empathy when they need to.

Go back to the myth. It’s not about feelings or egos. It’s about reflections. The key feature of a narcissist that most posts here are missing… the narcissist has no self. They only exist/validate themselves through how others see them. This is why it is their ego is so ‘fragile’. Because their ego entirely consists of how others perceive them. They have no separation of their own reality vs others perception. Their internal life is entirely consists of how others see them and without the constant affirmation from other people they cease to be. Hence why they can never be alone, and tend to form co-dependent relationships and be highly focused on image, not substance. It’s why their entire life is very controlled and anything that doesn’t fit into the box of reflections they have built around themselves must be totally and utterly rejected.

This is also why they are socially skilled and so charming. They mirror other people and that mirroring is generally considered flattering to most people. But if the mirror breaks down, or the subject upsets the positive feedback loop the narcissist has to reject/destroy them.

Non-narcissists have a self-image that is composed of a mix of how others see them and how they see themselves. Narcissists don’t have the ability to see themselves independent of others perceptions of them. That’s why normal people can shrug off someone not liking them or upsetting them… because they have something else to compare it to. A narcissist doesn’t.

Also normal people don’t pathologically mirror/manipulate others into liking them. They can let it go. A narcissist can’t. They only know how to manipulate/mirror others. They can’t engage in any authentic interactions with other people because they involve too much risk. Again why they only tend to be friend those they can control.

A narcissists worst nightmare is being alone.

they are never happy.

that’s the point of being despotic. everyone is your enemy, always and forever.

men can be very social and still get nothing but negative feedback from others.

a big part of this is that men are rarely given positive feedback in life from anyone. with maybe the exception of your work where your ‘feedback’ is your pay raises/promotions.

personally in my life, when good stuff happens… people arne’t happy for me. They are often jealous or hostile. Most of my exes would downplay my successes. “oh you got a $5000 raise, why wasn’t it 10,000” etc. It really sucks the joy out of life to be around that type of thing. it’s also why i’m way happier being single and limiting my socialization… because i’ve stopped getting constantly negative feedback from other people even when it should be positive. i’ve also had so much more success the past few years due to that.

and frankly, most of the ‘social cues’ and ‘vibe’ that i’ve dealt with in my social groups is all negative crap. i’d rather remain ignorant of it than join some group where we circlejerk how great we are and complain about how awful everyone else is. i used to do a lot of volunteering and a lot of that stuff just devolves into people who want to do nothing and virtue signal.

One of my female friends bought me a cake in college for my birthday.

Only person who ever bought me a cake for my birthday my entire life (other than parents a s child). No other friend, or girlfriend, ever did that for me. Most of my girlfriends ‘gifts’ to me was usually something they wanted for themselves, like buying me fancy towels so they could use them in my bathroom.

Yep. It’s also incredibly draining to have to do all the work. Nobody will ever reach out to you first. You must always be reaching out.

I gave up on romantic relationships mostly, because I was doing 90% of the work. And if I wanted a break, I was told I was being a ‘not a real man’. I bought a house and got pets. My pets don’t demand I do all the work for them. They actually communicate and appreciate.

that would be acknowledging that men and women are different and that’s bad in 2025, apparently.

It’s socially acceptable to hate and be biased against men. Especially white men, and especially working-class white men.

It’s not so socially acceptable to hate on wealthy white men. The point is you have to become a wealthy white guy, or get bent.

You will also notice the discussion is frame that any man who isn’t independently wealthy is a failure at life and undeserving of friendship/love. The advice is always ‘get rich and get fit’ as if that is the solution to your loneliness. It isn’t.

FWIW I never had issue with romance/friends most of my life. But I have had them the past 5 or so years. I’m a middle-class white guy and my social interactions are falling apart. Esp when people find out I don’t fit the archetype of ‘rich white guy’. I’ve had so many people be friendly to me and then they find out I don’t own a home/drive expensive car/etc and they immediately stop interacting with me, because all they want from me is money. I’ve also been accuse of various forms of bigotry more in the past few years when previously I never dealt with that ever in my life.

I think it’s mostly just the ill-affects of social media and people’s warped expectations. I know a lot of people living good lives… men and women both, but they always depressed and angry because they aren’t millionaires. And frankly I find that attitude alienating and it also makes me want to isolate, since so much of what new people I meet talk about is their anger at not being wealthy. And if you ever question this or suggest maybe life isn’t so bad? Well you’re clearly a bigoted proto Nazi…

It wasn’t like this 5-10 years ago. I feel like I got my first taste of ‘men are awful’ social media fueled BS in the 2010s. Now it feels like that’s just he default belief of most people. It’s really hard for me to find a lady romantic or unromantic, who just wants to constantly shit on men generally. And to find men who also don’t shit on other men. And everyone where i live is in this weird scramble to distance themselves from whiteness and masculinity.

For me, I am feeling less and less lonely the more I am alone. Mostly because my perspective isn’t the same as most people’s. I am very happy and comfortable and appreciative and that doesn’t vibe in a world full of very bitter people who think if you don’t subscribe to theri flavor of bitterness, you’re a traitor. I recently bailed on some of my volunteer/community orgs because they have been consumed by judgemental nasty people and they were making me depressed being around people who just want to be miserable and pissy all the time and blame white men for their own personal failings. My favorite is the gender-skeptical types working in low-wage jobs and being angry at ‘white men’ for preventing them from having stable jobs… but the truth is these people are totally unreliable and would be horrible at professional work. They are their own worst enemy.