Antisocial Personality. I miss it all the time. I am posting this in the hope that this will help deter me from missing it in the future.
AVI claims you can tell criminals by their faces, but I am not talking about serious criminals. I am talking about the effective manipulators, seducers, schemers, and deceivers and not the obvious violent and stupid people who end up in jails.
I get burned by such people on a regular basis. I like to think it's because I tend to think the best of people, but it's really probably my naivete.
Not all people with antisocial traits are axe-murderers. Most are ordinary liars, users, con-artists, self-servers, etc., and they often do not realize themselves that they are off base and living in their own amoral reality with all of their rationalizations for their behavior. The problem with the personality disorders is that people with them think they are normal. Sociopathy is a very common personality disorder, and often associated with glibness and a sort of disarming appeal that many people fall for.
Yes, everybody lies sometimes. I am not talking about that. I am talking about deceit and conniving as a way of life. Politics, for an example.
I always get suspicious when they call me "Doc" at first. I take it as an intrusive presumption of intimacy which I have not invited. Do not call your physician "Doc," except on the golf course. "Doctor" is OK.
The only real cure is religion, but that is only if, and after, they have somehow come to realize how off-base they are in their take on life, their relative indifference to others, and their self-centeredness.
In recent years, we have learned that Antisocial Personality traits derive as much from upbringing as from genetics. I think we wanted to believe it was all genetic. How it all works, I do not understand. All I know is to Beware, because these people will turn around and hurt you without thinking twice about it.
