Many people wonder how it is that narcissists can so accurately seek out suitable victims that they can exploit easily, or how they can recognize people who have already been groomed or conditioned by narcissists into co-dependence.
Whilst this is not such an easy thing to explain, the real key to this lies in the natural human trait of empathy.
An empath is basically is the direct opposite of a narcissist and it's no secret that empaths are the perfect targets for narcissists - they go hand in hand. Because a narcissist has very little empathy of their own, they seek to
exploit the empathy of others.For this reason, they choose peope who are highly empathetic in order to exploit.
The way this works is really on more of a subconscious level than anything. They may not realize they are doing and their victims may not realize they are doing. Additionally, there are many different types of narcissist who operate in various ways.
There is the predatory narcissist, the classic/overt narcissist, the covert/stealth narcissist and many other types also.
A typical predatory narcissist, for example, may subconsciously seek out a person who has had serious problems in my life or who is already in a difficult situation.
Perfect targets for them would be people who are either homeless, have had problems with drug abuse or people who generally do a lot for other people.
Classic narcissists, on the other hand, may seek out people who openly show their feelings and who are openly emotionally people. This shows that they
do have suitable levels of empathy which can be exploited.Other narcissists may find out how much they can manipulate other people by subtly testing their boundaries to see how much they are willing to do for them, or to find out how much they have already been conditioned.
The way this is done is insidious in nature, they begin with extremely small things which initially seem trivial and slowly and gradually push further litte by little as time goes on.
This way, the victim is not aware of what's really going on and or what's it's leading to and remains oblivious to the narcissists's true nature.
There is also often a lot of reciprocation at first which makes things seem genuine. However, this is slowly taken away once the narcissist has their victim wrapped around their little finger.
By the time the victim begins to realize that things are graduallly escalating, it's usually already too late. They have been cornered into a situation which they can seemingly not escape from.
In many cases, not only was their empathy being exploited but their reputation was also being destroyed secretly in the background through slander, defamation and character assassination - a distortion campaign of the victim's reputation.
Once the victim realizes what's really been going on and turns to other people for help, those people have usually already been made to believe that it's them who is the problem and that it's the narcisisst who is being manipulated
