Case in point: the ex-business partner Mallory. He talked her into creating a giant scene in a public venue, very much a public place, but one that is frequented by the same group of people over and over. She offended the people there horribly. However, he then somehow managed to talk her into returning there for a casual visit. Of course, this made her look ridiculous, vicious, and insane all at once, because everyone there knew remembered what she'd done. She, however, had obviously been bolstered by him that she had every right to do so, and that there was nothing wrong with the move. And yes, she had every right to be in a public place. But rights and being downright stupid aren't the same thing. As a note, also, please keep in mind that he was in said place at the time, and even while he had been the person to invite her to come and bolstered her courage to her face, behind her back he was telling everyone in the place how he couldn't believe she came, etc.
It's something I dealt with recently, actually, having run into what I think of as his "target family." This is an actual family of people who are not his primary targets, but his fallbacks, and, incidentally, the persons he currently uses to back him financially, both in life (food, shelter, clothing, etc.) and in his crazy, half-baked ideas. He trashes them openly behind their backs and even admits to others that he is "only using them." In fact, he treats them terribly, but he has also love-bombed them to such an extent and attached himself to their lives so thoroughly that they practically worship him. The Matriarch, which is another post for another time, as well as the spawn, who we'll call Trina, might as well be the poster-children for what I've come to think of as moron mode--the condition you have when you begin to realize something is "off" about a sociopath, but you value him as a friend so much that you overlook the discrepancies. In fact, it's my belief this is the very reason you hear about so many serial killers, etc., having wives or girlfriends who didn't "know" what their sociopath was. You think to yourself, "Wow, she's so stupid. How could she have not realized?" Easy. She was in moron mode. It's the combination of being love-bombed and lied to and is the direct result of your sociopath emotionally attaching himself to you, parasite-style. He has done exactly what he needs to do to a target: made himself the perfect companion so that no matter what awful things you hear, you won't believe it of him, because it's not the person you know. I digress...
Anyway, I ran into the target fallback family, and Trina was unbelievably shocked when I was less than congenial to her. She went so far as to comment on my "rudeness," when in reality, over the past months after Clark had painted me crazy to them, she had publicly threatened me (Charles Manson cult-esque, anyone?). Yet, here she was, brazenly expecting me to be polite and courteous to her as though nothing had happened.
All I could think of in that moment was the incident of Mallory returning to "the scene of the crime," and how because of her associations with Clark, she'd been under his spell to the point where she completely believed that she could take actions without consequences. It is because he lives in a world where he doesn't live by the same social cues the rest of us do, but it is because for him, the rules are not the same. Most of us understand what is acceptable and what is not, but in his world, anything is acceptable if he would like it to be. (Yet, God forbid someone does the same thing to him. It would be unforgiveable. There is very much a double standard in behavior expectations in that way. It's very Hitler, but again...another story for another time.)
