Tinker, player, soldier, spy...
By now, most people have at least tangentially heard of "players" as in pick-up artists a la Neil Strauss' "the Game". Guys who have a whole sub-culture of methods on how to "pick up hot women and "get sex".
The very notion that there are ways of getting cheap and fast "connections" through marketing methods is not new anymore, and it sells to certain categories of people, nowadays when there are workshops about it.
There are a few things that are not ever told in any book or workshop however, and those are:
1. Players can be of both genders (but female players have different methods)
2. The methods just work on certain types of people, with certain traits or in certain phases of their lives, and usually only once or twice with the same person or in the same group. This is why it's essential that a player lives in a big city or travels a lot.
3. Players do not have to be pick-up artists at all. In fact, a player is usually a very specific type of individual with a mild-to-medium sized personality disorder and ditto empathy deficiency.
4. Many players don't fully realize what they are themselves. While they may not be pick-up artists, they are still players, and while they don't necessarily always do it to get sex, they still play people for a huge variety of reasons, most of which stem from their own ego.
The reason for why I can recognize a player fairly fast is because I was subjected to one when I was fairly young. I really trusted the guy and thought he was telling the truth and that our relationship was unique. Suffice to say, the awakening was rather brutal, and I'm not going to go into any detailed dynamics, or this would get too long. But I really sat down afterward and forgave myself (because I had been terribly hard on myself for being "gullible"). I fully acknowledged to myself that *I* had been the normal person in the relationship, that the normal thing to do, really is to trust and to not think that someone is manipulating people and reality abundantly. And once I had fully certified that it was the behavior of the player that was the anomaly, I pinpointed a series of dysfunctional traits so that I could observe them in my surroundings in the future.
I've encountered some memorable players a few times later in life, thankfully none of them never got truly close to me, but a few were moving in the periphery of my life.
Some years ago, there was one guy who manipulated a group of female friends (whom he was friends with too), spreading half truths and gossip with the vague agenda of making himself an important central figure among a group of friends (he also had a huge crush on one of the girls). This particular player fell into the same trap as most players often do, he got too bold and got discovered. The women talked to each other and put two and two together. They then had a lunch with him, everyone gathered, and broke up their friendships with him. The guy has since then called this lunch "the tribunal", as he was of a very dramatic nature, and he seemed astonished that he would lose all these goodie-contacts, as he "had wanted everyones' very best all along".
I've observed other similar cases over the years and put together a brief pathological profile of the emotional predator that is the player. What makes me write about it now, is frankly the fact that some recent insights have made me aware that the internet and social networks on the whole, have provided players with a whole extra level of ground to exercise on.
So here are a few things to know about players (for practicality, I will mostly call the player "he", but be assured that there are female players too):
* A player is not always completely dishonest, on the contrary, the most successful players use skewed truths and half truths to manipulate reality and contacts with. The important thing is not the grade of truthfulness, the important thing is the level of manipulation going on.
* While a convincing player mostly uses truth when manipulating reality, he/she does have a supreme ability to lie in specific key moments. The lying is often of a curious nature though, in which the player compartmentalizes the act to such an extent, he/she doesn't even fully believe he/she is lying "for real". (example: girl asks: "are you talking to her in the same way you are talking to me" The player is able to answer with a "no" he fully believes in, even though in fact, he is giving two women the same compliments and the same wooing treatment.) The player lives in the moment, and believes his own answer in that moment, and then never goes back to self-reflect in retrospect. This is a puzzling type of action which I've observed closely many times.
* The player often plays all kinds of people, for different kinds of kicks. Often quite platonic ones, where the goal is to get influential friendships and status. The difference between a player and normal people who just want to be liked is that the player will create artificial situations if necessary, to reach his goal. Small or big dramas, overly affectionate language in all kinds of moments, particular personalized jokes, basically whatever it takes to get to the goal fast.
* The player is addicted to being liked and needed, but in a way that in actual reality pays little heed to the needs of the opposing part. Compliments and shown concern from the player is strictly aimed to give him the level of emotion back unto him, which he so craves. The most certain way to distinguish a player from a person without a personality disorder, is to simply observe speed and levels of patience. How fast does a person develop what seems like very deep and meaningful relationships? Most people would be surprised that a player and his special buddy have known each other for less than a year, and that it has been a very intense ride during that year (or less).
Signs of a person having the borderline personality disorder of a player:
* Fast and emotionally intense relationships and friendships.
* Big charms but little patience with getting to know someone slowly.
* A certain addiction to drama. Just like a child who hurts his puppy in order to comfort him and put bandages on the paw, this type of individual creates confrontations and chaos, in order to feed off the emotions and then build new bonds from the individuals exposed in the drama.
* A player, more than the average individual, will go to great lengths to say things you need to hear, and to talk about things he thinks you are particularly interested in. He, for the moment changes himself into something that (in the moment) will hopefully fit you very well. He is very versatile and easily changes language with various individuals, while at the same time boasting about his genuineness.
* A player has a keen eye for individuals in specific life phases vulnerable to specific language and methods of comfort and closeness.
* When a player has reached a platform of closeness with an individual, and he thinks that individual is attached to him, he begins to show his disorder more often. This disorder is grounded in a severely demanding and leaking ego, which, if not satiated, will result in bad moods, cruel teasing and a form of push-pull behavior, with cyclic small fall-outs which are followed by emotional make-ups. This type of dysfunctional behavior is only shown by the player to certain types of close individuals after the relationship has reached a certain level. All other contacts never see this particular phase and may even have trouble believing it exists if told about it.
* The player usually has gone through a lot of shallow friendships *fast* in life, so a careful study of past history may give many hints.
* The player always claims that other people's attachment to him are *their* responsibility, and nothing he does or says puts any serious responsibility on him.
* A Player usually has one or several "get-out-of-jail" or "cop-out" phrases ready when he is getting emotionally involved with someone, so that when the situation changes, no one can accuse him of making "false" promises. Here it is important to remember that he is an emotional predator who mostly manipulates truths rather than outright lies. For example: not wanting a romantic relationship, but a sort of undefined friends-with-benefits contact, may still involve every tiny detail of a traditional relationship, down to the most frequent of "I love yous", the only difference is that the player is in complete control of when to pull the plug and he can do it without being "blamed".
* When a player can't get what he wants from someone, he can become passively hostile, and loses interest in the other person fairly fast. In his mind he has already attributed the defeat to flaws in the other person and their lack of understanding for his nature.
The player shares many traits with both borderline personality disorder as well as mild narcissistic disorder. In fact, a person who has a case of borderline personality disorder and who is *not* a player, may recognize several patterns from their own relationships.
I am not certain what creates a player, but I have seen a pattern of difficult childhoods in the ones that I knew the closest. Although the nature of difficulties can differ a lot.
personally, I am done with players and try to avoid individuals that give off certain signals like these. And in strict friendships I have started to avoid the borderline personality disorder-like(often female) individuals too. (which I could make a whole other post about). I realize that these people need long term friends and closeness like everybody else, but I am not a therapist and I can't fix them. They need to fix themselves, and in the mean time, they can do a lot of damage and spread a lot of hurt.
The very notion that there are ways of getting cheap and fast "connections" through marketing methods is not new anymore, and it sells to certain categories of people, nowadays when there are workshops about it.
There are a few things that are not ever told in any book or workshop however, and those are:
1. Players can be of both genders (but female players have different methods)
2. The methods just work on certain types of people, with certain traits or in certain phases of their lives, and usually only once or twice with the same person or in the same group. This is why it's essential that a player lives in a big city or travels a lot.
3. Players do not have to be pick-up artists at all. In fact, a player is usually a very specific type of individual with a mild-to-medium sized personality disorder and ditto empathy deficiency.
4. Many players don't fully realize what they are themselves. While they may not be pick-up artists, they are still players, and while they don't necessarily always do it to get sex, they still play people for a huge variety of reasons, most of which stem from their own ego.
The reason for why I can recognize a player fairly fast is because I was subjected to one when I was fairly young. I really trusted the guy and thought he was telling the truth and that our relationship was unique. Suffice to say, the awakening was rather brutal, and I'm not going to go into any detailed dynamics, or this would get too long. But I really sat down afterward and forgave myself (because I had been terribly hard on myself for being "gullible"). I fully acknowledged to myself that *I* had been the normal person in the relationship, that the normal thing to do, really is to trust and to not think that someone is manipulating people and reality abundantly. And once I had fully certified that it was the behavior of the player that was the anomaly, I pinpointed a series of dysfunctional traits so that I could observe them in my surroundings in the future.
I've encountered some memorable players a few times later in life, thankfully none of them never got truly close to me, but a few were moving in the periphery of my life.
Some years ago, there was one guy who manipulated a group of female friends (whom he was friends with too), spreading half truths and gossip with the vague agenda of making himself an important central figure among a group of friends (he also had a huge crush on one of the girls). This particular player fell into the same trap as most players often do, he got too bold and got discovered. The women talked to each other and put two and two together. They then had a lunch with him, everyone gathered, and broke up their friendships with him. The guy has since then called this lunch "the tribunal", as he was of a very dramatic nature, and he seemed astonished that he would lose all these goodie-contacts, as he "had wanted everyones' very best all along".
I've observed other similar cases over the years and put together a brief pathological profile of the emotional predator that is the player. What makes me write about it now, is frankly the fact that some recent insights have made me aware that the internet and social networks on the whole, have provided players with a whole extra level of ground to exercise on.
So here are a few things to know about players (for practicality, I will mostly call the player "he", but be assured that there are female players too):
* A player is not always completely dishonest, on the contrary, the most successful players use skewed truths and half truths to manipulate reality and contacts with. The important thing is not the grade of truthfulness, the important thing is the level of manipulation going on.
* While a convincing player mostly uses truth when manipulating reality, he/she does have a supreme ability to lie in specific key moments. The lying is often of a curious nature though, in which the player compartmentalizes the act to such an extent, he/she doesn't even fully believe he/she is lying "for real". (example: girl asks: "are you talking to her in the same way you are talking to me" The player is able to answer with a "no" he fully believes in, even though in fact, he is giving two women the same compliments and the same wooing treatment.) The player lives in the moment, and believes his own answer in that moment, and then never goes back to self-reflect in retrospect. This is a puzzling type of action which I've observed closely many times.
* The player often plays all kinds of people, for different kinds of kicks. Often quite platonic ones, where the goal is to get influential friendships and status. The difference between a player and normal people who just want to be liked is that the player will create artificial situations if necessary, to reach his goal. Small or big dramas, overly affectionate language in all kinds of moments, particular personalized jokes, basically whatever it takes to get to the goal fast.
* The player is addicted to being liked and needed, but in a way that in actual reality pays little heed to the needs of the opposing part. Compliments and shown concern from the player is strictly aimed to give him the level of emotion back unto him, which he so craves. The most certain way to distinguish a player from a person without a personality disorder, is to simply observe speed and levels of patience. How fast does a person develop what seems like very deep and meaningful relationships? Most people would be surprised that a player and his special buddy have known each other for less than a year, and that it has been a very intense ride during that year (or less).
Signs of a person having the borderline personality disorder of a player:
* Fast and emotionally intense relationships and friendships.
* Big charms but little patience with getting to know someone slowly.
* A certain addiction to drama. Just like a child who hurts his puppy in order to comfort him and put bandages on the paw, this type of individual creates confrontations and chaos, in order to feed off the emotions and then build new bonds from the individuals exposed in the drama.
* A player, more than the average individual, will go to great lengths to say things you need to hear, and to talk about things he thinks you are particularly interested in. He, for the moment changes himself into something that (in the moment) will hopefully fit you very well. He is very versatile and easily changes language with various individuals, while at the same time boasting about his genuineness.
* A player has a keen eye for individuals in specific life phases vulnerable to specific language and methods of comfort and closeness.
* When a player has reached a platform of closeness with an individual, and he thinks that individual is attached to him, he begins to show his disorder more often. This disorder is grounded in a severely demanding and leaking ego, which, if not satiated, will result in bad moods, cruel teasing and a form of push-pull behavior, with cyclic small fall-outs which are followed by emotional make-ups. This type of dysfunctional behavior is only shown by the player to certain types of close individuals after the relationship has reached a certain level. All other contacts never see this particular phase and may even have trouble believing it exists if told about it.
* The player usually has gone through a lot of shallow friendships *fast* in life, so a careful study of past history may give many hints.
* The player always claims that other people's attachment to him are *their* responsibility, and nothing he does or says puts any serious responsibility on him.
* A Player usually has one or several "get-out-of-jail" or "cop-out" phrases ready when he is getting emotionally involved with someone, so that when the situation changes, no one can accuse him of making "false" promises. Here it is important to remember that he is an emotional predator who mostly manipulates truths rather than outright lies. For example: not wanting a romantic relationship, but a sort of undefined friends-with-benefits contact, may still involve every tiny detail of a traditional relationship, down to the most frequent of "I love yous", the only difference is that the player is in complete control of when to pull the plug and he can do it without being "blamed".
* When a player can't get what he wants from someone, he can become passively hostile, and loses interest in the other person fairly fast. In his mind he has already attributed the defeat to flaws in the other person and their lack of understanding for his nature.
The player shares many traits with both borderline personality disorder as well as mild narcissistic disorder. In fact, a person who has a case of borderline personality disorder and who is *not* a player, may recognize several patterns from their own relationships.
I am not certain what creates a player, but I have seen a pattern of difficult childhoods in the ones that I knew the closest. Although the nature of difficulties can differ a lot.
personally, I am done with players and try to avoid individuals that give off certain signals like these. And in strict friendships I have started to avoid the borderline personality disorder-like(often female) individuals too. (which I could make a whole other post about). I realize that these people need long term friends and closeness like everybody else, but I am not a therapist and I can't fix them. They need to fix themselves, and in the mean time, they can do a lot of damage and spread a lot of hurt.