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Here is a good example. Lurch's dad had to have heart surgery. Lurch went out of his way to tell me very specifically that only he and his mother would be going to the hospital during this critical operation. I asked him if Bertha would also be going. Rather than just saying no, he jumped right in and told me that she had other things to do - like give her horse a bath or go shopping for new riding clothes. I said that did not seem right - she should be there to give you support during the operation. He then said that she was a very selfish person and did not want to be bothered with such messy, unhappy events! Holy Shit! Could he have made Bertha seem any worse??
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During his dad's surgery, I got lots of phone calls from Lurch updating me on his dad's progress. At this point I had not even met his father. Lurch appeared to be looking for my support because his mean selfish wife would not provide it. Of course, being the nice person that I was, I talked to him and gave him encouragement and wished his father a speedy recovery. Wow - how could you not feel bad for a guy who's wife won't support him during such an event?
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Another favorite victim game Lurch likes to play is the "I do everything around the house" game. According to Lurch, he does all the cooking, laundry, dishes, pays someone to clean the house (and to make it worse, he says that Bertha is a pig), all the mowing, trimming, feeding animals (including all of Bertha's dogs/horses etc), gets all the animal food (hay is a real PITA), does the grocery shopping for his food because all Bertha will buy is crappy, non-nutritious food for herself, all outside maintenance of the house/barn/fencing, stall cleaning, truck/car/trailer maintenance etc. etc. All on top of his full time job, whereas Bertha is unemployed.
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He tells you in a certain way like - "whew, just finished doing all the dishes and the laundry - only have mowing the lawn, feeding all the animals, and cleaning stalls left for the evening, and when I come back in the house I will pay all the bills. Boy, it's a lot of work for one man to keep up this place." Which, of course, begs the question - "What is Bertha doing? Doesn't she help?" Naturally he acts all coy and says that she is too busy with showing her horses and hanging out with her friends to do any work at home. Yeah - right..................
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How can you tell the guy is a player in the above scenarios? Any time a guy tells you how crappy his wife is and how fabulous he is (and has not yet made the appointment at his divorce lawyer) - RUN!!!!!!! It does not matter what the situation is - a decent man will not do that - EVER. The player will tell you a couple of bits of information encouraging you to ask questions to 'drag' the rest of the story out of him and he tells it with such great reluctance. Hah! That is BS.
If he talks nasty about his wife, he will talk nasty about you too.
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Lurch strikes me as more than a mere egotistical, lying sack of crap. I did some shallow digging online and found the following list of behaviors that sound a lot like Lurch:
ReplyDelete*Egocentricity
*Callousness
*Impulsivity
*Conscience defect
*Exaggerated sexuality
*Excessive boasting
*Risk taking
*Inability to resist temptation
*Antagonistic
*Deprecating attitude toward the opposite sex *Lack of interest in bonding with a mate
Another page said this:
* Persistent lying or stealing
* Superficial charm
* Apparent lack of remorse or empathy; inability to care about hurting others.
* Inability to keep jobs or stay in school
* Impulsivity and/or recklessness
* Lack of realistic, long-term goals — an inability or persistent failure to develop and execute long-term plans and goals
* Inability to make or keep friends, or maintain relationships such as marriage
* Poor behavioral controls — expressions of irritability, annoyance, impatience, threats, aggression, and verbal abuse; inadequate control of anger and temper
* Narcissism, elevated self-appraisal or a sense of extreme entitlement
* A persistent agitated or depressed feeling (dysphoria)
* A history of childhood conduct disorders
* Recurring difficulties with the law
* Tendency to violate the boundaries and rights of others
* Substance abuse
* Aggressive, often violent behavior; prone to getting involved in fights
* Inability to tolerate boredom
* Disregard for the safety of self or others
* Persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social rules, obligations, and norms
* Often experiences difficulties with authority figures.
There may be things on that list you've not mentioned or that you did and I'm just not remembering.