Does your NPD have tons of friends or none ?

[alphaomega]

Hi Fam 

Another thread got me to thinking about NPD people and how most of them tend to have as many "subjects" as they can keep in their pens.

My NPDM mom had no friends. None. Zero. 
She had some acquantances from college 70 years back that she occasionally kept in touch with.

But she made damn sure I knew they weren't going to "GET A FREE MEAL" at her funeral !!!
(So I had no funeral at all for her...)

I am curious, do your NPD's have alot of "friends" or not ?

XO AO

[Boat Babe]

My mother has a few, very few, friends and they are all from church and I think they feel sorry for her (old lady waif)

She has really poor social skills.

[Lisa]

I cannot remember a time that my Mom had friends.  She cut all ties with her parents and siblings at a young age, divorced my Dad and has never had any friends.  She also rarely leaves the house, she doesn't belong to any sort of clubs, have any hobbies or interests that could possibly bring her into a community or to have friendships.  One of her favourite guilt trip lines is "you're all I have you know"? when I'm not seeing her or talking to her as much as she would like.

[Cat of the Canals]

My BPD/NPD mother is quite the extroverted social butterfly. She has a lot of friends and several organizations she's part of. I think it was one of the reasons it took me so long to recognize her PD. The fact that I'm so introverted made me think the problem was with me. But all of her relationships, even professionally, require her to have some amount of control. And her friendships are either very surface level or are totally enmeshed. The enmeshed friendships ALWAYS fall apart over time. Her closest friend when I was a child was referred to as my "aunt." But they had a falling out about ten years ago and now are barely on speaking terms.

My unPD mil, on the other hand, has almost no close friends. She tries to get involved with various things (church functions, etc.), but her social skills are mediocre at best. She either gets paranoid and takes offense at imagined slights or weirds people out with her bizarre behavior so that they avoid her.

[SunnyMeadow]

My mother has no friends. If she ever makes a new one, it doesn't last. She finds something wrong with them quickly. The last lady is in her 80s (so are M &D) and according to my uNPD mom, the woman has designs on my dad. I'm sure this woman was making passes right in front of my mother 

More like she was being nice to him and not paying full attention to uNPD mother.

[FromTheSwamp]

My mother is a BPD waif and she has never had a real friend.  She isn't interested.  She tries to use people, and after they get tired of it, that's the end of it. 

My NPD father has friends in the sense that he has people who believe his grandiosity and find him interesting, and he likes the attention.  He doesn't have friends in the sense of two people who care about each other as humans sort of way. 

So really neither of them have what I consider friends. 

[SparkStillLit]

PdM has billions of "friends" and she calls every one of them her "major buds". She does have a decent number of very longtime friends like since before I was born. Over 50 years.
Updh has very very few friends. Maybe no longtime ones.
I'm about medium. Handful of longtimers, and handful of noobs that I've had around for several years now that I like.

[Sneezy]

My BPD/NPD mother is quite the extroverted social butterfly. She has a lot of friends and several organizations she's part of. I think it was one of the reasons it took me so long to recognize her PD.

Same with my mom.  She has, and has always has had, a gazillion friends.  And that was part of the reason I never would have guessed she is a covert NPD.  It wasn't until she moved near me that I realized her need for constant social interaction is part of her PD.  She can't stand to be alone.  The slightest amount of downtime and she is lonely and bored and the walls are closing in on her.  Also, with so many friends there is always someone to feed her supply, and always someone who is being mean to her or not appreciating her, etc.

My mom is also very good at compartmentalization, which is hard for me to understand.  She can be very close friends with someone, while at the same time having an inappropriate relationship with her close friend's husband (I'm not going to classify all these relationships as "affairs." They have ranged from mild flirting to too much time together to full-blown physical affairs.  It always depends.  But how someone could carry on like this with a friend's husband is beyond me).

For the most part, only immediate family sees my mom as she is and understands that she lies and deceives and is almost always miserable.  Her friends don't see this part of her.  Although, every now and then, a long-term friend will say something that makes me think she has seen behind the curtain and understands what is going on.  That is always interesting when it happens, but it's rare.

[Socialsunshine]

but her social skills are mediocre at best. She either gets paranoid and takes offense at imagined slights or weirds people out with her bizarre behavior so that they avoid her.

This is my uBPM 100%!!!

[blacksheep7]

NM had many friends, co-workers.   None of them today.

Now, one longtime friend which is only four years older than me.    She was always more of an enmeshed surrogate dd because they share the same maternal language & country and all that goes with it, music, tv.. all of which I am not into.
They mainly play cards when they get together. Surrogate Dd came here very young to marry and had no family  but the one she was to marry into.

NM always criticized her just like her own children    I once made a remark about that to NM and she replied «I'm confiding in you».    Yeah right is what I thought, she wanted me to join her gossip.

The friends she did have remaining she criticized and now has only her surrogate dd.  I have to add that she always defended, relied & believed  in surrogate dd & her husband the alcoholic's words and actions before mine.  Why?  Because they saw her more of a M figure and victim so NM knew that she would always be respected by them even though there was dysfunction in the couple.  They were taking care of her emotional needs and even running errands at times.

She preferred going there first and it was okay with me....I didn't have to deal with her. 

[Hazy111]

Remember, narcissists dont have friends, they have narcissistic supply. People are just objects that make them feel good temporarily.

[Sneezy]

Remember, narcissists dont have friends, they have narcissistic supply. People are just objects that make them feel good temporarily.

I think this is 100% accurate.  Yet, at the same time, my mother would refer to her entourage as her "friends," and they would refer to her as a "friend."  And there are many, many people who absolutely adore my mother.  They must also be getting something out of their "friendship" with her.  In some cases, it's obvious.  There are good people out there who feel a need to help others, and mom is very needy.  So they feel good taking her under their wing.  In other cases, I really don't understand it.  It is certainly an interesting subject.

[blacksheep7]

Remember, narcissists dont have friends, they have narcissistic supply. People are just objects that make them feel good temporarily.

Exactly!  Even their own children and/or family.

[bostonbound]

My family member makes friends easily and is very social, but will just as easily lose these friends as time goes on. 

[Sidney37]

I totally agree with them not having friends but narcissistic supply.  My uNPDm had no friends when I was growing up.  She got her supply from me, people who reported to her at work (She played go between between the employees and the company owner.  She manipulated the employees in a way that made them feel like she was their savior against the mean boss. ) and her own mother.  Once her mother passed away, I moved away and she retired, she found "friends".  I found it interesting that her friends are almost all people with disabled or very troubled children.  She gets her supply from them depending on her to vent to.  Little do they know (or maybe they do by now - I've been NC for 2 years) that she gossips about all of them to other people.  The things that they vent to her in confidence are told throughout the church. 

[Kiki81]

Tons of friends, so many. Friends from preschool years. High school. Her first job.  Sorority sisters from college. Etc. If your path ever crossed my mom's path, she was out to make you her friend for life. She was *wonderful* to these people. Eventually, this proves to me she knew what she was doing in how she treated me!

I'm sure the few friends who know I bailed out on my parents are mystified!! After all, what terrific people, would do anything for you (No boundaries!).

Well, now that my parents are almost 91 and In a lovely CCRC, those friends can enjoy inappropriate questions, criticism, verbal abuse, control/manipulation, lying, demands and tantrums, rage meltdowns, and endless phone calling.

Because I finally had the sense to realize I'd been volunteering.

[Cat of the Canals]

Tons of friends, so many. Friends from preschool years. High school. Her first job.  Sorority sisters from college. Etc. If your path ever crossed my mom's path, she was out to make you her friend for life. She was *wonderful* to these people. Eventually, this proves to me she knew what she was doing in how she treated me!

I've had similar realizations. My unPD mother has impeccable social skills when she is performing for anyone outside of my immediate family. But when it was just us? She's slamming doors, threatening to jump out of the car, giving the silent treatment, etc.

I remember one of the most confusing things for me as a child was the way she could be in an absolute rage, and then we'd arrive at our destination or someone would knock on the door, and her whole demeanor would change. She could go from Evil Witch to Benevolent Queen in the blink of an eye.

[Janeite V]

Mine has driven away all of his friends and alienated most of his family, too.

As he got older, he seemed to find it more and more difficult to only practice cruelty against a few vulnerable individuals, and it started to leak out to everyone in his circle.

The preferred scapegoats still get the worst of it. However, even when he is being charming and sociable, he often makes a game of being condescending and sarcastic towards those he is performing for, thinking people don't notice because they don't react to it (they most certainly do notice). I'm continually astounded by how stupid he thinks everyone must be.

I believe that being heavily enabled well into adulthood is the reason why he did not develop the stereotypical narcissistic charm, although of course narcissists are known to have an inflated sense of their own abilities.

Frankly, I feel lucky that my narcissist isn't the type with amazing social skills as some of yours are. It would have been far more difficult for me to get Out of the FOG if it was still only me that got the worst of it, and if he had any credible flying monkeys. I do think that my own grey rock contributed, because it cut off much of the easy supply he was used to, and he was "forced" to turn on others.

[Hazy111]

Its interesting the differing BPDs that are being described. My mother was the Borderline "Hermit" type (paranoid), so she no friends , literally no friends.

She only felt comfortable mixing with her sister . So we would visit her and her us. When retired  she a had a group of neighbours all of which were lonely widows and she would happily chat ( but not give much away) at the gate or over the fence. They used to implore her to come in and have a tea and cake etc but no never. 

She didnt mind nosing around a neighbours house on her own when they went on holiday though . They had given her their key. 

She therefore really struggled as she couldnt generate narcissistic supply with no job or family around.

I also know the sociable Borderline Queens and Waifs with countless "friends". But they were all just used to cater for the their own "needs" .

I  witnessed  Borderline Queens socialising completely projecting a different persona to the one i knew. None of the rage , all sweetness and light and good humour. Completely fake (false selfs)

[MarlenaEve]

They do not have friends. I believe a friendship is challenging for PDs. For once, you need to give something to a friend: support, empathy, understanding, a listening ear, a pleasant time and emotional connection.

These things come easily to non-PD people. We have friends to enjoy life more, to support and help one another, to learn from them and grow and just be there for each other. It's a beautiful process to grow with another person who isn't a family member but a complete stranger-a stranger who cannot actually give you much.

So I don't think PDs have the time or patience to extend themselves to other people FOR THE SAKE of helping someone or just enjoying that someone's presence. I must emphasize the lack of patience. I've seen mom bashing ALL her non-related people because they've done something she didn't like and was constantly gossiping about them (which I find it disturbing). There is no patience in them to accept someone who's not a part of her cult (aka family) and grow along with them in a mutual, loving relationship.

So, my PDs have no friends. But they use their acquaintances for favors whenever they can. Using people is a natural trait in them.