Number four: they smile and talk furiously while sitting next to you, but quickly flip their phone face down if you look over. Think about the times you are sitting together on the couch. The room is completely silent and the narcissist is completely ignoring you. But they are staring at their phone, smiling, laughing, and typing furiously to someone else. They’re giving all their bright, happy energy to a glowing screen. But the very second you lean over or look in their direction, they immediately flip the phone face down on the table or quickly tilt the screen away. By doing this, they’re building an invisible brick wall right in the middle of your living room.
They are forcing you to watch them be charming and attentive to someone else while actively blocking you out. It is designed to make you feel intensely jealous, completely insecure, and entirely worthless in your own home.
Speaking of making you feel worthless, a narcissist loves to disappear entirely just to see if you will wait for them. Number five: they ghost you for days and then send a completely random one-word text just to test their leash on you. They will not answer a single important question for three, four, or five days. But then, just when you are finally starting to accept the silence and move on, your phone will buzz. It is not an apology. It is a completely random text like “Hey,” or maybe just a funny internet meme. This is the breadcrumb leash. When a fisherman throws a line into the water, they occasionally jerk the string just to make sure the hook is still securely stuck in the fish’s mouth. That random text message is the narcissist jerking the string. They do not want to have a real conversation with you. They just want to see if you will immediately drop everything you are doing and reply. If you respond to the random meme after they ignored you for days, it proves to them that their leash is still tightly wrapped around your neck.
The absolute most insulting way a narcissist devalues you through a phone happens when you finally try to stand up for yourself. Which is why we need to talk about number six. They reply to your deep pain or serious boundaries with a single mocking emoji or acronym. You gather all your courage and type out a serious boundary. You express deep, genuine pain about the relationship. You hit send waiting for a mature, adult response, and the reply is a single laughing emoji. Or maybe they just type “lol” or “smh” (shaking my head).
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