How to confuse a narcissist? (15 Ways to do so)
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The Optimistminds editorial team is made up of psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health professionals. Each article is written by a team member with exposure to and experience in the subject matter. The article then gets reviewed by a more senior editorial member. This is someone with extensive knowledge of the subject matter and highly cited published material.
This detailed article will be explaining the different ways through which you can confuse a narcissist. It can seem on the outside that narcissists are super-confident and cannot be thrown off, but this is not impossible.
How to confuse a narcissist?
You can confuse a narcissist through the following ways,
- By not reacting to the situation
- By rejecting their requests
- By being unpredictable
- By simply walking away
- By acting boring
- By acting very interesting
- By not revealing information
- By stopping all communication with them
- By countering them with questions
- By being upfront about their faults
- By out-performing them
- By giving attention to others
- By humiliating them in public
- By giving the controls to someone else
- By not caring about their feelings at all
By not reacting to the situation
If you are dealing with a narcissist and want to confuse them, you can try not reacting. Narcissists thrive when other people pay attention to them and react to their behavior and no reaction from you can confuse them.
By rejecting their requests
If an absolute narcissist has requested something from you, especially in an impolite or uncourteous manner, you can simply turn down or reject their requests. Narcissists often have their way with everyone, and when you reject them, this can confuse them very much.
By being unpredictable
Narcissists are very keen observers and tend to use this information to their advantage. If you do something that is definitely not predicted based on your usual behavior, this can also surprise and confuse narcissists.
By simply walking away
Another tactic that you can try if you are trying to confuse narcissists is simply walk away from the situation or the conversation. When you walk away, you are gesturing that you are not interested in what they have to say and can confuse them as a result.
However, this might be hard to practice especially if the narcissist turns out to be someone you need to work with on a daily basis. In this case, you can clearly state beforehand that you will walk away when they say despiteful and negative things and act upon it.
By acting boring
Narcissists tend to bully and pick on people to gain control over a certain place. When you act boring and dull as a dishwasher, this can throw off narcissists and they get confused as to whether you are a worthy target for them or not.
This does not mean that you need to change your personality entirely and make it so dull and bland. But by putting on a boring body language, you can easily confuse narcissists as they are very visually stimulated.
By acting very interesting
As opposed to the tactic mentioned above, you can also act very interesting and thereby confuse narcissists. When you act very interesting, you immediately get the spotlight in the group which makes narcissists jealous and confused at the same time.
By not revealing information
When you reveal a lot of information about yourself or your activities, you give more weapons to narcissists to use against you. By not revealing anything about yourself, the narcissist in your group will be confused since they don’t know what topic to pick you on.
This might be hard especially if you are in a situation where you need to reveal your information, as in a workplace. But the crucial factor is that you don’t reveal personal information about yourself since it puts across that you don’t find them worthy enough to communicate with.
By stopping all communication with them
You can also go one step ahead and stop all communications with them completely. This definitely confuses and frustrates narcissists for two main reasons – one, because they have no new info about you and two, because you have decided that you don’t like them anymore.
By countering them with questions
Narcissists often love to showboat their intelligence and may come up with weird facts and figures which not all may be true. Countering their questions can confuse them since they now have to defend the information they have just put out.
Sometimes this can bite you back as they might have come packed with the right information. So, if you are trying to throw them off by countering with questions, it is wise if you do some homework about the subject beforehand.
By being upfront about their faults
Another thing about narcissists is that they love to be right all the time. They really cannot stand being corrected. If you want to confuse absolute narcissists who insist on being correct every time, try highlighting their mistakes in front of everyone.
When you are upfront about their faults, you also need to be assertive and aggressive enough so that they don’t turn the tables on you. You can try doing this by posing with strong body language and using the right verbal language.
By out-performing them
You can also try out-performing narcissists in order to confuse them. Narcissists not only insist on being right but also want to be the best all the time. By doing much better than them and staying ahead, you will confuse them and frustrate them.
For instance, if you are dealing with a narcissist in your class who is always trying to get everyone’s attention all the time, you can try working hard to stay at the first so that they get confused and frustrated.
By giving attention to others
Narcissists love to be the center of attention at all times, and find new and creative ways to bring the spotlight back to them. However, if you start giving attention to someone else, this can confuse the narcissist in your midst.
For example, if you are dealing with a narcissist in your work group, you can try giving attention to another co-worker and also encouraging others to do the same. The narcissist in your group is bound to get confused and may also try to do the same.
By humiliating them in public
Public humiliation is something that narcissists fear the most since they highly value everyone’s opinion about them. Mocking them or making fun of them in a public setting can severely damage their ego and confuse them.
You might feel that you are being cruel in doing this but, you need to remember that narcissists have already hurt many people in public already. The confusion will be even more when the setting consists of people the narcissist really wants to impress.
By giving the controls to someone else
Not just attention, but narcissists also crave control and dominance over other people. When you give the controls and authority to another person in the group, narcissists are sure to get confused over your choice and may start to doubt themselves.
The blow lands even harder when you give authority to another person who the narcissist particularly dislikes or if they find them to be very weak or misfit for the group. This can not only confuse them but even deflate their egos.
By not caring about their feelings at all
It can surely seem cruel and rude to think about narcissists and their feelings. But the truth is that absolute narcissists actually do not care about anyone else at all. By not caring about their feelings and not acknowledging them, you will be confusing them even further.
However, in case the narcissist really gets some professional help and tries to make amends, it can seem worthwhile to show your caring side to them eventually. At the same time, this rarely happens.
Conclusion
This detailed article has explained the different ways through which you can confuse a narcissist, especially if you are working with one or need to deal with one on a regular basis.
If you like this article, please post your comments and questions in the space below.
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