Lenaya Fallin's Blog: Leaves of My Heart
June 5, 2023
The Danger of Romancing the Psychopath
So. We have psychopaths as love interests now. Not as some weird little niche taste. Panting after the antisocial has gone mainstream-ish.
My concern is the romanticizing of them. We have a hard time recognizing and understanding how to deal with them as it is.
It’s a bizarre kind of anthropomorphization. Like when we think our cats are mad at us or our dogs feel guilty. We think it because we feel those things.
A similar thing happens with the antisocial. Growing up with one, I know better. But still can’t help myself. Empathy and conscience are hard wired into us.
Except when they’re not.
Unfortunately, most of us struggle to comprehend the lack.
I don’t know how many times I had to learn that my family member could fake empathy, but didn’t feel it; could perform guilt but their usual reason for doing something (‘I wanted to’) was all that really held meaning for them.
There is something therapeutic for me in reading books where the psychology is sound. When it isn’t, I notice right away. And I get a bit het up.
Regular people are wildly outmatched when it comes to dealing with AS types. We are ill-equipped to interact with someone and keep the knowledge that they feel for no one, and have no concept of action and consequence at the forefront of our minds.
We wanna believe that people are salvageable. And AS types are. Most of them. What they are not is changeable.
And romance is all about the glorious, transformative power of love.
These folks may adapt at some shallow level. But they never transform. And I can’t help feeling that wanting someone powerfully enough that the desire to keep them sticks…that is incredibly bad news for the object of their ‘attachment’.
Because that person doesn’t exist for them as a human being. Merely as a means to scratch an itch. Their value, only in how well they continue to perform that function.
Mostly, though, it’s pure fiction. They rarely form anything like meaningful attachments. And those who do (sociopathic types seem more capable) are rarely capable of doing anything like meeting the complex needs of a partner.
This trope is going nowhere soon, I get that. I’m sucked into it myself.
Hopefully, we’ll all remember how fictional these books are. And that it’s doubtful 99.999% of them are representative of a single living psychopath.
Read on!
My concern is the romanticizing of them. We have a hard time recognizing and understanding how to deal with them as it is.
It’s a bizarre kind of anthropomorphization. Like when we think our cats are mad at us or our dogs feel guilty. We think it because we feel those things.
A similar thing happens with the antisocial. Growing up with one, I know better. But still can’t help myself. Empathy and conscience are hard wired into us.
Except when they’re not.
Unfortunately, most of us struggle to comprehend the lack.
I don’t know how many times I had to learn that my family member could fake empathy, but didn’t feel it; could perform guilt but their usual reason for doing something (‘I wanted to’) was all that really held meaning for them.
There is something therapeutic for me in reading books where the psychology is sound. When it isn’t, I notice right away. And I get a bit het up.
Regular people are wildly outmatched when it comes to dealing with AS types. We are ill-equipped to interact with someone and keep the knowledge that they feel for no one, and have no concept of action and consequence at the forefront of our minds.
We wanna believe that people are salvageable. And AS types are. Most of them. What they are not is changeable.
And romance is all about the glorious, transformative power of love.
These folks may adapt at some shallow level. But they never transform. And I can’t help feeling that wanting someone powerfully enough that the desire to keep them sticks…that is incredibly bad news for the object of their ‘attachment’.
Because that person doesn’t exist for them as a human being. Merely as a means to scratch an itch. Their value, only in how well they continue to perform that function.
Mostly, though, it’s pure fiction. They rarely form anything like meaningful attachments. And those who do (sociopathic types seem more capable) are rarely capable of doing anything like meeting the complex needs of a partner.
This trope is going nowhere soon, I get that. I’m sucked into it myself.
Hopefully, we’ll all remember how fictional these books are. And that it’s doubtful 99.999% of them are representative of a single living psychopath.
Read on!
May 30, 2023
Please download the book again!
That moment when you realize you uploaded the WRONG FILES for your ebook.
Six months ago.
Please, if you bought my book and dnf’ed it…understandably so…please re-download.
What a bloody mess.
Six months ago.
Please, if you bought my book and dnf’ed it…understandably so…please re-download.
What a bloody mess.
Leaves of My Heart
A very fancy title for a…golly..who knows what kind of blog. Probably, it will mostly contain announcements.
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