I must tell you, a relationship is never an easy thing.

Many and I, a long time ago, have been having the most god-awful fights. She called me an ugly mug, and I called her a Java Queen. Can you imagine? To this very day, I’m not sure how our relationship survived. It was so fluid.

Anyhow, one day, I ate Minnie’s request. I wrote for her, what makes a narcissist think? What are the narcissist’s beliefs, tenets and credo? How the narcissist expects other people to behave to make him happy? And we’ve never had a fight since.

So, here we go. I wrote to Minnie. I’m a child, a tyrant, an emperor. I’m infantile, petulant, moody, but I’m also divine, and I’m delusional. I bring fantasy into your life. I bring color. I bring thrills and excitement and risk and the unexpected and the unpredictable. I make your heart thump. I’m a wunderkind, a boastful genius. What do I want from you? I just want to play. Nothing else.

Did you hear this? Nothing else. I just want to have fun. That’s all. I want us to share the fantasy.

Here, here, in front of thousands of people, I renounce reality. I renounce the truth. Let the games begin.

Or, as my fellow narcissists used to say, the game is afoot. And what is my game?

You’re asking. What is my game? My game is afoot.

You are my vastly inferior slave to serve me as I please. And you’re also my admiring, awestruck disciple.

You must accept me as I am. You must. Otherwise, it’s not going to work. You’re expected to fully forgive and love me unconditionally.

You heard? Unconditionally. Forgive. Love. Unconditionally. And regardless of my conduct or my misconduct, what I do or don’t do, action or inaction, omission or commission.

Even when I inevitably and repeatedly hurt you badly, time and again, you still must forgive me. And you still must love me unconditionally as a mother would do.

So here’s the thing. I’m immutable. I cannot be changed. I’m set in stone. I’m a rock. I’m a force of nature. I’m an element. I’m a quark. I’m also opinionated. And of course, my opinion is always right.

They’re founded on research. They’re rational and reasoned. No one else’s opinions come close to mine. Everyone else is an idiot anyhow.

So I’m opinionated. I’m opinionated because I’m superior and I’m superior because I’m intelligent.

Only eight other people in the world have a hundred ninety IQ. Who should I look up to? I’m obstinate. I’m obstinate because I know best and I never make mistakes.

Well, I make mistakes. I’m not an idiot. I know I make mistakes.

But overall, I guide in the right direction. I get it right. I’m grandiose. But I’m grandiose on good grounds. I’m entitled to be grandiose. It’s justified. It’s rational. It’s true. It’s reality tested.

High grandiosity. It’s not a cognitive deficit. It’s not a cognitive deficit. Don’t listen to this idiot Wachman with his stupid recasting of narcissism as a pathology. Narcissism is not a pathology.

It makes me superior. I’m the next stage in evolution. I’m superhuman. I am labile. I’m dysregulated.

That has to do with my upbringing. Years of trauma and abuse in early childhood. Not my fault. Of course, it’s never my fault.

And I’m depressive. I’m depressive because I can’t stand the world. I can’t stand people’s stupidity. I can’t stand how dumb people are. How brain-dead. I can’t stand their foibles. The nonsense. Conspiracy theories. I can’t stand any of this.

I just want to withdraw. You shouldn’t try to change me all the time. You shouldn’t try to fix me.

You shouldn’t try to bargain with me.

First of all, you’re not my equal. And you don’t have this power.

It’s a mistake. It just provokes me, aggravates, irritates me. And you know, you can play only with me. Only with me unless I let you play with others.

And I have no intention to let you play with others as long as you’re my playmate.

But when you’re no longer my playmate, when you’re just my servant, my service provider, to use a politically correct phrase, it’s okay then. You can play with others. Do anything you want to do. Touch lips. Give them your job. I’m entitled to take anything I want from you. I can do to you and I can do with you, you. Anything I wish. I own you. I can break you if I want to. You have no right to protest, to decline, to resist my demands, to go cold on me. You’re my property, my chateau. You hang in my larder, your piece of cutlery, to dispose of and do with, as I please, that you have a personality, that you have a physique, a physiognomy, that you have a body. Who doesn’t? Cows have bodies and pigs have personalities. We are not of the same species.

You must obey my wishes, unthinkingly and promptly, because of my superiority. You must never disagree with me. You’re not qualified. You’re not qualified. You’re not necessary. Knowledge, background, training.

And if your agony pleases me, you must deliver it to me. You must allow me to hurt you. You must allow me to observe your pain and anguish. It’s delectable if I’m a sadist. When I’m a sadist. And you have no right. No right whatsoever. Let this part be very clear.

You have no right whatsoever to expect or to demand anything from me.

You play hot and cold with me? No deal. If I give you anything, it’s because I choose to give you. I give only what I decide to give. Usually only as little of my time, my attention, my knowledge and money as is absolutely necessary.

I want to keep you hooked. I want to keep you around as my playmate, as long as it lasts.

So there’s a maintenance dose. I sustain you somehow, on your toes, walking on eggshells in the kitchen. That’s the maximum I’m willing to do. Anything above that? I can find a replacement. I can find a substitute. You’re interchangeable. You’re fungible. Don’t overestimate yourself. Don’t overvalue your contribution.

It would be wrong of you. You’ll pay the price.

Only I decide which game we play. And my decision-making process is not transparent. It’s based on how capriciously, arbitrarily bored I am.

Maybe how thrilled I am. Maybe how aroused I am.

Whatever I am determines the game we play at any given period, at any given time.

And external things and internal things are processed by me to settle on the game that I choose. And you have to adapt. You have to shape shift. You have to transform.

You can’t be rigid. You have to hang in there by your handle.

You see? You’re shocked. If you’re fit to play my game, I play with you. If you’re not fit to play my game, I lose all interest in you. All.

There are many monks and cops where you come from. If you refuse to play my game exactly how and exactly when I want it. Precisely. If you make any demands whatsoever.

Modifications. If you tinker. If you suggest. If you give advice. If you try to help. Whatever. I walk. I walk away. Before you know it.

And I look for a new playmate. More obsequious. Playmate who will acquiesce.

So many, it’s simple really. And it works. It works. It works for both of us.

It works for both of us. I can make you what? You can make my heart race. The caffeine. Caffeine, probably. I’ve had no reason to regret any of this over the decades of my life.

And you know what? When I compare myself to the overwhelming vast majority of humanity, I’m in good shape. I’m in good place. I’m in really really good place.

And I’ve spent the time allotted to me on this earth precisely as I had always wanted to.

My way. My way. Or the highway.

And now a little liquidity is all I ask.