Are you dating a narcissist?

[Shadow]

Are you dating a narcissist?

When your back goes out, you call your boyfriend. He comes over and waits on you hand and foot. Right? Not if you’re Sarah H., a New York City publicist. When she called her then-boyfriend to say she was barely able to move, his response was, “You’re making it up.” That wasn’t even the worst of it. When her dad was hospitalized and she needed support, her boyfriend said, “I’m busy.” If Sarah — a cancer survivor — ever mentioned her illness, he’d say, “Get over it.”

Looking back, Sarah says, it shouldn’t have taken two years for her to get over him and get out. “I should have run, but I listened to my heart, not my head,” she admits. There were other warnings signs: when he wasn’t criticizing her, he was complimenting how “connected” she was in Manhattan social circles. But — here’s the clincher — he was also, from the very beginning, exciting, charming, witty and seductive.

Sarah realizes now that those traits may make for a good date, but not a good relationship. “He was like the man-eating plant in The Little Shop of Horrors. ‘Feed me, Seymour!’ Constantly feeding his own ego. And when he’s sucked you dry, he’ll find someone else,” she laments. Yes, there’s a good musical theater metaphor for people like Sarah’s boyfriend, but there’s also a technical term: narcissists.

Are you dating a narcissist?