Narcissists are incredibly charming. Red flags below apply to any gender.
They are writing beautiful messages and they have charming personality (their purpose is to get you as soon as possible)
They are full of themselves. They are high achievers, performers, hard workers, super smart and super successful (their purpose is to impress you that you will be blown away)
They will tell you that they have an excellent relationship with their ex wife or ex husband and very loving relationship with their kids (Their self image of being a great ex and a loving parent is super important to them. But you need to know that what they are telling you is only their part of the story and reality can be very different)
They will put you almost immediately on a pedestal, they will compliment you in the most beautiful way and they will tell you "I love you" within a few hours
They will tell about you to their kids and to their friends. They will share their pictures and pictures of their kids with you within a first few hours
They will insist to see you every day and tell you that their life is empty without you
They want to be intimate very early and they even invite you into their place and tell you to leave your personal stuff in their place in case you wish to stay over night
They will create plans to go for a vacation with you, long weekends, even plans of living together. It is called "future faking" because this is what it actually is.
They always bring a third person to make you feel insecure. But they will say it is just a friend or someone they matched with on an app. They want to feel that two people are fighting for them.
They will tell you that they want to go off the dating app and they want to focus only on you. They will tell you they want to introduce you to their friends and they wish to meet your friends too
They will tell you that their last ex was crazy, too emotional and he/she hurt their feelings
Usually within a first week you will have first disagreement because of different opinions, which is very normal, but not for a narcissists. They will tell you that your reaction was too emotional and that you hurt their feelings. They will shoot down and this is a red flag too.
Yes, they are very sneaky and will use your reactions to what they have done TO you, in an effort to make you look crazy. You will tent to apologize and this is how they will take emotional control over you. Because they must to have control over you.
Everything mentioned above is not normal. You will feel like it is too much, too early and yes you will feel under a huge pressure. If you are emotionally healthy person you will run away. But if you were dealing with a narcissists in your past, if you were raised by a narcissistic parent or you were in a relationship with a narcissist, red flags will feel like home and you will fall into their trap.
Why it is a trap?
Time plays a significant role here. Your brain has about one month to recognize that this way of treatment is not normal. However if you stay under this type of abuse, because this is what it is, your brain will adapt itself and you won't be able to recognize by yourself that you are emotionally abused. Relationship with a narcissistic person causes a huge emotional and physical damage which leads to mental and physical issues.
My advise is: always use first dates to ask about their parents and the way they were raised. If they were raised by strict, cruel, abusive parent probability that they were raised by a narcissist is high. Children of narcissists also, their parent, form brain damage from maltreatment. When children suffer at hands of a narcissistic abuser, some crucial brain regions are affected, including damage to the hippocampus and amygdala. These changes lead to devastating effects on their lives.
Narcissists will not change their behavior and so called a "honey moon phase" with them lasts first 3 - 6 months because they are not able to hold to it any longer and they are not able to face your emotions, because they are not able to hold their own emotions at all. They will give you a silence treatment, call you emotionally unstable, crazy, emotional etc.
So make yourself a favor and run away. Find a therapist and heal yourself. Emotional abuse can be very traumatizing.
Watch my webinar about Why it is important to heal from a Narcissistic abuse in which I am describing much more in detail narcissistic personality disorder.
A great movies on Netflix where you can recognize narcissist behaviors are: Inventing Anna and My King (Mon Roi)
To heal from abusive relationship I offer one to one private program "Raise after Narcissistic abuse". It is important to release trauma caused by abuse and to neutralize emotions toward abuser that you can feel emotionally free again.
