“Narcissist magnet” is a term coined to denote that certain types of people are more prone to being “targeted” by narcissists because they possess qualities that would help the narcissistic person get what they crave – that is narcissistic supply.
These qualities can vary from empathy and willingness to excessively forgive, to people with social positions or financial resources that the narcissistic person could exploit in order to obtain that supply.
Some mental health professionals are not convinced that this concept of a narcissistic magnet is a “thing”.
Instead, they believe that some people stick with the narcissist longer than would be preferable and where most people would have already ended any kind of relationship with a narcissist, so the first group of people get stuck in their biased thinking that they are “narcissist magnets”.
Since it can’t be denied that narcissists themselves are good at detecting which kinds of people can serve as objects that can satisfy their various needs, it makes sense to outline some of the groups that are more likely to encounter a narcissist and, unfortunately, often suffer because of it.
We are here to try to list 6 groups of people who are most likely to attract narcissists.
Be sure to stick around until the end of the video, because you might find yourself or someone you care about in one or more of these categories of people who might be susceptible to narcissistic manipulation in their life.
Now, on to the video: Number 1.
Overly empathic people.
People who display very high levels of empathy often both intellectually understand emotional states of other people and are also able to remain emotionally present and available to them, even when that means helping a person who is in severe pain trying to carry their emotional burden.
The problem is – narcissists are also people with a lot of emotional burden.
They have to remain hypervigilant to every single minor “threat” to their ego that would amplify their core pathological insecurity.
So, with that kind of emotional burden in mind, who could be better than overly empathic people to do that heavy lifting for the narcissist, who is so self-involved that they think they are entitled to that help?
Over time, they start using overly empathic people, who get completely lost in the narcissist’s vortex, as punching bags who are expected to listen, mirror, comfort, talk to them and sooth their frail egos that are too big to reciprocate all those things to the empathic person.
Overly emphatic people rightfully assume that everyone deserves love and compassion, but fail to understand that those qualities tend to thrive only when they are reciprocated and shared.
There are some empaths, however, who understand this very clearly and are ready to quickly dismantle the narcissists’ false stories and endless lies, as well as assertively send narcissists packing if they’ve crossed a line.
Number 2.
Overly sensitive people.
Overly sensitive people attract narcissists for a variety of reasons.
For one, they often seem like easy prey.
These people are not only sensitive to their surroundings, but to people’s displays of grief, sadness, and pain.
Couple that with the narcissist’s ability to mercilessly lie and manipulate, and you get a toxic combination where an overly sensitive person, who can’t just sit back while the narcissist is “crying their heart out”, but feel compelled to help them by providing them with comfort and constant reassurance that narcissists constantly need.
Overly sensitive people are also highly attuned to their inner lives and a bit too introspective, which is perfect for narcissists who can convince the sensitive person to pin the blame on themselves.
However, a more mature sensitive person is aware that their sensitivity can be used to disentangle themselves from the narcissist by plainly telling them that they have detected their egocentricity and manipulative behavior, which usually doesn’t go well for the narcissists, who are hypersensitive themselves, but in a completely self-serving way.
Number 3.
Overly forgiving people.
Whether it is an innate or a socialized characteristic, forgiveness is something almost redemptive and transformative.
Not so much with narcissists, though.
It is important to know that narcissists' cognitive processing of information is also colored by their selfishness and self-centeredness.
They don’t understand certain terms as most people do.
Forgiveness for a narcissist isn’t a chance to not do something that hurts someone else the first time – they understand it as a free pass to do the same thing again, since they have already found a way to get permission to do so.
Overly forgiving people can and do realize that they can forgive the narcissist and still leave them to figure their problems out by themselves.
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Number 4.
Overly optimistic people.
There is no denying many benefits an optimistic person can experience: better general health, great stress resilience, ability to envision a brighter future, and some of it is even supported by psychological research.
Of course, even an optimistically inclined person can be realistic about certain truths, such as the truth about toxic relations with people who are highly narcissistic.
A narcissist can be drawn to overly optimistic people who can easily fuel their grandiose fantasies and keep them around by feeding them false positivity themselves, which is why optimism bias can be dangerous.
Overly optimistic people can be blindsided by the amount of selfishness, manipulation, and lying a narcissist is capable of, and optimists tend to acutely feel the pain non-caring narcissists can cause them when they are no longer able to view their narcissistic behavior through the prism of optimism.
Optimists can still maintain their rosy view of the world without enabling that same narcissistic behavior by painting it with the same rosy tint.
Number 5.
People who want to rescue everyone.
A prominent trait of some empathetic people is the desire to “rescue” people – even those who don’t want to be rescued.
Rescuers begin their tango with the narcissists with a false premise – that if enough effort is put into saving the narcissist from themselves, they will be able to see the light and stop hurting themselves or other people.
In fact, rescuers might provide narcissists with narcissistic supply, on the one hand, for which narcissists may consider them an excellent provider of that supply, but on the other hand, they can provoke the narcissist’s rage for insinuating that the all-mighty narcissist even needs rescuing.
Rescuing is much needed in our damaged world, but rescuers must be made aware that some people just don’t want to be rescued.
Number 6.
People with narcissistic parents.
People who come from families where one or both parents exhibited highly narcissistic traits already have a built-in magnetism for narcissistic individuals in their adult lives.
Throughout childhood, they had to learn to endure the endless manipulation, triangulation, gaslighting, lies, chaos and conflict and since they were children who couldn’t turn to anyone else for care, they also learned to equate those things with love.
As adults, this confusion of love with chronic chaos, invalidation, and conflict may act as a perfect setup for entering a romantic relationship, friendship, work relationship, or any other kind of relationship with the same presuppositions about what love is, which makes them very vulnerable to narcissists who need exactly that kind of person to be able to satisfy their ego-related needs through the same mechanisms this now adult person experienced with their parent or parents.
Essentially, even as adults, they are willing to endure the cruel cycles of idealization, devaluation, and discarding, narcissistic rage from their narcissistic partners, friends, bosses and sense some kind of “familiarity”, which is not déjà vu from past lives or anything magical or metaphysical, but a recapitulation and repetition of the same patterns they were accustomed to from their family of origin and later in life.
The key to helping these people is getting into a therapeutic setting where they may be able to consciously recognize those narcissistic ties and patterns and view them as unhealthy, and hopefully, make a clear distinction between love and narcissistic abuse, which would help them get into and maintain healthy relationships characterized by joy, laughter, shared values and interests, relationships where they get the true meaning of the word love – respect, mutuality, reciprocity, consistency, and growth.
We, at Psychology Element, urge you who have experienced narcissistic abuse in childhood or grew up in trauma bonded settings to seek out the aforementioned therapeutic help that could aid you in recognizing and avoiding toxic patterns in your adult lives and not letting your childhood define your present or future relationships.
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