In Love With A Sociopath Part 2

My response:

It's a pleasure to read such a thoughtful email about the realities of a relationship with a sociopath. I imagine my friends and family feel similarly about me, or at least I hope they do.

Sociopaths are odd people when it comes to relationships. They're "antisocial" but they can also get immense satisfaction in pleasing people. The satisfaction does not come from imagining how good the other person must feel, it comes from being able to provoke such a strong reaction in the other person. Because you are apparently charmed by the blatantly sociopathic elements of his personality, you are especially valuable to him because he can charm you, provoke you, thrill you and chill you without having to put forth any sort of effort. He may get some special pleasure in doing this all without wearing a mask (or at least not his usual mask), but probably it's less self-affirmation he is after and rather just an awareness of how singular a presence you are in his life. If you are not the only one in his life that he can be that way with, you are probably only one of a handful and he will not let you go easily because of this.

I wouldn't hold out hope for ever having a more intimate or committed relationship with him. He would never want to "have to" be supportive, nurturing, protective, etc. To the extent he does it now, he does it because you view those behaviors as a gift, not an obligation. And it's an unfortunate tendency for most people in relationships to feel like the other person somehow "owes" them something. If you want to try a relationship with him, I would focus on this aspect, never making it seem like you expect anything. Have you read "Washington Square"? The protagonist heiress is seduced by a gold digger. I'm paraphrasing here, but there's a passage about how she felt about his sporadic visits:

Whenever Morris Townsend had left the house, her imagination projected itself, with all its strength, into the idea of his soon coming back; but if she had been told at such a moment that he would not return for a year, or even that he would never return, she would not have complained nor rebelled, but would have humbly accepted the decree, and sought for consolation in thinking over the times she had already seen him, the words he had spoken, the sound of his voice, of his tread, the expression of his face. Love demands certain things as a right; but Catherine had no sense of her rights; she had only a consciousness of immense and unexpected favours.It's a good book for someone in your situation to read though.

Origin: pickup-and-love.blogspot.com