Acting the part (part 2)

M.E.: I've been put in a situation at work recently with social rejects and it is amazing the sort of things I am able to get away with around them, little slip ups, etc., that used to trip me up with some of my smoother colleagues. I think I wrote about this once, that I do very well in the first 30 minutes of sustained talking to someone (very charming), but the longer it lasts, there is more mental fatigue plus I start running out of completely safe topics or canned material. I often think the best way to figure out whether someone is a sociopath or not is to force them to keep talking with you until they start to crack and you start to see what's underneath. It would depend on the person, but I think that someone familiar with sociopaths would definitely be able to notice warning signs after about 4-6 hours of sustained one on one interaction. The trick would just be to isolate the potential sociopath for that long.

The possibility of being outted through conversation is what makes a fake diagnosis of Asperger's appealing to me because when you do slip up they'll just attribute it to that rather than getting online and googling your symptoms…

Reader:

:) The 30 minute conversation is a little long for me- I was always great for about 20. I find, now, that I can sustain long conversations better as long as I have a goal with each one, like, "During this conversation, I'm going to work toward getting participant A to agree with me on 3 statements, so he files me away as like-minded." or "During this conversation, I'm going to change her mind on this, which would make my life slightly easier." I still have a limit, certainly, and I definitely get the mental fatigue you mentioned, but more than that I get bored. A person's drivel just doesn't hold my interest unless I am actively doing something with it.

The asperger's Dx is definitely appealing for covering slip-ups. I mentioned the possibility of aspergers to my husband, but his response was something to the effect of, "You don't have aspergers. You're just a psychopath who wants to be lazy." He is so funny.

As far as detecting other p/s individuals, I do try to keep an eye out so as to not get in their way. Don't get me wrong- I will take something I want, but I'm not interested in starting something with another p/s unless it is worth the effort and potential exposure. Co-worker 2 from the story hit some key p/s points the first week I knew her. I actually came home the first day and told Aristotle that my first day was good and that he should watch out for coworker2 (my work does a lot of whole-family events, so he spends a good bit of social time with the job people). During a safety training, when the speaker was flashing up gruesome pictures of the bad that can happen when being unsafe with the kinds of materials and equipment we use, I scanned the faces around the room, and all but two were disgusted immediately. Coworker 2 smiled first. :) Since, I've seen her mask slip just a little, here or there. At lunch, when the chatter moves to something morally or ethically based, she always waits for another's opinion and piggy-backs. When anything controvercial comes us, she takes the groups temperature before committing. Finally, the girls and I were all out drinking recently, when we were sharing our back-stories, and her's was one of early divorce, managing a mother with a pd, and mild sexual abuse by a step father. Nothing earth-shattering, but certainly triggers for a potential p/s. :)