Tone of voice

From a reader:

I'm about two-thirds into your book and I'm struck by the tone of your writing. It sounds non-judgmental and emotionless. Not detached, as these are things you take pride in, but the humanly closest to being objective. Perfectly consistent throughout the book and certainly with your diagnosis.

I know that tone of voice from someone I love. Your book helps a lot in understanding the way he experiences the world and people, primarily me. Jokes that used to deeply offend and shock me, lack of emotion that used to hurt me, his meteoric, self-centred rise in the office are suddenly just who he is and the best he can give in all his sociopathic glory.

I'm very pleased that I'm finally beginning to make sense of him; he's kept me fascinated and puzzled for two years. He's not someone I wanted to love but I absolutely cannot help it. You're probably rolling your eyes right now but this is not about sharing my emotional state. I thought it must be interesting for you to hear about how people try to resist the lure of the sociopath and fail.

He started paying attention to me and trying to seduce me years ago but I only yielded very recently. The intervening two years have been an exhilarating rollercoaster ride of emotions from my side and lost and won games from his. I think the gambling nature of this game just amplified our enjoyment and made the unpredictable rewards more addictive. We've come to share a closeness that I haven't experienced with anyone else, and needless to say, he's an excellent lover.

I've known he's a sociopath for a long time. I don't know if he does but I would imagine so. My challenge was trying to avoid being beguiled, to show him that I see through his pretending, that he has no power over me.

But, incredibly annoyingly to me, I'm helpless. Giving up my wary resistance to admiration and love seems the most rewarding outcome for me. I'm sure it's what he wants, but it flatters me that he wants my love and attention. He's gone out of his way to earn it, even if most of it was what people commonly call "manipulation".

He is not reliable, constant or trustworthy. He can hurt me and let me down badly. He can put the brakes on my career progression even from another part of the business. But he's so brilliant, ruthless and charismatic that I can't help but be in awe of him, admire and trust him despite overwhelming evidence. Sometimes it's like catching a child next to a broken bowl. Of course he keeps asserting it wasn't him, and of course I know it was. The outcome is always the same - I decide to trust him and feel an even stronger bond.

Is it because I'm an irrational or daft person? Far from it. It's not like us empaths are idiots. I'm educated and independent, entrepreneurial and emotionally intelligent. I've never fallen into anyone's trap. I've always excelled at everything I've done and I've always achieved what I wanted. 

The reason I continue to trust him is because I entered into a mental contract. I willingly do this, over and over again. I know what's going on, I can mostly tell when he's playing me. Whatever I need him to be, he is, obligingly. People keep telling me this is not right for me but I think otherwise. In a lot of ways this is a fair exchange. A lot of my needs are fulfilled this way, and to anyone that can tap into them the way he does, please feel free.

This is the brilliant thing about sociopaths - not only luring people into their halo, but enabling people to share a kind of trust that they don't experience with anyone else. You want to see my insecurities, here, take this magnifying glass. I know they are safe with you because you'll play me like a fiddle in places I want to be played.

I get a lot out of that. But even better than that, there are moments when he's unguarded, vulnerable and gives himself up to me. Those moments are my prize, and for them it's all worth it.

Even it they are calculated.

You sociopaths are astonishingly brilliant and fascinating. Offering a glimpse into your minds is a service to humanity that no one has done before. I'm infinitely grateful for it. 

Even just penning the above lines I've had to struggle to keep my candour and stay objective. Perhaps that's easier for you to do, but in some ways, having made a lifestyle of lying, inconceivably harder. Your self-awareness is rare and very surprising in a sociopath. Thank you for the honesty in your tone of voice. I can't even imagine what it took.