Narcissists & "The One Who Got Away": 5 Secrets
Most narcissists or avoidants have at least one: what does it mean to them?
Most narcissists or avoidants have at least one: what does it mean to them?
Tik Tok and abuse recovery spaces are full of rhetoric discussing the ways that narcissists and/or avoidants pine lifelong about “the one who got away.”
Narcissists and sociopaths tend to have an avoidant attachment style, so they frequently get referred to as "avoidants" by people who haven’t unmasked their NPD or ASPD.
It can be too painful for some people to see the truth of their loved ones unmasked. They’ll cling to the shared fantasy and false self instead: denial.
Furthermore, people engage in a heavy romanticism of avoidant attachment styles, which keeps the narcissist comfortable: they love if you see them as a tragic antihero or victim rather than an abusive or sick person.
The cultural fantasy of “the one who got away” is often a gendered, heterosexual fantasy, in which an emotionally unavailable man pines lifelong for the beautiful good girl he took for granted — he looks for her in every partner after her.
He can never find her because she was authentic and unique, and he fumbled her.
She was loving, self-sacrificing, beautiful, intelligent, nurturing, funny, and she checked every box of the narcissist/avoidant’s fantasies.
So losing her is his ultimate karma.
Is it true? Do narcissists actually suffer from pining after those who loved them deeply?