Is The Narcissist in the Room with Us Right Now?

My bad

“They’re firing you, bro.”

I feel like I’ve been hit in the head with a 2 x 4.

“Huh?”

“I don’t know man. Social media?” he looks at me, head cocked. A look that is somber, apologetic even. But also confused. And maybe even annoyed.

“Oh,” I say. “Ok.” I stifle a laugh.

Approximately three hours earlier I had posted a short video of an “office tour” – 48 seconds long – to my 900,000 TikTok followers. But it wasn’t just an office tour, it was a walk around that revealed some things that, let’s just say, didn’t look so great.

When you watch the video of me walking around, revealing a ceiling hole covered with cardboard, a pigeon’s nest outside the window (very cute), an old decrepit toilet in what was clearly once an apartment bathroom, you might find yourself giggling along with me. Giggling because it’s just what I’ve come to expect. I laugh as I do it because this is the sad reality – this is what awaits you, institutionally and systemically, when you provide services for poor people.

Pictured: Funniest notifications of all time (for me)

Certainly, I did not go about it in the right way, I said something that embarrassed and/or pissed someone off up top. I presented myself as a liability or, at least in that moment, I exercised poor judgment. I also think termination was an overreaction, but it ultimately confirmed something I already thought – this was not the right place for me.

So, let’s talk about me being an asshole, as if it matters or is worth something. How was I an asshole generally and also in this situation:

-       I am on social media and think even the mundane aspects of my life are worth sharing (self-involved)

-       I want to be seen (low self-esteem)

-       I embarrassed some people at an place that does some good work and has limited funding

-       I didn’t think of much beyond “this will be funny to post” (the poster’s curse)

-       I risked (and lost) a decent paying, stable job

Ok, now we have that out of the way.

Let’s talk honestly now:

I wasn’t trying to have a laugh at anyone’s expense but everyone’s. So, nobody’s.

What I mean is, I vividly remember pressing the elevator button for the 50^th floor of the Met Life building to get paid $4,000 a week as a summer associate at a “big law” firm. A job that I ultimately turned down because as it turns out, that’s right around the number where, depending on who you are and how your life has been, you start feeling pretty evil. It was also just not a pleasant group of people to be around. I maintain that the profession has the highest concentration of sociopaths. If you have a conversation with many people in corporate law, they will figure out a way to moralize to you about why their particular brand is not so bad. I always found this kind of annoying. Why half-measure it? Go full-tilt. Poison a town, defend the company. Buy a penthouse on the Upper East Side and call it your “little place” in the city (exact words a partner said to me). Be a real demon. It seems much more exhausting to pretend to care, or come up with a totally bizarre liberal moral framework.

But anyway,

I think about that building a lot. I think about how it made me feel to be in it. In the sky, looking down at the city from my desk. I think the main thought I had was, wow, this could be so easy. I can live this life. And ultimately that scared me. I was afraid where that path might lead me. Who I would ultimately become. If I would even recognize myself in 5, 10, 15 years. Unfortunately, I’ve been getting my ass kicked ever since.

I think the response was what any person who has done public interest work has experienced – laughing at how shitty reality is, how shitty it is what we prioritize in our society and what deserves money, attention, and care. Everything at a top law firm is sparkly, new, up to date. Paralegals are waiting at your beck and call to bring you a binder of relevant legal research before the end of the afternoon. Private cars zip you home, or maybe to the office happy hour that’s hosted at a bar owned by one of the partners. It is a different type of existence. Simply speaking it’s the money. But money, like everything in our society, is a construct. A symbol of value and exchange. People are not given it freely, and most people are not entitled to anything close to what they deserve. But for those with access to it, wow. What a life. The money also signifies priorities. This is what has worth in our society. One corporation pilfering another, rounding errors that make small groups of people millionaires. Where does all this “excess” wealth come from? Well, don’t think too long or you’ll realize it’s because someone who you can’t see or hear and likely never will is getting absolutely fucked over. And that’s so diffuse, who cares? Is it really connected anyway? That’s for the birds, baby.

The money indicates what matters, and what certainly doesn’t matter is poor people. So much so that most public interest organizations cannot prevent turnover of employees because of the workplaces – not enough support, not enough pay, long hours. I was on the phone with a former colleague at another org who told me that of the hiring class I was part of only 4 years ago, less than 10% remain. They are so overrun now, each lawyer has their own courtroom. From what I recall from my time there, I was running about 100 cases out of a courtroom I split with two other attorneys. You do the math.

Perhaps the funniest part of all of this is that last week I was reading a short essay called The Selfishness of Others: An Essay on The Fear of Narcissism by Kristin Dombek. I was planning on attempting to relate it to my feelings of general malaise about the internet’s collective obsession not only with narcissists and how they’ve hurt you or the popularity of videos and articles like 10 Signs You’re Talking to a Narcissist but also the internet’s increasing tendency to label every single person as a case study from the DSM-5.*

*The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, is the 2013 update to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the taxonomic and diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiatric Association. Also known as the baddie identification manual

As a public facing person who discusses my life online, I am patient zero to be diagnosed by strangers as someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or some variation of it. A situation where I post the innocuous details of my life online and the result is I get in trouble is probably a sweet treat for people who don’t particularly like me. I hope they enjoy! It is, objectively, the funniest thing that’s ever happened to me. I also was aware that some people would be assholes to me about losing my job. Indeed, a few were. But it still felt like something connected back to the essay, and to the feelings I’ve been having with everyone’s armchair obsession with really knowing who someone is underneath it all. A position, by the way, which is as intensely parasocial as being a fan of someone, just in the opposite direction.

Why do we feel the need to box people up like this? Dombek poses a pretty straightforward answer: it’s easier.

“…in everyday life, in order to get along quickly with others, we need clear distinctions between moral and atrocious acts, without the kind of extensive knowledge of their contexts that it takes to really and deeply understand. And when we begin questioning the centrality and accuracy of our own perspective, searching out the details that matter so we can get a more accurate representation of the other, we find too much similarity, that too many ‘ordinary actions are continuous with many atrocious ones,’ and we can’t function.”

Uh oh.

Are we in trouble now? This was just about me being an asshole. Right?

Everyone knows about Narcissus, that Greek pretty-boy who enjoyed seeing his reflection. But importantly, Narcissus believes he is looking at another person in the reflecting pool, not himself. In the story Ovid tells, Narcissus speaks, saying:

“Even as I reach, your arms almost embrace me, and as I smile, you smile again at me.”

He continues:

“Look, I am he; I’ve loved within the shadow

Of What I am, and in that love I burn,

I light the flames and feel their fires within;

Then what am I to do? Am I the lover

Or beloved? Then why make love? Since I

Am what I long for, then my riches are

So great they make me poor.”

That’s a much more tragic framing than I recall. And wait! It gets worse! In Ovid’s telling, Narcissus is not alone. He is followed by Echo, who is cursed to only repeat what others say. She falls in love with Narcissus immediately, but cannot express anything to him, forced only to repeat Narcissus’ own words back to him.

Their story feels prescient. Not only in the modern context of the audience and the performer in social media, but the self as performer for an imagined audience. Many of us are inhabiting both of these distinct roles every day of our lives. Both share the desire for genuine connection. As I’ve said before and I will say again, connection is the whole point.

It’ll always be easy to judge someone else, especially when they fuck up or we don’t particularly like them. Maybe in those moments it’s valuable to ask ourselves who we’re actually looking at.