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Preaching sugar while practicing poison, Controllers are experts at
concealing their true natures. Hiding bad intentions beneath polished appearances, they have perfected the art
of "looking good." Subtle and devious in the way he conceals his manipulative nature, he may look like
a rose, but ends up feeling like poison ivy. Imagine-or remember-the following scenario: You're at a friend's party, and you're single again. You have sworn to yourself, and a dozen friends and acquaintances, that you're never going to pick another loser. The next guy you get involved with is going to be sweet, smart, kind, successful and interested in you. All your friends seem to be telling you the same thing: "Don't worry. You'll spot the jerks. You've been through it enough times. Now you really know how to tell the losers from the good guys." Confident that pure experience alone has mysteriously given you the ability to protect yourself from ending-up with another self-centered manipulator, you confidently scan the crowd, trying to sort out the unmarried men from those trying to look single. In an ambiguous effort to be taken seriously while still being attractive, your outfit falls somewhere between glamour and medieval armor. Pleated slacks, a tailored toreador-jacket, conservative but v-necked blouse, hoop-earrings and heels somewhere between low pumps and stilts. Assertive, but available. You notice a pretty good-looking guy: little over six-foot, trimmed beard, tasty dresser. He looks at you and you smile slightly. He looks surprised, nervous and glances away. Shy? You notice he's shooting the breeze with one of the computer-geeks from the office, and you lose interest. At intervals between talking with women friends, you randomly scan the room, sweeping the crowd, pausing to appraise various men. After an hour, you're starting to get bored when someone arrives late. He steps right in to the middle of the crowd, doesn't seem to really know anyone, but acts like everyone knows him. He isn't particularly good-looking, but you recognize that other women are noticing him. And suddenly he notices you. He not only notices, but immediately steps out of the crowd and strides directly toward you, as if he already knows you. His eyes fix directly into yours, and his smile shines with all the sincerity modern dentistry can afford. In the back of your mind, the voice of experience is trying to warn you, but there is something louder about this man's manner than the wobbling wisdom of your experience. He is so immediately attentive. You feel targeted at the center of his attention. His persistently complimentary manner is exciting, because it is he that is making the compliments. Even though he is talking about you, what really feels good is listening to him. And he is so charming. By the end of the evening, you've given him your phone number and made a dinner date for the following night. Two weeks later you are already "involved." At the end of the month, you're sleeping with him. But, once that happens, you notice a change in him. Suddenly, you are no longer at the center of his attention--he is. And the sole topic of every conversation has become only him. All the while, common sense's voice of experience and your instinct keep trying to tell you something, but you can't understand what they're saying. That's the problem when the voices of instinct and experience remain disconnected. You knew you were being steered in a direction that past experience tried telling you to avoid. And your fear was sounding its alarm, because you could feel it. But one more manipulative man has succeeded in overriding your instinct and common sense and took control of the way you thought about him. And the outcome is always the same, whether you give up on him today, or throw in the towel twenty years from now: frustration, aggravation, depression and, ultimately, despair. But you do not have to be fooled again, if you can get a handle on what you're dealing with. Every controlling-type man wants power, but he must feel it to know he has it. Inflicting control, and witnessing someone being controlled, is how he succeeds at sensing power. Loss of control equals powerlessness. And powerlessness, to a Controller, feels like death. What Donald G. Dutton's research team at the University of British Columbia and other recent researchers have finally demonstrated is that control-obsessed men can be recognized by certain very unusual personality profiles, known as personality disorders. But before looking at our first Controller profile in the next installment of this article series, it is important to first understand the differences between a normal, non-disordered personality and an abnormally disordered one. It will make Controller recognition easier. 'Normal' is not a good term to describe a mentally sound person, because it seems to imply that there must be a set of obvious, precisely definable characteristics that describe sanity. But, that is not easily the case. There is such an astounding range of differences between the vast majority of healthy individuals in the world that it is impossible to pin 'normal' down to an exact and narrow set of behaviors, attitudes or mannerisms. Ironically, one of the things that helps in spotting Controllers is the opposite-their behaviors, attitudes and mannerisms can be defined in predictable, narrow sets of characteristics. There are certain general characteristics that define a mentally healthy individual. A hallmark of mental health is the ability to tolerate uncertainty, which is demonstrated in our capacity to carefully weigh choices before deciding a course of action. Because we can tolerate the tension that occurs while going through the process of choosing, we can more accurately make a final decision. Mentally unsound individuals cannot tolerate much tension, which is why their actions tend to be irrational and impulsive. Flexibility grows out of the ability to tolerate uncertainty. A flexible mind is one that can change. To some degree, change is uncomfortable for everyone, but normal individuals find it tolerable and manageable. In contrast, personality-disordered individuals are rigidly intolerant of change, inflicting their will against anything new or different in their lives-or in the lives of those around them. Externally imposed change is threatening, because it reminds them that the world is not under their total control. Adaptability grows out of flexibility. Normal people are capable of adapting themselves to new situations. Change may make them feel uncomfortable, but they can accommodate themselves to it and adjust. Personality-disordered individuals find it extremely difficult or completely impossible to shift gears when a new situation develops. Mentally healthy people have the capacity to take appropriate responsibility. Such individuals know how to see the part they may have played in creating a problem, can admit their part in it, can take corrective action to solve the problem and have the capacity to admit they were wrong. They also know how to realistically recognize when they have not played a part in creating a problem. Personality-disordered individuals cannot make those kinds of discriminations around the issue of responsibility. They always blame everything that goes wrong in their life on everyone else, or they do the exact opposite and always blame themselves for everything that goes wrong. Controllers are blamers-self-abusive individuals are blame-takers. Personality-disordered people can be roughly divided into two groups-blamers and self-blamers-but this series of articles will focus on the blamers: Controllers that psychotherapists have classified as "narcissistic," "borderline," "sociopathic" and "sadistic." Approximately twenty personality disorders have been identified, but these four predominate in the kinds of Controllers who tend to manipulate and deceive women-the kinds of men that have given Romeo an extremely bad name. |
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As we move along through this series of articles, try not be
intimidated by "clinical" terms, such as 'personality disorder,' 'borderline,' 'sociopath,' etc. They
are just words professionals have come to use in describing different technical aspects of mind and personality.
The issue here is learning about control and Controllers. In particular, this series is about learning clear-cut,
practical ways of spotting them and dealing with them. Think of Romeo's
Bleeding as both map and compass. It is designed to help you
safely navigate the often-treacherous waters of romance, love and commitment in the modern world. This series of articles is condensed and modified toward a Young Woman's perspective, from Control><Counter-Control: How to Identify and Overcome Controlling Men and Women-At Home to Corporate Battlefield, © Roger Melton, 1998, which has yet to find a publisher. Next in the series > Romeo's Bleeding: Part 3-The Mirror Men. It will describe how to detect characteristics of deceptive charm in men who view everything in life through the golden mirror of egotism. Copyright © Roger Melton 1999 |
