Today’s words: Waste, Division, Budget, Adjust
Word count: 477
Completion time: 56 minutes
Summary: What makes a psychopath?
Read more about what traits psychopaths usually have and what a psychopath actually is here, it's a lot more detailed!
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He makes more money than should be allowed, could get out of any situation by turning on his charm, and he knows what a ‘budget cut’ entails. He helped with the division of labour in his workplace, saved the same company from bankruptcy, and he lived in a house that looked like it had been built by a zealous architect on The Sims 3.
He's 25-years-old.
I used to be jealous of teenagers who had been published, children who could draw better than most adults, actors and actresses who had starred in ten movies before the age of eighteen. Randall was on another level. What makes it worse was this – he’s my twin brother (he even came out of the womb first); I used to joke that he stole all of the good genes from me in utero, but that line soon turned accusatory, especially when I was annoyed with him.
He didn’t understand why I’d get annoyed because he doesn’t understand jealousy, he says that it’s ‘an excuse weaker people use to get sympathy.’ I get called things like ‘cretin’, ‘waste of space’, and am regularly told that I’ll ‘never amount to anything’. What makes these insults cut deeper is the fact that he doesn’t show any signs of remorse when I get upset and he never apologises unless I or someone else tells, no, demands it. He understands when he’s done something wrong, he just doesn’t think that he should have to apologise for it.
“It’s her fault that she got offended by it, I shouldn’t have to say anything.”
I used to think that he was just rude for the sake of it, but turns out he’s a psychopath.
He hasn’t hacked a prostitute to pieces or beaten someone to death with a smile, but he has several traits that justify the term ‘psychopath’: he doesn’t feel much guilt, he finds it hard to empathise, he’s selfish, and manipulative on such a large scale that I find it hard to tell when he’s being sincere. A few years ago, I discovered he told a lie so damaging that it could have ruined someone’s life and he didn’t flinch once; he grinned as if I was the guilty one.
Another example is his ability to adjust himself to different situations when he wants something out of it. Say that he and another person are considered for a pay rise, he will do or say anything to take the other person down, regardless of how ‘wrong’ or ‘immoral’. Nothing too sketchy, I mean charming the boss or threatening to blackmail the competition in secret.
Many people assume that psychopaths go crazy without much provocation or turn in serial killers, but that isn’t always true.
It’s likely that at least one person you know is a psychopath, mine just happens to be a lot closer than most.
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