To a narcissist, reality and truth don’t matter. They only care about looks and perceived greatness, even if entirely fake, and they know it is.

Narcissists take the shape of the container. Whatever that they can do, according to what’s available in the current environment, they have no problem doing it, with disregard to how that would hurt you at present, or in the future.

It is not subconscious. It is not something they have no control over. It is all deliberate, intentional, and conscious. They know what they’re doing, and they love it.

The thing is, they find weaknesses in you, and they attack them. You might say, well I am tough and I have no weaknesses. That’s true. I’m not denying that. But the problem is with perceived strength, as opposed to actual strength. You, for some reason, appear to be weak to them at this instance. Think of it as appearing impatient, already annoyed, or irritable. Peeved. Or just tired or sleepy. You, in this case, represent an easy target, that could be attacked by any coward, with hardly any negative consequences.

Perceived weakness plays a very important role in this case. You look weak to the narcissist, even if you actually aren’t weak, either generally at all times, or just at such an instance only. As long as they think you are weak, and that they have an opportunity to attack you, and that they can hurt you, they will not hesitate, they will attack and attempt to hurt you in one way or the other, by any means necessary, without any empathy, sense of guilt or remorse whatsoever.

There’s nothing that is going to happen if they didn’t attack you in this instance. Yet, it is impossible to find a single instance where this was the case, and that was your state, without being right every single time about your prediction. They are going to attack you, every single time, because there’s an opportunity, even if there was nothing at all to gain from that attack except supply. They attack you, because they can. This is the shape of the container, and they are always going to take it, like water does with any container it gets poured into. The only difference is that they choose to do so, every single time. They still have nothing to lose if they missed that opportunity and didn’t try to attack you.

On the other hand, psychopaths don’t take the shape of the container, they invent it. They will attack you, even if you were perceived by them to be stronger than them, whether generally or at that moment in particular. They don’t care about proving their superiority as much, although all those who are high in psychopathic traits are also very high in narcissistic and machiavelian traits, they care more about destroying you, by any means necessary, even if they managed to prove that you are superior to them in the process.