Talking to the narcissist feels like you are talking to the wall.  You can hear your words, and you know you are speaking, but the narcissist will stand there and either have no interaction with you or will respond with something unrelated to what you are discussing.  The narcissist is uninterested in what you are discussing and will go out of their way to ensure that what you say and do doesn’t matter.   Today, I will discuss why conversations with narcissists are one sided. 

To understand why conversations with narcissists are one-sided, you must remember what makes up a narcissist. Narcissists have a fragile ego, and they are always protecting against narcissistic collapse.  They do this by keeping their narcissistic supply reserves full. The narcissist supply, briefly, is how the narcissist protects themselves in a world they always feel on the defensive in.  They present themselves as all-knowing and competent, but this is a façade to cover their deep feelings of low self-esteem and insecurity. They use others, and sometimes situations, as ways to boost their low self-esteem through inflation of their narcissistic supply. 

When you interact with a narcissist, everything is one sided because they focus only on themselves and what will benefit them.  They have tight control of their world because they need this control to prevent unpredictability which is something they don’t have the resources to manage.  Everything the narcissist does leads to some release of their supply, and they must protect the release as much as possible. This is done by carefully sticking to the script they have created for their life to maintain that predictability.

The narcissist doesn’t listen to you because what you have to say has the potential to derail the script of their life they rely so readily on.  They don’t want interference in what they do or say.  They will ignore you and talk about something else to keep themselves on track.

The narcissist also doesn’t listen to you because by ignoring you, this is one way in which they can belittle and demean you.  Ignoring you shows that you aren’t important to them, and you don’t matter to them.  When the conversation with the narcissist is one sided, it is because they want you to feel unimportant. This decreases your self-esteem and self-confidence and makes you easier to abuse and manipulate. 

And most importantly, the conversations with narcissists are one-sided because they lack empathy and don’t care what you say or do. To have a two-sided conversation requires both people to have an invested interest in what is being said. The conversation becomes mutually beneficial to both people and connections are made in the two-sided conversations.  Narcissists don’t care to build connections with people and to learn more about them. They lack empathy and the ability and willingness to build that connection. So, conversations with narcissists become about them with no recognition or concern for you.

The responses from narcissists are marked by word salad, deflection, or blame shifting.  They choose the response that will give them the upper hand to maintain this one-sided conversation.  Word salad is used to keep you caught off guard and not sure what they are even talking about.  They will use deflection and blame shifting when they don’t want to consider what you are saying, and this is especially true if you say something which could harm their fragile ego and place them at risk of narcissistic injury.  Conversations with narcissists, and this includes arguments, aren’t meant to come to a mutual understanding or conclusion.   The more you try to talk to the narcissist in a way which considers you both, the harder they will push back against you and make it about them.  

Don’t get into a back and forth with the narcissist in an effort to feel heard and validated.  Unless they can consider what you are saying as something which benefits them, they will continue on a one-way track to meet their own needs.  By continuing the conversation, you become a source of supply for the narcissist which allows them to have a further inflated ego they can use to control and manipulate longer. 

While it is understandable you want to be heard by the person you are speaking to, if you are talking with a narcissist and they show a lack of respect for you, step away from the conversation and do something you enjoy while not worrying about the narcissist and how they think and feel.