If a narcissist could wear a T shirt that says, “Please Never Stop Paying Me Attention!”, they would.
They’d wear them at a younger age, as well as when they inevitably start to get older, or less relevant.
I find it truly embarrassing, but a narcissist has no morals, and so they act out in ways that they really should be ashamed of.
For them, what choice do they have? They’ve got to stay the center of attention, they have to be seen.
As they age, the narcissist can’t help but continue to do these three things, and I will cringe my way through writing each one of them.
1Their ‘glory days’ become the one and only thing they brag about as if they’re still living them
The show that never stopped, right?
A narcissist doesn’t really live in the same timeline that you or I live in. They grow older like the rest of us, but they don’t find comfort in it. Instead, a narcissist will be determined to convince everyone they know and meet that their best days are the only things worth talking about.
“I used to run marathons, you know.” “I was CEO of a brand new company that was sold for millions.” “I was in a marriage that lasted for over fifty years.” “Everyone knew the idea was mine, and they loved me for it.” “If it weren’t for me, none of my kids would be where they are now.”
These past ‘achievements’ are what the aging narcissist is clinging onto. They’ve literally got nothing else to say or do in order to impress people, and they still don’t realize that they don’t even need to do that impressing in order to be liked.
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These are never conversations just in passing, either; they’re really subjects that cannot ever be rested.
Most of the time, nobody even asked. They don’t care, but it’s a way for a narcissist who is getting older to re-assert themselves into present life.
“I’m 75 now, and I’m retired and do a lot of gardening” does nothing for their ego. They won’t want to talk about who they are now, as there’s nothing impressive about staying home all day and seeing nobody.
By reminding the world who they were forty years ago, they’re saying, “Please tell me how wonderful that all sounds, and what a life I’ve had. It will make me feel so much better about myself.”
What do they want, an applause?
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Actually yes, they really do.
Without it, they don’t feel as though they matter, and for them, that’s a fear they’ve had to sit with their entire lives.
Slipping away and becoming irrelevant is not how they want to be remembered, and so their past becomes all they know how to communicate with you.
2They continue to manufacture drama because they prefer to be disliked than ignored
It’s a fact we all know:
Narcissists crave attention.
That part isn’t rocket science, but it gets more complex when we start discussing aging narcissists. You’d think they’d mellow as they got older, but time proves they’re actually fighting older age as they continue in their toxic quests to provoke arguments, spread gossip, or make controversial comments that are deliberately antagonistic.
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Family tensions that have always bubbled away under the surface are only kept alive and well because the narcissist refuses to let them go. These are the same people who can become offended at the drop of a hat, and they can show they’re outraged simply by someone else they know being happy.
“People are against me.” “They don’t want me to be happy.” “I don’t understand people.”
It’s a strategy, but actually negative attention for the narcissist is better than no attention at all. They would much rather feel they’re getting talked about or judged rather than being overlooked entirely, and this is where they can really embarrass themselves.
A narcissist likes to be right there, the main focus of everyone, and they’re happy with an eye roll or a tut.
You have to ask yourself what kind of people like living this way? These people would prefer people to hate them, than be ignored. I can’t stress enough how crazy that is, but you have to remember, a narcissist is actually one of the most insecure types of people there is, and for them, being disliked is probably one of their biggest, if not the biggest, fear for them.
If people aren’t paying attention to them, they’re basically saying, “You aren’t important enough for me to even acknowledge.”
The narcissist feels this like a dagger to the back, and that’s a scar that’ll never heal.
The older the narcissist is, the more they want that attention. They like to know that they’re a part of the conversation at all, rather than nobody bothering even mentioning their name.
At this stage in their life, any news of them is positive.
Pretty sad, wouldn’t you agree?
3The narcissist looks for competition and competes with younger people who aren’t even paying attention to them
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The saddest and probably most embarrassing one of all is that the narcissist really doesn’t know how to read the room when it comes to wanting attention in older age.
And it’s not that they’re growing old and being fabulous and having friends that are thirty as much as they have friends who are seventy, this is real desperation.
One client told me:
“My narcissistic mother had a real issue with getting older. Every time she had a birthday, she got another cosmetic procedure done and tried not only to look like women young enough to be her granddaughter, but she tried competing with them, too. She would criticize their appearance, or belittle someone’s qualifications or job. She always wanted to be the best and the most successful, even though she was retired and living alone.”
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to competition, because it can even stretch into aging narcissists telling people how much harder they worked when they were younger, or dismissing success like it was an accident.
“People had better manners back then.” “All these jobs that aren’t even real jobs, I mean, come on!”
It all hits, and it all basically shows this person is too hung up on the past, their youth, to know that times change and people are allowed to do well in life without it having anything to do with the narcissist.
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This competition they’re fighting in their minds is the only place it actually exists, which is even more sad, don’t you think? People are just trying to live their life, and they happen to be younger than the aging narcissist.
That seems to be the main problem here, and one that will never be solved.
Even someone who is just a certain age is at fault for being the age they are, can you believe it?!
It all boils down to recognition. The narcissist doesn’t want to be forgotten. They want people to remember them as some kind of God or Goddess, but they’re regular people, just like you and me.
