How do you tell the difference between someone being selfish sometimes and actual narcissistic behavior?
Everyone can be selfish once in a while, but for me the biggest red flag was a complete lack of accountability.
Labels can get tricky. What stood out to me were patterns, especially whether empathy showed up consistently or not.
This is something I’ve thought about a lot, especially because the word “narcissist” gets thrown around so easily these days. I think most people are selfish sometimes, that’s just being human. The thing that seems different with actual narcissistic behavior is the pattern. It’s not the occasional bad moment, it’s the consistent absence of empathy, the inability to take responsibility, the way you start feeling smaller the longer you’re around them.
A selfish person can hear “that hurt me” and actually take it in, even if it takes a minute. With narcissistic patterns, that conversation usually ends with you somehow being the problem.
What made you start thinking about this? Sometimes the question itself says something.