The social aggressors

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I came up with a term the other day - "social aggressor". This is someone who, when with a group of people, seems desperate to be the centre of the group and is forceful and aggressive in this act. Examples would be cutting people off mid-sentence, being overly loud, trying to dominate.

I can't handle being around these people.

I've "lessenned" my asperges in the last few years through self-help and the help of others. I couldn't handle the loneliness which accompanied it. I try to socialise.

Being in a group where one or more of these social aggressors are, I'll leave almost immediately. This seems to me to be the best way.

Do you people know the sort I'm talking about? Do you have ways of handling them without running away? Or committing murder? (just joking - although sometimes they make me feel this way).

Yeah, I know what type you're referring to: they're called "narcissists." That term can be used in a casual, pejorative sense to refer to people exhibiting narcissistic behavior like *having* to be the center of attention, "collecting" friends or an audience, being oblivious to others out of preference to themselves, thinking they're always right/wonderful and assumes everyone else agrees they are, gets by with charm/good looks/status, etc. They are usually very competitive, loud, and dramatic. They also tend to be socially "aggressive" as a narcissist needs adoration, and their ego is so huge, self-adoration just isn't enough - they need it from everyone else too.

In the clinical sense, it refers to Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), which is when someone exhibits all the traits above, but appears fixed in these behaviors. People with NPD also exhibit traits of obsessiveness, compulsiveness, and paranoia, as well as often having high IQs (even though they tend to act like morons). Actually, NPD and AS often get confused and misdx'd for one another. But you nailed the key distinction: NPDS are always socially aggressive, whereas Aspies are not. In fact, NPDs and Aspies are like oil and water - not only are they different, they tend to repell the other due to they inablity to tolerate the other's social behavior (or lack thereof).

I find this exceedingly amusing that you bring this up right now. Last night at midnight Xmas mass, I had to sing the tenor part (I'm an alto who sings tenor when we're short tenors) with someone who's a raging NPD. He thinks he's charming, good looking, funny and that everyone wants to talk to him, and cares far more about being a social centerpiece than being a good choir member. He's not even in choir to sing - he wants to play solo guitar at mass, for the attention (he's not a great guitarist either), and he's just using the choir to get leverage and more face time (thankfully, the music director sees though him and isn't letting him turn mass into his personal performance showcase). He also can't sing, and it's impossible to get that across to him. He just makes excuses, promises to practices, smiles like a big dumb horse, makes a bad joke, and then goes shmoozing. I was at my wits end with him last night, because he kept doing things (like rearranging the choir chairs) that was for his comfort yet was majorly obstructive for everyone else, and he was too busy trying to look like a pious and prayerful Catholic during mass that he wasn't paying attention to being a choir member.

At any rate, this guy drives me insane. I almost ripped him a new one last night, because he was up to his usual NPD bulls***. But doing so which would have been very inappropriate for a Xmas mass, so I did my best to contain myself. After mass ended I fled from him and went into the sacristy to decompress. However, on my way, I did stop and tell our regular guitarist accompanist - a guy who's not only been with the choir for decades, but is a very good musician *and* a good singer - that he did a great job (he did actually), which the NPD guy overheard. It wasn't my intention to have him hear me say that, but since he sees our regular guitarist as his "opponent" it didn't make him happy. Oh well. I honestly want this NPD jerk to quit the choir, since he's not really an contributing member (quite the opposite), and maybe if his ego gets bruised enough he will.

My ex was one of those people, who thought the universe revolved around him, and was extremely paranoid. I'm not a psychiatrist, but to me he probably had NPD. He hated it when others decorated for Xmas before his birthday on December 4th, and said that he was "persecuted" when in reality, he was just an a****le. He was the controlling one who if I didn't get out of the relationship when I did, the abuse would have become physical.

Well, the interesting thing is that, at least that I have read, some aspies do try to dominate socially. They seem overbearing and etc.. the reason for this is because they can't manage normal social relationships so they compenstate by being more controlling and etc...

This is quite different from the usual social aggressor type (the real bullies). But it is an interesting comparison .. perhaps the aspies learned their social skills from bullies. Hmm. But the two types are so drastically different.....

Yeah, I agree completely. I've been acting like what people took for bullying because I demanded that no one attack me. I still have problems comprehending they didn't pick up that pattern, but acted like I was about to hurt any of them when they were innocent if I got angry. In recent years I've learnt that it was most probably because NTs can't control their anger to let it out on their specified targets, but attack everything around them without any control, which seems very strange to me. In this case I see aspies as socially superior, but due to the lack of insight from NTs we aren't allowed to take out our aggressions at any time at all unless we do it mellow. With an attitude like that I suspect they probably have never heard of the principle of cathexis applied to aggressions. It creates a very difficult situation to say the least.

What I still can't understand is why they let things happen and not try to speak their minds about the issues they find important, but make a rule of talking trash behind the back of their object of hate and get a distorted view of the situation. I blame that behaviour for causing most of the problems in the world. An open dialogue is the solution to almost anything difficult in socializing, so when the code is to NOT say how you feel about something we are obviously in deep trouble.

I believe David Attenborough would put it like this:

'In a world of socializing mammals, the social aggressor's most prominent feature is more an advantage to others than to itself. By attempting to make its presence wellknown, it immediately signals possible victims to escape before it can reach them.'

Yes, I'm always one to get talked over in a conversation. Sometimes it might be because I'm not talking loudly enough, but other times it definitely has more to do with the presence of "social aggressors". Of course, lately I've been a little aggressive myself, making it clear that I'm being talked over and I don't appreciate it.