Narcissists love themselves. Unfortunately, according to science, we love them too, which doesn’t seem fair.
Shouldn’t there be something fundamentally unattractive about a person who finds himself so attractive? Not.
Emanuel Gok of Austria’s University of Graz published a 2016 study in the European Journal of Personality that confirmed our worst fears (and narcissists’ fondest desires):
Related: Why Narcissists Come Across So Alluring, According To Research
People find narcissists more attractive than non-narcissists – at least when it comes to dating.
Jock conducted a study involving 90 people who participated in a series of speed dating encounters. (Speed dating, while weak, serves as a good display for gathering people’s immediate reactions to potential dating partners.)
Each participant was assessed to determine his or her level of interpersonal narcissism. They were also shown photos of other speed-dating participants and asked to rate their physical attractiveness. Next, participants in the Jock experiment went through several rounds of speed dating (resulting in nearly 700 “dates”) and were asked to rate the people they interacted with.
They were asked to say whether they wanted to interact with each person in a short-term relationship — which the researchers nicely described as “arranging meetings just for the sake of intimacy on an ad hoc basis” — or a long-term relationship (aka let’s go to IKEA together and buy… Some bookshelves).
The results were very interesting. They clearly showed that people like narcissists in dating situations.
There were specific associations between the people men and women chose for short- and long-term relationships and their levels of narcissism. As The Guardian puts it, “Those who score highest on the narcissism scale also tend to be viewed as the most attractive by members of the opposite sex.”
Related: 4 Common Phrases Narcissists Say To Win You Back
While these results may be frustrating to all non-narcissistic people looking for short or long-term relationships, when you think about it, they shouldn’t be that surprising.
Some factors about narcissists would logically make them thrive in a dating environment.
For starters, narcissists care about their appearance. I like it a lot. Like way too much. And while this can be annoying in the long run (especially if you have to share a bathroom with them), when it comes to dating, physical appearance plays a big role in how you choose a partner.
We live in a culture of very quick first impressions, where your decision to get intimate with someone can be determined by whether or not you found their Tinder photo “swipe-able.” So, if narcissists (because of their insanity) spend all day trying to make themselves look cool, yes, it will likely work to their advantage when they are out of town, looking to connect. It plays to their strengths.
Narcissists are also, by definition, kind of desperate for self-love. They need you to love them as much as they love themselves. And all this self-love means they have a lot of experience selling themselves.
Every day, they look in the mirror and tell themselves they are amazing. With all this practice, they will become very good at it, giving them a huge sales advantage when it comes to promoting themselves to you. They know their best angles. They thrive when it comes to presentation. They know how to make people love them.
Does trust also play a role? certainly. Confident people – and people who smoke hard – have a huge advantage when it comes to dating. But Jock’s study is interesting because it shows that in dating situations, confidence and physical attractiveness are just smaller factors in the larger narcissistic game.
Related: 12 Mind Games Narcissists Play At Your Expense
The main reason narcissists are so successful at dating is that all the relative “symptoms” of narcissism—concern with physical appearance, flattery, and extroversion—make it seem like they’re making an effort in front of their potential partners.
