Ah! Thank you for that. That makes a lot of sense.
"I don't know about Piles the Beaver, but from what I can see it seems that you want to learn Sociopath-shortcuts. Then you plan to take your Mindfucking For Dummies notes and use them to get petty revenge against someone, and make it more personal by "beating" him at his own game."
:facepalm: No, no, no...
What I want to do is beat him. Whether it's at his own game or not is irrelevant. Essentially, what I wanted to get out of this was to know whether using sociopath tactics would be necessary. i.e. one would need to use sociopathic games to beat a sociopath.
"The thing to understand is that by giving enough of a shit to learn about him, research his disorder, try and immitate it- you've already lost. Badly. ...Spectacularly."
Yeh. This keeps coming up. My question is WHY? You guys make me feel like I'm supposed to feel that by trying, he has outwitted me already. I honestly don't understand the logic. The fact that I am merely aware that sociopathy exists is a massive step towards a position of strength. Know thine enemy and all that. The fact that I have broken out of the gaslighting, and understanding that I (and pretty much any of my other honest colleagues) have been victims of his pathology is already psychologically freeing. There is no longer any confusion and self-doubt. Moreover, I doubt he's ever dealt with anyone (other than other sociopaths) who understood what he's about, so the point that keeps getting raised about "It always makes a man feel special to have someone thinking about him so much" is irrelevant. He doesn't KNOW that I'm "thinking about him so much" because in all likelihood he's never experienced that. So I believe that I'm in a far better position to take him on simply because he has no clue what I know.
But you DO raise an interesting point. If he DID know, perhaps one could use his ego-jerk (due to someone "thinking" about him all the time) against him....it's like blowing smoke up his arse by proxy.
"What I want to do is beat him. Whether it's at his own game or not is irrelevant."
Those sort of things tend to work better when you plan in advance.
"Essentially, what I wanted to get out of this was to know whether using sociopath tactics would be necessary. i.e. one would need to use sociopathic games to beat a sociopath."
Such a narrow lens...
Of course you don't have to emulate this "sociopath" that you seem to see him as.
"You guys make me feel like I'm supposed to feel that by trying, he has outwitted me already."
It also doesn't help that your way of going about it is flawed.
"The fact that I am merely aware that sociopathy exists is a massive step towards a position of strength."
If generalizing is a strength, you may be right.
Shame that it's not.
"Moreover, I doubt he's ever dealt with anyone (other than other sociopaths) who understood what he's about"
It still sounds like you don't.
"so the point that keeps getting raised about "It always makes a man feel special to have someone thinking about him so much" is irrelevant."
Is it? It only ceases being irrelevant once you succeed.
"He doesn't KNOW that I'm "thinking about him so much" because in all likelihood he's never experienced that."
Are you certain? You mentioned having a low emotional intelligence, it's likely that you've expressed it without meaning to.
You're trying to be like him. By doing that you're admitting you aren't good enough to win while at the same time admitting he's unbeatable, and better than you.
But, the answer to what you want out of this is no. People are always nothing but people and no one is invincible, despite what they want you to believe.