Good catch!
I wish it weren’t true but a good % of domestic abuse “victims” mimic real victims (just like some brightly colored non-poisonous snakes and frogs often mimic poisonous snakes and frogs).
Again, I wish it weren’t true because it just makes things harder for the real, true victims. That said, it is a big, real problem.
Think Frank Abignale in Catch me if you can or James Bond.
Not every serial killer could be described as such - but many of the worst had “charm”.
In addition to those previously mentioned, there’s John Gacy, Randy Woodfield (the “I-5 Killer”), Gary Ridgway (the Green River Killer) and Michael Swango, a physician who charmed his way into several different residency programs (even after a felony conviction) and killed patients.
Charm is part of the standard criteria of sociopaths/psychopaths:
“The most useful tool of a sociopath is charm. Sociopaths are able to turn on the smile or ake advantage of social situations to lure people into their web. Ted Bundy, for instance, would sometimes feign an injury like putting an arm into a sling to elicit sympathy. This charm is why some sociopaths, despite the personality disorder, can have marital relationships.”
I should edit my original post to “***some/many ***domestic abuse victims” but don’t see the EDIT link.
The diagnostic criteria is based on someone who uses charm, manipulation etc to get what they want. So by definition they will tend to be charming as its part of the diagnostic criteria.
There are however people who dont experience empathy etc who are not particularly ‘charming’. There are ongoing debates about the general utility of psychopathy as a diagnostic criteria.
Generally though, being willing to lie at the drop of a hat without any guilt or remorse to get what you want can make it easy to be charming, superficially at least, and the person will have had years of practise simply by growing up at finding out what works better and what doesnt. So at the very least they will probably have tried to get good at it from a utility perspective, but may have failed due to impulse control issues, wrong assumptions, cognitive disabilities or whatever.
The victim was a 14 year old boy and the police gave him back to Dahmer because they believed they were gay lovers and weren’t interested in helping the boy. Two of the officers were terminated and later reinstated after a lawsuit but the evidence was pretty clear - anti-gay remarks to the dispatcher, joking about reuniting the “lovers” and getting a delousing. I don’t see how it could possibly be evidence of Dahmer’s charm.
Here at the SD, you only get 5 minutes to edit. Better say it right the first time! 
Maybe. I thought that’s how he got all those men into his apartment, by being charming.
Oh, that explains it! Thanks!!
Do you really have to be all that charming to pick up another guy at a gay bar?
“Charm” is a skill that can be learned. It doesn’t have to come naturally.
I suffer from social phobia, and I’m cripplingly shy, but in the right context, I can come across as friendly, open, witty, and (on occasion) charming. I’ve learned how to do that: I mimic what friendly people do. It takes effort, but I can pull it off at least some of the time.
If I can convincingly fake relaxed friendliness, then a sociopath with enough smarts and motivation can certainly learn how to do it. I have to suppress panic attacks and a natural inclination to run and hide, sociopaths don’t have that problem.
I’m wondering how many people are reading this without knowing that Qadgop works in a prison.
Here I thought he was a doctor for U.S. Congresspeople.
Somewhat off-topic: I’ve known and heard of many men who have disregarded the saying “don’t stick it in the crazy”, and pursue or continue relationships with women that have borderline personality disorder, because the personalities of “the crazy” are so irresistible.
My side question for men who stayed in relationships with women that had BPD despite ongoing problems: why?
The percentage would be higher if I was.
I can’t give a first person account sadly, but apparently crazy sex is crazy good.
Wow, is this really true?
Reminds me of the charming, laid-back serial-killer protagonist of The Minus Man, who says something like, “I take the natural momentum of a person and draw it towards me.”
The whole movie is a series of his interactions with people who project onto him whatever they want him to be, and him good-naturedly (mostly) going along with it.
“Somewhat off-topic: I’ve known and heard of many men who have disregarded the saying “don’t stick it in the crazy”, and pursue or continue relationships with women that have borderline personality disorder, because the personalities of “the crazy” are so irresistible.”
Speaking as a worker rather than direct experience.
Some of te reasons they stay are fairly obvious - the people with the problem dont have it written on their foreheads, they say they need rescuing, they will say they cant live without you, etc etc. There can also be a level of emotional intensity, and brainwashing, ie when you’re in you’re the best thing in the world to them, when you’re out you’re ruining their lives. Done gradually over time it can condition people more than they realise to do what the person wants, because they ‘dont want to upset them’, and the standards get higher and higher.
A lot of it is fairly standard abuse patterns.
It can take a fair while to realise its them rather than the situation they claim they’re in and it can creep up on the person because the BPD person may be trying to stop it being like the last relationship mess. So the ‘this is nuts’ alarm might not sound too quickly, and you get your classic frog boiling in water kind of scenario. And of course the person may have their own reasons they dont leave relationships quickly in regards to self esteem or whatever.
LOL I guess not.
Crazy people are sexy sometimes because they have a lack of inhibition in the way that sane people do not. If you’re like me and you like to hang out with artists and such a certain level of crazy goes with the territory. It’s alluring, and the sexcapades can be amazing. But then again I used to pick up lots of chicks with my crazy style, so maybe it was me who was the ‘borderline’, well, I guess in many cases it was both. I have trouble operating in a ‘mundane’ world though.
I really chalk it up to the lack of inhibition. We all want to relax society’s inhibitions on some level, somewhere. And those of us who don’t, I guess, aren’t charmed by the crazy.
But it’s the crazy ones with whom you wake up from your reverie and realize the bed is on the other side of the room. That doesn’t happen with the sane ones.