2. Arriving Late or Leaving Early
They will arrive late or leave early. Genuine people just run late; it’s who they are. Others are busy and might say, “Hey, yes, we’d love to come, but we’ve got this event before. We’ll be there as soon as we can.” They make the effort to arrive and celebrate for the person. Or they might say, “Yes, I’d love to come; however, we’ve already arranged this, so we’re going to have to leave a bit early. Is that okay?” That’s open communication.
With a narcissist, they’ll say they’ll be there, promise to be on time, and then arrive late to get everybody worrying about them. Or they’ll leave early to make a show. By purposefully and continually arriving significantly late or abruptly leaving early, narcissists disrupt the flow of the occasion and make their presence or absence the focal point. They have a consistent pattern of arriving late with no valid reason or pathetic excuses, making a grand entrance that draws attention to themselves or a grand exit that does the same.
3. Criticizing and Dismissing the Event
Narcissists will go all out to undermine the significance of an occasion by criticizing the preparation, the person who’s celebrating, the people who are attending, or the purpose of the event. They’ll usually do it with some sort of moral high ground, so it appears they’re taking a stand when they’re just trying to ruin it for someone else. They’ll use negative comments about the food, the venue, or the decorations and make dismissive remarks about the importance of the celebration.
If you’re in a venue where two celebrations are happening, they might leave one to walk into a stranger’s celebration, congratulate the stranger, steal their food, and then walk back into the original occasion, smugly saying how much that person’s food is better than the one they were invited to. Their behavior is unbelievable.
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