The second type of gift is clothes they know won’t fit you. This one is pure sadism. It’s a psychological setup designed to trigger your deepest insecurities. They buy you a dress or a shirt that is two sizes too small or, conversely, three sizes too big. Let’s look at the too-small scenario first. You open it, try to put it on, and can’t zip it up. Naturally, you feel the shame wash over you. You feel fat and unworthy. When you look at them, what do you see? You see that faint glimmer in their eye; they knew it would not fit. They bought it because it would not fit. They want you to feel uncomfortable in your own skin.
They want you to look in the mirror and hate what you see. Because if you hate yourself, you are less likely to leave them. And again, the trap is set. If you say it does not fit, they act surprised. “Oh, really? I thought you could squeeze into it.” It’s a subtle way of calling you fat without ever saying the word. It’s body shaming disguised as a present.
Number Three: The Boomerang Gift
The third type of gift is the one they actually bought for themselves but want to make you feel indebted. We call this the boomerang gift. They throw it at you, but it comes right back to them. Imagine it’s your birthday. You don’t play video games; you’ve never touched a controller in your life, but they hand you a brand new PlayStation 5. Or they buy you tickets to a concert for a band they’re obsessed with that you hate, or they get you a high-tech kitchen gadget that only they know how to use.
This hurts on a visceral level because it turns you into an object. You are just a vessel, a prop they use to justify their own heavy spending. They get the dopamine hit of buying the toy, and they get the utility of using it, but you get the job of saying thank you. It’s humiliating. You’re forced to show gratitude for something that effectively erases your existence. It screams, “My desires are the only thing that matters in this relationship.” If you don’t use it, they accuse you of being wasteful or abandoning it. “I bought you that expensive console, and you never touched it, and you’re telling me I am the bad one.” It’s a lose-lose situation.
Number Four: The Identity Eraser
The ONLY People Narcissists Stay Obsessed With
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