Manipulators – Surviving In Relationships With Toxic People

According to modern psychology, there are 10 types of toxic people who you can meet and cross paths in life, and in most cases, you will not even realize it. For your information, the categories are the following: the manipulator, the victim, the temperamental, the envious, the dementor, the twisted, the arrogant, the judgemental, the self-absorbed, and the gossip. All of us have met them during our lives and in many cases, we may have built relationships with them. Others may have been relatives, others may have been teachers, or colleagues and others may have been friends with us because we chose them to be. No matter what our interaction was with them we surely had to go through some difficulties to stay positive. One of the most clever types of toxic people you may meet is the manipulators.

Here are the characteristics that will be in the package:

1. They know how to read people
   As we pointed out before, manipulators are smart and in order to be smart, you have to be observative. A manipulator will take their time to understand you, see right through you, and learn you better than you know yourself. These are all the characteristics of a clever person or someone who cares. The difference here is that manipulators will not go to such trouble just to help you. However, we have to recognize the fact that they are geniuses when it comes to human psychology. All of the information they have gained from you will be used for their own interest later. It may be funny, but you can use them as well. If you want to have a better understanding of yourself, you can watch them and see what they try to offer you in order to seduce you and how they treat you in general. This way, you will figure out some parts of your personality.
2. They pretend to be friends with you
   Manipulators always get along with people. They will not get into the trouble of arguing and destroying their initial plan, which is to take you on their side. Like a good therapist, manipulators will be smooth and create superficial friendships. They are usually popular because they work hard to keep a positive image. They will not brag about themselves because they do not want you to feel bad for yourself. On the other hand, they want you to feel good and comfortable to open up and trust them.
3. They are secretive
   Even though they want to know all of your secrets, they will barely share anything of their own with you. If you see friendly people holding back, this means that there is a disagreement between what they show and what the truth is. Our advice to overcome this challenge is to reverse the questions they ask you. For example, when this person asks a certain question, answer back with another question and see if they are willing to respond with an answer of their own.
4. They want something from you
   Manipulators will appear as great helpers at the beginning, but they will always want something back, and most of the time, it will be much ”bigger” than what they gave in the first place. Manipulators are genuine takers. Their outfit is confusing, but if you give them some time, they will let you know what they want from you. There is nothing wrong with helping other people as long as you do it based on your free will and you are convinced about people’s motivations.
5. They use a variety of mechanisms
   A person who wants something from you will go through all the possible ways to achieve their goal. Those who know your secrets are likely to use them in order to blackmail you in a way. Others who have detected different kinds of weaknesses in you may try to make you feel guilty and obliged to help them. Another scenario is that they can make the process tempting for you, so you will help them in their plans without even realizing you have a contribution to that. They are often ruthless, and the means are not important for them as long as they serve the purpose.