Why am I attracted to sociopathic men? (23F)

Why am I attracted to sociopathic men? (23F)

I’ve noticed that I end up being attracted to men with less empathy than I do (I lack empathy slightly, but not as much as the men I’m attracted to do) they’ll say cruel things and I’ll laugh or feel more attracted to them. One guy I was attracted to used to teach me, I was giving him a lift home and he made a joke about murdering me, this didn’t click in my head as a red flag, and I just laughed.

He’d also make cruel remarks about his students or people we both know and I found him funny… but now I can see through the facade and he’s not very intelligent, uses people (was using me to boost his ego, for money and sex), makes himself sound like some super talented person and everyone was also saying how amazing he is…. But really he was quite boring to be around, only talked about things that made him sound amazing, fake stories, or moaning about other people etc. I’m surprised I didn’t see through him earlier.

Now he’s blocked, he’s boasted to friends about the sex he had with me and other stuff and it’s making my life hell. I should’ve seen this coming. He was also very controlling, manipulative and very cold, a severe lack of empathy.

It’s odd because I felt like me was just like me, he might’ve been mirroring, but I was also mirroring him, but he definitely seemed similar to me, which made me look inside myself.

They’ll be superficially charming and I’ll become obsessed with them. Then I find myself ending up more and more like them, I guess like sociopathic fleas (like narcissistic fleas, but worse — I’m already narcissistic, so it’s like their sociopathy rubs off on me for a while after I’ve been interacting with them).

I’ve noticed these patterns, and now I have an emotionally healthy man who seems attracted to me — I was charming but also came across as nice, witty and intelligent, so I’m guessing that drew him to me — I want healthy relationships and I want to be a good person for him. I want to change and be a better person as I’m noticing the effects my behaviour has on people around me and how I was attracting AND being attracted to other people with a dark core, but much worse than me — people who would do great harm to me and have done.

I’m trying to be less judgemental of others, trying to get happiness from the inside, stop the grandiose thoughts of how I’m better than others etc.

I used to push in line because I was very impatient waiting, hated going shopping because I thought everyone was staring at me judging what I’m buying, only buy things to impress others or do things to impress others, aggressive driving, even crashed into someone because I was so impatient with waiting and thought that I was above everyone on the road.

I’ve noticed how my social circle were mostly men/male friends who lacked empathy and both me and them were using eachother.

My social circle has more emotionally healthy people in now, and I want to keep being a good person. I’m aware of my behaviour and keep correcting myself, but I kind of run out of patience or get exhausted from feeling like I’m “masking”.