1. I am right. You are wrong.
Everything I say and do is founded in the logic of my world and it follows that is has to be right. It equally follows therefore that whatever you say and do is wrong. I cannot ever allow you to be seen to be right because that means I am ceding control to somebody whom I regard as inferior. This undermines my sense of superiority. Maintaining this state of me being right and you being wrong requires various manipulative techniques including blame-shifting, projection, denial and deflection. Of course I am relying on your need to be understood and your desire to change me that you will always approach this stance of mine head on. My position will seem illogical to you and you will react to it and keep doing so.
2. There is no you and me. There is only me.
You are purely an extension of myself. I want to subsume everything about you into me. This is part of the reason why I seduce you with such totality. I am unable to discern where you begin and where I end. I regard you as an appliance that is to be plugged into me and is there to do my bidding, providing me with fuel, looking after me and responding to everything that I command. I forbid you to act independently of me, have interests beyond me and to interact with others. I am what is important. You must focus on me and only me. Your needs become secondary to my needs.
3. Do as I say, not as I do.
Do not question me. Who are you to question someone as brilliant as me? Know your place. Submit to me and carry out my whims. Accede to my commands. I am entitled to do as I please and therefore any contradiction in my behavior is a mistaken belief on your part. You may regard what I say and do as hypocrisy but you are wrong once again. This is pragmatism on my part and that is why I succeed whilst you fail.
4. One is never enough
Such is my might that one of you is not enough to sustain me. It is my right to gain fuel from all those that I interact with. This means I will be unfaithful but my infidelity is purely a means to an end. By all means react to my affairs and indiscretions, for it is all excellent fuel for me, but you will not stop me from taking another. Expect to be triangulated with other people and objects, for my appetite is so vast I must have many supply lines of fuel and this means you will become a cog inside a vast machine, as wheels turn within wheels.
5. Your pain is my gain
I cannot exist without drawing negative fuel from you at some point. It is retribution for your failings. There is no hope for an alternative. Your devaluation will happen as it has with many before you and those who are yet to come. It is a process and your agony, hurt and distress is purely part of the necessary equation to sustain me. It is drawn from you through many machinations, some you may see and others you will not.
6. You are worthless yet I will never leave you alone
You are inferior to me and that inferiority infuriates me since I am reminded that I must depend on someone weak and pathetic. This in turn generates hatred and despising of this chained situation I find myself in. I will cast you to one side once you have served your purpose and my disgust for you can no longer be tolerated. This is not the end however because I will always return to exhibit my power to draw you back one again and suck further fuel from you.
7. I am everywhere. I am everything
I am omnipotent and omniscient. I have my spies and errand boys all around as they feed me information about you which I can then use against you and to further my agendas. I have my Lieutenants carrying out my orders without question. I instil myself in every aspect of your life, making you see me, hear me and smell me, even after I am no longer physically near you. I imbue my essence into so much that my toxic memory pervades you for years after you have been cast aside, allowing me to return triumphant, as if nothing ever happened, to draw you into my false world once more.
8. The games are always being played.
The quest for fuel is unending. To achieve this I must engage in repeated and sustained manipulations and machinations. You and others are but pawns on my giant chessboard as I move you hither and thither in order to achieve my aims. I plot, plan and scheme before I organise, arrange and orchestrate. Each and every day I must engage in these nefarious games in order to secure my existence and as my chosen primary appliance you will be caught in this malicious web, right in the centre. My game-playing means nothing is as it seems, that truth is a stranger to me and lies flow from my mouth as easily as expelled breath.
9. I will never change
I will issue false promises of changing, empty protestations that I shall seek help and perfidious declarations of knowing I need to alter my behaviour but I never shall. I deny what I am, although for the most part I know full well what I am. I see no reason to change. Why should I when this how I have been created? Why should I when this is all I know? Why should I when it is all your fault anyway?
10. Fuel is the rule.
Fuel is at the centre of everything that I do. My actions and decisions are based on acquiring the precious resource. My interaction with strangers, minions, acquaintances and friends is all hinged on the gathering of fuel. The way in which I deal with colleagues and family is always based on the greatest potential for the collection of fuel. My thoughts are invaded with the need to gain fuel, my actions are dictated by the requirement to garner fuel. Fuel is the reason you were chosen. Fuel is the reason you were seduced, debased and discarded. Fuel is why I came back. Again and again.
Fuel is everything.
Art by Charlotte Abramow
