A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Knowledge is Power. I am not a psychologist but I do study people. We all do this consciously and after awhile you tend to notice similar traits and behaviors that the majority of human beings possess. This common- man knowledge is applied when we make choices on whom to befriend, work with or for and whom to develop intimate relationships with.
People generally like what is familiar to them. We tend to gravitate towards people that somehow remind us of early childhood relationships, like our parents, for good or for bad. For instance, if your mother was a stay at home mom, wore glasses and liked to bake cookies and go to church, you may be predisposed to finding a wife with similar traits. I for instance tend to blend my parental figures together. I like extremely intelligent men like my Dad but who possess artistic and creative qualities like my Mom. I also like a guy who looks dark and exotic like Keanu Reeves or Johnny Depp like my Dad or Leo DiCaprio or Matt Damon, fair, like my Mom. This patterning we do seems to be innate as far as I can see.
Throughout my life I’ve been fairly accurate at perceiving traits I find desirable or not. Except once. For the life of me I could not figure out how I could inaccurately perceive traits and behaviors that seemed nearly perfect but on closer inspection turned out to be anything but.
The reason is the sociopath. Normal human behavior simply cannot be applied when trying to understand the nature of the sociopath. So in addition to researching sociopathic behavior on several clinical websites and reading a lot of literature on the subject, I reached down deep to tap what I know. Animal behavior. Ace predators to be precise. Predators like sociopaths share very common behavioral traits whether it is a wolf, lion or great white shark. They all have highly developed sensory mechanisms and they are finely tuned to weed out the weakest, most vulnerable prey. They do not seek out the biggest or strongest in the herd to kill.
Like a predatory human or sociopath, ace predators choose weak newborn calves or seals or older sickly gazelles and zebras.
Being vulnerable or weak puts you at risk to be predated upon by a sociopath, both the violent and non-violent kind. When we are at our weakest moments in life,the predator strikes. I was victim to a sociopathic relationship because my father had died. I did not even know I was in a vulnerable state of mind. Also, I could not recognize predatory behavior. As I said before, a predator knows you better than you know yourself.
Many women who are intelligent, educated, business owners, talented, beautiful or wealthy, can be victimized by a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Perhaps you know a sociopath. Perhaps you know his victim. They will always look or be similar. Mousy,timid or a shrinking violet. Maybe suffering from low self esteem. Someone weakened in some way from past childhood issues or a recent trauma. It could even be something as insignificant as a womans clock ticking down. Maybe she’s desperate to get married or she’s older and afraid or not particularly attractive and overweight. Once you understand an animals behavior and your own vulnerabilities you can avoid or escape their grasp. If you apply even those attributes described above to animals you can see how the ace predator will pick them out of a herd.

Related articles

• Understanding & Recognizing Sociopathy (“Confronting Elder Abuse”) (larkkirkwood.wordpress.com)
• Why animals cannot evolve defenses against us (retrieverman.wordpress.com)