Those Annoying One Uppers

• 

Those Annoying One Uppers

I am always annoyed by the one upping that some people do. Sometimes I do not notice when it is happening until I do notice it, and when I notice it, I become cognizant of the person’s behavior … always detecting whether I need to safeguard myself from a person who is not safe for me. People do have a tendency to one up others for various reasons, but when narcissists do it, it has a tendency to get under my skin.

Narcissists are so annoying as one uppers because they can really take one upping to the ultimate one uppity-ness. There is no limit to how far they will go to be better than you at practically everything even when they might just be mediocre at best. Yet, by definition, one uppers as narcissists always have to be better than you. Their experience has to be similar to yours but with a far better or far worse outcome. They never give you a moment to shine. They always have to dim your light.

The One Upping Narcissists In My Life

With any narcissist that has ever been in my life, there is never a time where I have not found them instigating competition against me. By nature, I am not a competitive person. I love having fun with games, but I can certainly take a loss. I tend to compete with myself for the purpose of improvement. However, when it comes to other people, I do not care to compete because I do not like the feelings that competitions emit within the atmosphere. When the atmosphere is filled with jealousy, envy, animosity, and strife, I find myself looking for the quickest exit to bow out.

A great annoyance of mine is knowing that a person – specifically a narcissist – is always competing with me at life when all I am trying to do is survive life. I have been striving to live in my individuality against narcissists since the day I was born. They are always trying to gain a foothold on me to pull me back so that they can elevate themselves above me just so they can utter that they are better than me. There are so many instances of one upping that I can recall with narcissists, but I will just narrow my experiences for this blog down three examples.

Texting By Comparison

One of my friends who does not classify as a narcissist based on the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, does display toxic behavior traits. One of those toxic traits is one upping. Because of her constant one upping, I have found it very difficult to be around her at times. If she has clearly never experienced something that I have, then she questions the validity of what I have told her. She makes me feel as if I can never say anything honest about my experiences, and if I do, and she can relate to the experience, then she has done that experience far better than me.

So, when I limited my face-to-face contact with her, we would resort to texting. Sadly, texting conversations were just as tortuous as face-to-face contact with her. She one upped me just as much through text messages as she did when we talked in person. The same energy I felt when around her as she one upped me is the same energy that came across through her text messages to me. There was a constant need for her to compare the two of us, and through comparisons against her, I was always misinformed, accidentally mistaken, or just plain wrong. By her comparison, her information was better, she did not make mistakes, and she was obviously never wrong.

The one upping through text messaging was so bad that I literally felt like my friend was attempting to upstage my every word. Texting with her became so unbearable I would sometimes choose not to respond to her or change the topic altogether if I did not want to be rude by not responding. I simply hated our texting conversations and always felt like to message her was a battle that I would never win even though I only intended to simply share information, answer questions, or have casual typed conversation.

If we talked about mutual topics, then what she knew was far more detailed in description. If we talked about mutual people, then she knew those people far better than me even if I knew she did not know them at all. If I said anything that relayed information at all, she would question my validity and literally fact check me against what someone else said, and if both myself and the person she used as her resource for fact checking said literally the same thing, she would tell me that there was a part that I did not say which made it different although the meaning was just the same.

I grew exasperated with her, and more than a feeling of being one upped, I sometimes fought hard against thoughts that she was using microaggressions against me. She clearly did not respect my thoughts, ideas, or opinions on anything because her thoughts, ideas, or opinions were better. I soon came to realize that I she could not possibly be my friend.

My life eventually changed to where I resigned from my position from the company where I shared space and time with her as a coworker. Our texting conversations became sparse until there were none. Frankly, I was glad. She even one upped me regarding the emojis I posted in text. She always had to have the last word or the last emoji to one up. Who does that, and who really cares?

The Connoisseur

The connoisseur is a narcissist that always needs to let me know that her tastes are better than mine. In this narcissist’s eyes, I am uncouth. She one ups me on things that I simply do not care about but have often wondered in the past if I really should care about.

Both the connoisseur and I share a love for good food, but according to her, my interests are rather unrefined as it appears that I do not understand the method nor sophistication of elegant and fine cuisine. In comparison, I would have to say that I probably do not, but I love to eat delicious food. I also love to replicate the food that I really enjoy by recreating or finding a recipe for what I love to eat.

I recall a time the connoisseur and me went out to eat dinner at one of my favorite types of restaurants. I usually always ordered the same variation of my favorite dish to find which of the variations I liked best. My order this time around was no different. I did ask the waiter several questions about what I wanted to order, and each time I asked a question, the connoisseur one upped me by explaining in front of the waiter how she knew this and that far better than me because she understood fine cuisine.

At first, I did not make anything of the connoisseur’s comments even though she sounded rather curt, angry, and direct. Since the connoisseur had frequented this particular restaurant, she already new exactly what to order as a part of most of the dishes. So she ordered the same dish that I ordered with additions that I never considered mainly because I did not know to consider the additions. With a rather large smirk on her face, she bragged about how much better than I that she she knew about my favorite ordered dish. She wondered how I could possibly know the culture of the food that I loved so much if I did not know the additions to the dish. I was confused. Since when had ordering food become a competition?

Although I could have added to my order, I simply chose not to. I really did not give it that much thought, but when the waiter brought our orders out to us, the variation of the dish she ordered with the additions looked amazingly delicious. Yet, I was content with my order and was excited to dig into a fantastic meal. My order was superb! The connoisseur proceeded to inform me how her dish was so much better than mine because hers had more flavor. I remember joking and saying that I would not be able to tell the difference since I was only eating what was on my plate.

All About A Word

A former coworker who is also a narcissist worked behind the scenes to sabotage my career at the time that we worked together. I refer to her as the Professional Gaslighting Narcissist (PGN). The PGN was notorious for gaslighting tricks and continuous spars of competition against me. She wasted no time one upping me at every moment.

I first recognized her one upping me subtly as I was beginning to recognize other narcissistic traits about her that bothered me when we were first developing a friendship outside of work. The first clue was the glaring look in her eyes towards me on pretty much everything that I did … from how I talked to how I dressed. At the time, I never thought that she was actually studying me to later use things against me.

The PGN competed against me in everything. She always needed to compare everything we had no matter what. She always focused on things like her home is bigger and newer than mine, her car is roomier and newer than mine, or her life is more fulfilling than mine since she’s a wife and mother. Yet, none of those things were remotely anything I ever considered for comparison. J did not care about things in the way that she seemed to imply. I was and am content with the life that I have even if it is nothing like hers, but she just did not seem to comprehend my level of contentment.

One situation that I will never forget was the time that the PGN and I were discussing a topic pertaining to pica. Pica is classified as an eating disorder in which a person compulsively craves and eats substances that have no nutritional value. Pica is sometimes the result of one or more mineral deficiencies within the body. I know this because I had an obsessive craving for chewing foam that lasted throughout my adolescences and early adulthood.

During this particular discussion with the PGN, she was already aware of my past obsessive cravings from a previous discussion on a subject that she had never even heard of before until I told her about it. So, I was not prepared for her to flip the switch and gaslight me into a competition over a word of which she already knew the pronunciation since I had already shared with her information about the disorder.

Yet, the PGN insisted on one upping me saying that the word was pronounced “pee-ka” instead of “pie-ka”. I stopped to glance at her to see if she was joking, but she was serious. She was intent on not only gaslighting me, and one upping me, but she was intent on making sure that I knew I was wrong. I literally second-guessed a fact of pronunciation that I already knew since I had studied to understand this disorder for years.

I couldn’t help but want to laugh out loud at the stupidity of it all. Here I was being one upped on the wrong pronunciation. Each time I said “pie-ka”, she said “pee-ka”. This match went on for about three rounds until I saw a glimpse of a fearful look of insecurity within her eyes. I saw the PGN for who she was in that moment and realized that one upping was definitely more about her insecurity and her vulnerabilities than anything about me. So, I chose not to correct her even though I knew she was wrong. Yet, she knew she was wrong too. It was that moment that I had an overwhelming compassion for her. But let us not get it twisted here. I recognize that she is still a narcissist. To date, she is on my no-contact list.

One Upping Narcissists Do Not Change

Narcissists never cease to one up. They never cease to make a competition out of everything. If you are crushed, they been rolled over by a bulldozer. If you are having a bad day, their day is worse. No matter what happens to you, it happen to them too, but there’s going to be something that makes what happened to them far more interesting. One upping narcissists do not change. They are annoying one uppers.