> It sounds to me like our men are very similar. I wonder if that means we ladies are similar too, since we were all attracted to these men.

lol. yeah, i guess it isn't surprising. i figure that we are alike in important ways and i figure that the people who we would be attracted to (and the people who would be attracted to us) would similarly be alike in important ways.

i guess i think... that pathology exists along a continuum with normal functioning. everybody, no matter how healthy they are, fits in some continuum or other that can be pathological when it is extreme.

i really like the 'self psychology' take on things. kohut talks about 'narcissistic disorders' but what he means by narcissism is one hell of a lot broader than what it tends to mean these days. a hell of a lot less judgemental too. he talks about how infants have a need for external regulation initially because they don't have the resources to internally regulate themselves. they need someone else to help them regulate temperature and nutrition and the like. they also have emotional needs, and Kohut carves these up into needs for idealising (soothing, comfort, safety, happiness in the presence of a benevolent and powerful / protective other) and mirroring ('gleam in the mothers eye' pride in us and our achievements) and twinning (being like other people - sharing hobbies and interests and concerns - such that we feel like we are part of the human race).

He thinks that narcissistic disorders arise in response to a sustained failure of the environment to meet these self-object needs. because the environment doesn't externally regulate these needs (by providing these things to us) we don't get the chance to internalise the functions such that we are better able to meet them ourselves and position ourselves such that other people are able to help us meet these functions either.

borderline personality pathology is supposed to be a failure of idealising functions (for the most part)

narcissistic personality pathology is supposed to be a failure of mirroring functions (for the most part)

some people are extreme with this (such that they meet criteria for personality disorder) but the majority of people have some kinds of failure across one or more of these... and i think most people with narcissistic disorders have both kinds of self-object failure :-(

one idea that comes up a lot is that borderline personality disorder and narcissistic disorder are complimentary. people with those vulnerabilities tend to be attracted to each other. this is likely to turn bad / not last, however... but... since pathology exists along a continuum so long as everyone works on their %#@&#! i don't see any reason why things can't work out... i mean... i figure that even 'healthy relationships' are based on some kind of need fulfillment from the partner and there is something about how they are sensitive to those needs that is attractive about the person...

i do worry some, though, yeah.

i think... that maybe as guys get a bit older... that they settle down such that there members aren't quite the focus as they once were. i think... that is nice for us, huh :-)