...console yourself with the fact that, by technicality, everyone's a freak.

Psychopath:  Also called: sociopath.       A person afflicted with a personality disorder characterized by a tendency to commit antisocial and sometimes violent acts, and a failure to feel guilt for such acts. Since I've been taking psychology as one of my A levels, I've found myself attempting to categorize the people around me, trying to attribute their current self to events in their past, making theories about how their upbringing has shaped them and the choices they make, and the person they are now. Needless to say, it quickly becomes apparent that, in practice, psychoanalysis is a lot harder than it looks. There's a guy I know from drama, who I met about three months ago. I consider him to be a friend, but at the same time, he confuses me so much. The second time we met, he seemed to open up a lot to this intrigued, almost-complete stranger, and basically told me that he adopts a different personality for different people, and constantly lies to those around him to maintain the front he wants them to believe is genuine. It took longer than you'd probably think for me to wonder how much he was lying when he said all of that, but - despite the obvious danger you find associated with any pathological liar - I was inclined to believe him. Helped by my gullibility and his skill as an actor, but still. Earlier tonight, I was talking to him about why he lies so much. It's... just weird. I honestly believe, and I am able to produce examples to back this opinion, that he's a genuinely nice person - and yet he seems to do everything he can to make people think otherwise. It's usually the other way around, when you find a dick from a long line of dicks pretending to be a decent human being in order to get what they want. Why would he do that? Deliberately, voluntarily worsening himself, to a person constantly seeking to better herself like me, is literally incomprehensible. I said as much, and he started saying that it's not necessary to be friends with other people in order to find happiness for yourself, when, I quote, "you can manipulate them to find the same result". He then went on to tell me about how he's relatively indifferent to his current girlfriend, but appreciates her in that he now gets invited to better parties - at which he can find his next, more popular, girlfriend. "So, you're socially ambitious?" "Yep." About five minutes later, he said, "It's getting to the point now where I don't even know what's real. I think I've been lying for the last half hour." Consider yourself mindfucked, Katherine. Quote of the day: Actors are able to trick themselves into treating anything as if it's fantastic. It's a kind of madness really. [Tom Baker]