Narcissists: Are We Surrounded?

Hi. I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Versus. Today is our last episode before we go on a little break to work on new episodes, which means that if you have an idea for us, something you want us to versus, we would absolutely love to hear it. There's an email, a phone number if you're in The US, there's social media accounts. It's all in the show notes. So just have a look at the show notes, get in touch with us, and tell us your great Sides versus idea. We always love hearing from you. Okay. But now, it's time to start the show. This is the show that pits facts against inflated egos. Today, we are talking about narcissism. So, of course, I've invited senior producer Rose Rimbler to tell me all about it. Hey. Well, because you did the research. Fair enough. I have been doing the research. And, you know, what I quickly realized diving into all this is that on the Internet, there's all these caricatures of what a narcissist is, but the reality is a lot more complicated and, actually, a lot more interesting. So to start, I want you to meet someone. This person is an actual narcissist. Oh. He's a social media influencer. That, touche. That jump sounds very appropriate. Could you start by introducing yourself to our audience? Hey, everybody. My name is Lee Hammock. I'm a clinically diagnosed narcissist. One of my monikers has become, like, the self aware narcissist. And Lee wasn't always self aware about this, but something happened about eight years ago that changed his whole world. Mhmm. So Lee is a dad. And on this particular day, he was home alone with his six month old son. The baby was crying, and Lee was feeling really annoyed that the baby was fussing while he was trying to get some of his own work done. And he found himself raising his voice at the baby. And then his wife walked in and heard this, and she's like, what the hell? You're You're yelling at an infant. And they got in a huge fight about it. So I told her to get the hell out. And, of course, she's like, okay. I'm leaving. And I and on the way out the door, she said, you know what? It's so damn hard living with a narcissist. She said that kinda, like, tossed over her shoulder as she walked out the door? Yeah. It was a super insult. It's so damn hard living with a narcissist. Slammed the door. And I was just like, wait. What? Because she's like, why would she say that? Right. Why did she call me that? So I sit down on the bed, and I'm, you know, don't don't angry Google. I was angry Googling. Yeah. So I typed in, narcissist in Google, and it said, did you mean narcissistic personality disorder? That is the medical term for someone who is diagnosed …