How To Know If Your Boyfriend's A Narcissist (And Other Dating Advice For Women In 2025)

Linda hated the way Roger drew so much attention. If he wasn't bantering with a server or making bad jokes to a cashier, he was serenading her on the subway at the top of his lungs.

Linda had always been an introvert. While in the early days dating Roger brought a perverse thrill to someone who'd spent most of her life unnoticed, she now realized her preference for remaining incognito.

But breaking up with Roger was proving more difficult than she'd imagined. She'd assumed that if she completely stopped talking he'd eventually get the hint.

That was six months ago.

Drinking

There was a time that drinking carried with it a thrill. The flash of acceptance by his peers, the risk of being caught.

Then it became a habit. An expectation, though not a conscious one. It was just a part of everyday life, like the friends he no longer really connects with, but finding new friends seems complicated and lonely.

Now it is no longer drinking. It is alcohol, and he needs it to not feel sick, to not hate himself.

Maybe he should quit. But that strikes him as uncomfortable. Better just to not think about it too much.

Thrill

“Not healthy,” Jan whispered to her surviving brother, peering into the darkened parlour where her mother sat, eyes fixed on the flickering screen of Brian’s cracked Smartphone.

Tom lifted and dropped his shoulders helplessly and returned to the closed-coffin wake in the other room.

Jan herself had only been able to watch the footage once: the glee of Brian hanging from a spar changing to terror as his grip had slipped.

The phone had been lucky enough to fall back onto the bridge.

Jan stared as her mother hit replay again. She’d even stopped sobbing.

“Friggin’ selfie generation,” she muttered.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid