Narcissism is not what it appears to be.

It appears to be a falling in love with oneself. Thinking others are inferior. Cocky. Condescending. Arrogant.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Narcissism is the precise opposite of self-love. It is, in fact, a tragedy of self-loathing.

Narcissus is not punished by the gods because he falls in love with himself. No, he is punished because he looks into a pool of water and falls in love with his image.

Why would someone fall in love with their image? Because the reality of self is broken and wounded. Painful and unbearable. Even terrifying. Blind infatuation with one's image is a strategy not of self-love but of self-hatred. It is an escape. A committed narcissist defends those images at all cost because his ultimate commitment is to avoid seeing and knowing himself.

Attempt to look behind the images and you will suffer the narcissist's rage. He will control, demean, belittle, withhold and withdraw. Turn passive-aggressive. The aggrandizements will actually escalate. If necessary, the narcissist will attempt to ruin you.

In the case of pathological narcissism (thankfully rare), the narcissist might try to destroy you, or talk you into destroying yourself. Ask the surviving relatives of The Family, headed by Charles Manson (California, 1969). Ask the surviving relatives of The People's Temple, headed by the Rev. Jim Jones (Guyana, 1978). Folks with an insufficient sense of self are vulnerable to guys like this.

Groupies help a narcissist keep the image polished and running. Groupies need this guy's image as much as he does.

But more commonly, the trump card of the ordinary narcissist is walking away. Your punishment for daring to inquire about the person behind the image is that you will be abandoned.

Notice the exclusive use of masculine pronouns. I'm not a sexist; it's deliberate. In our culture, an overwhelming disproportion of narcissism is represented in men. There are observable dynamics in Western Civilization that virtually guarantee most modern males will spend their lives struggling with narcissistic features in their personality. (Or not struggling, if they're too narcissistic to care.)

I've stashed a title for the book I want to write about narcissism. It will be called "I Dare You, How Dare You." That's the game, see. The narcissist will slowly escalate behaviors of control and entitlement to see if you'll notice. He'll be selfish. Oblivious. Demanding. He'll sulk and withdraw if he doesn't get his way. His behavior presupposes his knowledge of the way things ought to be.

This part of the game is called "I dare you." Meaning, I dare you to set a boundary with me. In fact, I won't respect you if you continue to let me treat you this way. Go on. I double-dog dare you to call my behavior into question.

So, if you respect yourself at all, you call the narcissist to account.

Now comes part two: How dare you! The narcissist denies, flares up, defends, ranting incredulity. You hurt his feelings. You've misunderstood him.

If you capitulate under the assault of "how dare you," he'll lose respect for you. If you confront him, he'll withdraw in a huff because you're so critical and nobody really understands him.

Good luck, girls.

I often marvel that women fall in love with us guys at all. I think it's a miracle that so many of you keep coming home and wanting to stay with us.

My guess is you know us better than we could imagine. Maybe we'd be frightened to consider that the jig is up, that you already know we're full of horse patootie.

Maybe we can't comprehend the part of your love that is compassion for our frailty. Maybe you saw long ago that "arrogant bastard" is a cheap disguise.

Maybe, on some intuitive level, women just know what us poor schlub guys ought to know about ourselves -- that before narcissism was this boorish behavior draining the patience of this nice woman, it was an attempt to survive a terrible psychic injury and its aftermath: insecurity, self-doubt and self-hatred.

The fix for narcissism is to love oneself more.

Steven Kalas is a behavioral health consultant and counselor at Clear View Counseling and Wellness Center in Las Vegas. His columns appear on Tuesdays and Sundays. Questions for the Asking Human Matters column or comments can be e-mailed to skalas@reviewjournal.com.