Aug 4, 2025 • Avik Das
Based on real events.
Above all, be unpredictable. Being predictable means your victim can figure you out and respond accordingly. Instead, keep them on their toes, which will preoccupy their mental bandwidth and prevent them from making meaningful progress in your relationship.
Separate cause and effect. Don’t give reasonable feedback in a timely fashion. When your victim does something that bothers you, don’t express your emotions calmly to them at that time. Instead, wait for a related, but otherwise innocuous trigger and blow up at them. They’ll learn never to trust your initial reactions and will never know if something they do or say will blow up in their face.
Love them without liking them. Be obsessed with them, telling them how much they mean to you. But day-to-day, don’t enjoy their company and constantly try to change them. Say you want to spend your life with them, but tear down their hobbies and their lifestyle. Your love will keep them around, but they will feel terrible when enjoying the things that make them happy.
Rapidly oscillate between praise and criticism. Be extreme about it. You don’t just enjoy being around them, they are the best thing that ever happened to you. Then, turn around and tell them how exactly how much they are hurting you just by being themselves.
Target their insecurities. Don’t just tell them how you feel when their actions hurt you, attack the specific parts of their psyche they struggle with the most. Compare them to others, attack their sense of morality and tear down their identity. You don’t have to know why something triggers them, whether it was a past experience or their general upbringing, you just have to know how much it hurts.
Finally, create an environment where it’s dangerous to say no. Criticize them constantly for asserting their boundaries. Then, ask for their consent for the things you want them to do. You may even respect their decision if they decline, but they won’t decline, because they don’t know how you’ll react.