This is so true that you have to really develop an intuition for identifying sociopaths that will manipulate this natural human trait for their gain. I've had the displeasure of staying with a sociopathic lawyer one summer in my younger years that was a pro at feigning mutual interest/mirroring your insecurities to get on your good side and then gaslighting you to get you to do them favors. In the end it was only minor things they got from me but the lessons learned have been huge for me in the corporate world where I work with these types of people, most often seen in senior management roles.

After having experienced it I'll never let someone use mw in that manner ever again as I've learned how to call them out and use their own logic and tactics against them and I've built some solid internal heuristics for spotting the methods sociopaths employ to deceive people. Pretty fascinating subject, can anyone relate to my experiences/expand on the topic?