Dear Ishita,

you’re very welcome. I was thinking about his personality and realized he might be a covert, not an overt narcissist. Because you said this about him:

He is a real nice guy, an overachiever yet humble, although a bit emotionally inexpressive or reserved kind.

We are in the same club in our college, and that’s how we had met. Now, I am someone who is very involved in the works of the club , and am pretty opinionated, whereas he is, more of an introvert who, didn’t really aim for the leadership position in the club.

An overt narcissist wouldn’t be humble – they would be grandiose, full of themselves and would likely be in a leadership position.

A covert or vulnerable narcissist is more introverted and subdued. They still feel entitled and seek ways to feel important, but they don’t do it so openly. Here are two useful quotes, both from the same article (you can look it up):

A covert narcissist is someone who craves admiration and importance as well as lacks empathy toward others but can act in a different way than an overt narcissist.

The introverted, covert narcissist may have a more gentle approach to explain why something is your fault and they are not to blame. They might even pretend to be a victim of your behavior or engage in emotional abuse to put themselves in a position to receive reassurance and praise from you. At the end of these interactions, the goal of the narcissist is to make the other person feel small.

Your friend X is also blaming you, indirectly, for being “unreasonable”, and for seeing problems where they don’t exist. He also probably wants to keep a relationship with you, so that he can keep receiving reassurance and praise from you, while at the same time not caring about his impact on you.

So, you might want to check covert narcissism and see if he fits the description. If he does, it would explain why it was so hard for you to discern his intentions, because his manipulative behavior would be much more hidden and more difficult to spot.