If you’re anything like me, you had “that friend” as a child. Not really a friend, but someone you knew at school or from the neighborhood whose companionship you sought out of loneliness or boredom or because there was no one else around. If you grew up without brothers or sisters (as I did) you were more likely to gravitate toward such a playmate.
That friend was manipulative and cruel, and condescended to spend time with you. They let it be known it was a huge favor to you that they would hang out with such a little loser when there were other, cooler kids they were friends with.
That friend would come over to your house and eat your cookies and drink your root beer and put your things in their pockets and cheat on board games. They would regale you with baldfaced lies. They suggested to you how neat it would be to take apart your favorite toy to see how it worked, and revel in its destruction. When your father came home later to find it half-disassembled in the driveway, you’d get yelled at. It would be all your fault, of course.
When you’re seven years old you have never heard the word “sociopath.” You see other kids as bullies or as just being mean. That friend was more subtle. They wormed their way into your life and once established there they started doing damage, possibly out of jealousy (your things were nicer than theirs) or perhaps just to see the look of
