Narcissistic Fantasy: BoomerYearbook.com
Psychological Articles by Boomeryearbook.com
As we get older, and baby boomers are certainly doing that, we tend to experience regret for the things we always wanted to and never did; the places we wanted to travel to yet never saw; the people we always wanted to meet but never met.
Some baby boomers reaching an age where they spend more time looking back than forward indulge in a dangerous fantasy where they pretend to have seen things they never saw and to have met people they never met. We all know and love these sometimes less than loveable characters, who claim to have done all kinds of things that are impossible.
Usually, such fantasies are harmless and come under the heading of ‘Shaggy Dog Stories’ – on a par with the fisherman’s tales of ‘The One That Got Away.’ Sometimes, however, the fantasy becomes too credible, too close to the truth and overlaps with reality. When the dreamer is exposed, he becomes angry and overwrought because he really believes his fantasy to be real.
Such fantasies begin to become a nuisance in certain situations. When people start to believe themselves attractive to others, when in fact they are merely passing acquaintances, the resulting behavior can be intrusive and unwelcome. Baby boomers tend to be advancing in age and are sometimes ill equipped to deal with unwelcome attentions.
The trick is to know when a fantasy world is something of a mild indulgence and when it is escalating out of all proportion to reality. Baby boomers tend to socialize quite actively with other members of their generation so have the opportunity to be exposed to harmless ‘bull’ and also to the more harmful dreamed up scenarios that are embarrassing and only lead to further tall stories, especially if they involve the reputations of other people.
Just about everyone has heard silly older men expounding about their conquests in their younger days, stretching the truth about how many girlfriends they had and how if they were thirty years younger…and so on. Such stories can cause deep emotional harm when they are expanded to include fantasy behavior, indulged in with a real lady that everybody knows would never dream of acting in such a fashion.
On these occasions, a dilemma has to be faced. Often, the dreamer does not intend to bully or hurt anyone and sees himself (or herself) as a real contender with control over the listener; someone who can put a stop to the fantasy whenever he chooses. Unfortunately, a great deal of damage can be done before such people are finally dealt with.
Baby boomers in general are grounded characters with a firm grip on reality but there are always exceptions to the rule. The best way to deal with people caught in a fantasy world is to gently remove interest from their conversation and walk away. No confrontation is necessary. The disappearance of an audience soon fixes the problem and underlines to the dreamer that his fantasies are unwelcome in polite company.
The Psychological Article on The Realms of Narcissistic Fantasy is part of Boomer Yearbook’s continuing series of baby boomers psychological coaching tips and how to alleviate elderly problems. We believe knowledge is power. We’d love to hear what you think.
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