Jimmy is a guy I’ve crossed paths with several times at a bodega I go to. Three days ago, I saw Jimmy there and we struck up a conversation about an argument he’d had with his girlfriend, Diana. It was in this conversation I would discover that Jimmy was a narcissist.
Apparently, they got drunk and whatever took place (he didn’t remember) resulted in him telling her that he didn’t need her and that she’d never find a man like him — specifically, because of his money and looks.
Jimmy also made it a point to tell Diana that he’d make it his business to make sure his next girl was twice as attractive as her. He then told me that each of his ex-girlfriends looked progressively better than the one before them. DO NOT forget these words.
Jimmy ended it by letting her know he could get another girl like this *snaps fingers*. Diana ended it by hanging up the phone.
Jimmy Hoovered Diana
The next day Jimmy realized she had him blocked so he started hoovering Diana by showing up at her gym because he knew her routine so he knew where to find her. He told her to unblock him and detailed how he put on his charm and eventually wore her down “all within the same day”.
Aside from telling me how much he loved her, he mentioned how she was still upset about that fight. I pointed out that his words were gutwrenching and that things like that won’t be forgotten. They can’t be.
His response to that was to reason that he was drunk so it wasn’t really his fault. I told him that a drunk man speaks no lies. But then the conversation took an unexpected turn once his phone went off.
Introducing The New Supply
Jimmy looked at his phone and smiled before mentioning a party he went to last weekend, where he had gotten the number of this “bad Guyanese chick with long hair”.
I did a double take because we had been talking for a couple of hours at this point and Diana had called him 2–3 times. I realized he was breadcrumbing her as he had only picked up the first call to tell her he’d call her back but ignored the rest of them. Yet, was actively texting another woman he just met last weekend.
I needed to know
“Wait, you’re dating her? Are you gonna date her?”
For a moment, it was like he didn’t know how to say yes or no to the question. Or whether or not he should.
So, instead, he repeated how bad she was and explained to me that she had her own place and a good-paying job — before telling me he would be pursuing her.
I thought I was in the Twilight Zone because a good portion of our conversation centered around this fight with Diana and how much he loved her and fought (hoovered and love-bombed) to get her back. Now, he was casually throwing another woman into the mix like it was nothing.
I had to ask him
“Wait… you’re in an open relationship?”
I swear to you, Jimmy looked like he’d been busted as he told me no.
That’s when I finally asked him
“What about Diana?”
This is the question that unmasked Jimmy.
The Real Reason Narcissists Need New Supply
You could literally see it on his face, Jimmy was caught.
He looked at me with that sheepish smirk people get on their faces when they’ve done something wrong and know there’s no way around the evidence. Jimmy put his hands up (almost in surrender), and stuttered
“I mean… I’m a man…”
Before finally saying
“I always keep two women. Always two. At all times. When one acts up I don’t even argue I leave them alone because clearly you got a problem so you deal with that over there. I still care about you. I’m still thinking about you. But until you calm down I’ll be over here. I will always have two women. Sometimes three or four, but that costs too much money. So, always two.”
My heart broke.
All I could think about was Diana and how she had no idea how true every word Jimmy had said to her last week was.
She had no clue that she was actually being triangulated with Jimmy’s new supply as we speak and that it happened within days of their actual fight.
As she was healing, he was lining up her replacement and he was going to hurt her using this new supply. I know this because he did the same thing to his ex-wife with Diana.
Uncovering the Pattern of Abuse
According to Jimmy, Jimmy never did anything wrong to his ex-wife, or in any of his relationships. He emphasized the amount of money he put into his ex-wife and her hair salon; because she’s a hairdresser.
He claimed when the money dried up she left him high and dry but made it a point to tell me that she wanted him back but he wouldn’t take her back. As he told me more about his ex-wife, he said something that alarmed me.
Remember, earlier, when I told you not to forget those words he spoke to Diana? Well, they’re going to come into play right now.
Jimmy told me that he told his ex-wife the same thing he said to Diana; that he would get a chick that looked better than her — Diana was that chick. Diana had been the new supply when Jimmy was still with his ex-wife.
But it gets worse.
Jimmy and his ex-wife share a daughter and he made sure to weaponize her too by telling his ex-wife that when he came to pick up their daughter he wouldn’t even get out of the car. Instead, he’d send his new woman (Diana) to go to the door and get her. And that’s exactly what he did.
He told me this with a smile on his face as he told me how badly this affected his ex-wife. As much as this bothered me, I was now disgusted by this because of something Jimmy did right before giving me this information.
Jimmy had shown me pictures of his daughter on his Instagram. In one of these pictures, she was with Diana, and I thought Diana was her mother (based on how it looked) until he corrected me. It felt weird when I saw it but I didn’t know why until he made this comment.
He had posted that to hurt his ex-wife. Publicly. And he keeps it up to reinforce the pain he intentionally wants to inflict on her.
This Was a Game of Leave-or-Be-Left
Jimmy pointed out that he was the one who broke up with everyone he ever dated. But he did admit that his ex-wife was the only woman who had ever left him.
You could tell this created a deep narcissistic injury for Jimmy. For whatever reason, Diana brought this up in the argument they’d had, which injured him even more. Now, a week later, he was lining up a woman that he perceived as better looking and a woman he knew Diana would also perceive as better looking.
This was payback for what she said in their argument, and for setting a boundary by blocking him the day after (and forcing him to hoover her). This was also about Jimmy protecting his fragile ego from now having two women leave him before he could leave them.
Now, if Diana leaves Jimmy, he could save face (and hurt her) by already having another woman waiting to replace her. Specifically, a woman Jimmy believes will be deemed prettier than Diana — according to his and Diana’s beauty standards (yes, he specified this).
He didn’t love this woman at all. And she had no idea. Suddenly, I found myself feeling sorry for a woman I never met because her worst fears were actively in the process of being materialized. Intentionally. And all it took was a few days after a nasty fight. This shouldn’t have been a surprise.
Jimmy, like most narcissists, was now triangulating Diana because he couldn’t handle being on the receiving end of whatever unpredictable or uncontrollable consequences his actions might bring. Especially if the consequences involve being abandoned.
So, instead of actually changing his behaviors, Jimmy, like most narcissists, is going to continue the vicious abuse cycle of triangulating and exchanging his partners for “better” partners. This is the game of “leave or be left”, and all the narcissists are playing it. This is the MO. This is why they triangulate.
© Linda Sharp 2025. All Rights Reserved.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Cătălin Dumitrașcu on Unsplash
