Certain people are simply toxic. They are narcissistic and passive-aggressive, with delusions of grandeur. Everything is about "them." They will waste your time and energy in pointless and trivial squabbles, and imagine that other people spend all their time plotting their downfall. They will accuse you of all their own worst flaws. Disloyal, they will demand loyalty from their friends, who are called upon to take their side in some other pointless squabble. They will do small "favors" for you to create a sense of endebtedness. They are no respecters of boundaries. They will beg you to tell them what you think of their work, then use whatever you say as ammunition against you. They will pretend that they welcome negative criticism "in the spirit of open dialogue," then scream bloody murder when anything negative is actually said. They will say, no, I really enjoy it when people make fun of me. I have a sense of humor, I can laugh at myself. I am humble and am the first to poke fun at myself. But of of course they don't really mean one word of this. They wonder why people don't always like them. Maybe it's because they are so virtuous that they threaten the corrupt status quo. Yes, that must be it. People who don't like them are by definition motivated by base instincts. They are an evil cabal organized to persecute such unworldly virtue. It couldn't be that these people are former "friends" who have gotten sick of this toxic behavior!

They think they are Laura Friggin Jackson and will write letters of rectification or correction to magazines, or, even worse, get their friends to do the same. They claim credit for the ideas of Roland Barthes. If you wrote a poem with a particular idea, they anticipated this idea in a poem they wrote a year before. They will say, I liked your poem, it reminds me of a poem I wrote, in fact. Everything is about them, you see.

Their friendliness is but a ruse, a way of getting into your good graces so that they can start their toxic behavior all over again. If you let them insinuate themselves into your life again, watch out!

Fortunately, I have to say, I don't know anybody like this. I imagine people like this must exist somewhere, but maybe this is just an urban legend, like the cat in the microwave.