Reply to People who are really good at deflecting responsibility

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]How to people get like this? I was raised Catholic (guilt-ridden) by parents who were huge on personal responsibility and who also blamed my siblings and I fit everything all the time. For a long time I was too good at accepting responsibility for stuff and had to learn that not everything is my fault. I feel I do okay now, and have hit a happy medium.

But I encounter a lot of people who are amazing at just avoiding any kind of responsibility for things they definitely did, and it amazes me. It’s so foreign. Some examples:

1) Colleague who cheated on his longtime girlfriend with another person in their social circle, later married other woman. Treated ex truly terribly— lying, gaslighting, etc., and she had serious mental health issues. Everyone knows about this. But he appears to have no real guilt, even talks about it like “Yeah, it’s unfortunate how that worked out” like it just happened, instead of being something he did.

2) Friend who has multiple times really harmed people with gossip. She just compulsively looks for and spreads gossip about people we know, never even caring whether it’s true, and there has been some awful fallout, and has contributed to a number of big falling outs (fallings out?) in our group. She’ll kind of laugh like “I know, I’m so bad!” But never changes or feels bad. It’s amazing to me.

I’m really trying to understand. It actually seems blissful and I almost wish I was like that. Is it just a front? Do they actually have guilt they don’t show? Or are they just really good at not even thinking about it? I’m curious.[/quote]
Why are you friends with #2?  I suspect that one reason she gets away with it is that it doesn't have any negative consequences for her.  She still have plenty of friends who listen to her gossip, after all -- like YOU.  
[/quote]

OP here and this is a fair criticism. I will say I've really distanced myself from her in recent years. She's been like this since we met but it didn't seem so awful back then because we were in our 20s and that kind of behavior was more prevalent. But she's just never grown out of it even as she's seen how much it creates drama and conflict, and in the last few years I've chosen to spend less time with her and with that friend group in general because I don't like it. But I definitely could have called it out more strongly before because it has always bothered me. I thought it was enough simply not to participate (and to sometimes speak up on behalf of the people being talked about). But it wasn't and I do wish I'd done better.

And yet, I probably feel more guilt over this than she does.[/quote]

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