Mailvox: how can you tell?

JI wants to know how one can accurately pick out the sociopaths among one’s acquaintances and colleagues. A few observations:

1. Look for abrupt changes in demeanor as the situation changes, and particularly for a wide-eyed, “caught red-handed” reaction when such a change is observed. Sociopaths go from bright-eyed, charming, and friendly to dead-eyed and icy cold in the blink of an eye. Normal people do not.
2. Beware of anyone who is too friendly too soon. It’s one thing to hit it off with someone, it’s another to have someone glom onto you for no apparent reason.
3. Perma-victims are usually perpetrators. Female sociopaths, in particular, are adept at revising every story to make themselves the victim, especially when they were the culprit. If nothing is ever someone’s fault, it’s usually all their fault.
4. Trust your instincts. If you find someone repellant but you don’t know why, it’s your subconscious picking up on small contradictions that you haven’t recognized. Keep a close eye on that individual and you’ll usually discover what it was that your subconscious was warning you about.
5. Sociopaths have a very alert gaze and they are always scanning to see if anyone is watching them. If you intentionally let them know you are onto them by not looking away and smiling at them in a “gotcha” manner, they will confirm their sociopathy by abruptly changing their behavior towards you, usually by becoming avoidant and launching a whisper campaign against you. This can be risky, of course, but it does provide certain confirmation. I would not recommend it for most people, as most people are insufficiently ruthless to deal effectively with sociopaths.
6. A shallow “salesman” effect. If someone is always “hail fellow well met”, but doesn’t have any real friends, this is a warning sign.
7. An attempt to “take over” a group of friends or a social organization, particularly if they attempt to cut out the person who brought them into the group.
8. Persistent cheating and parasitism, especially in small matters that no one normally keeps track of. I’m not talking about someone who is cheap, but someone who is always a taker and never a giver or even a fair-exchanger.
9. Constant whisper campaigns. Sociopaths are even more concerned with controlling the narrative than SJWs. If you find that someone has told three different stories to three different people about the same event, be alert.
10. Be very skeptical of all sob stories. If you encourage a sociopath telling one by feigning shock and sympathy, he will proceed to go deeper, adding more and more detail, and more and more pathos, taking the story into completely absurd territory in order to see how much of a sucker you are and what he can get away with.