Paranoid

The funny thing about being paranoid is you would think trusting no one and preparing for people being out to get you all the time would make you safer. But statistically, paranoid guys and gals frequently fall for the most obvious and ridiculous scams, because their fear is not based in reality.

People without significant developmental issues will learn to know they can have aggression and hate someone without doing harm to them or that having those feelings would make them bad people. But paranoid come from the denial of aggression. That people can only be “kind” to each other.

In reality, disagreements happen every day. But since they can't accept aggression in themselves, they have to point the finger to the other person. Their paranoia comes from the need to stabilize their faulty emotional functioning. Not come from actual facts. That's why they frequently accuse normal people who disagree with them as narcissists. And actual narcissists who elevate and lift them up for personal gains as soulmates.

They mistake their splitting for intelligence. As splitting helps them come up with answers for everything and it takes time for the rest of us to verify information. So then their delusion comes off as confidence to the naked eye.

They also mistake their projection for social skills, as projection helps them to make quick decisions in social settings. And the rest of us learn to not assign intentions to random people, that's the skill you need to know someone more than superficially. That's why they can interact with thousands of people and look socially successful but their understanding of human is close to zero. You can't expect any real insights from them.

Fortunately, to spot paranoia, you don't need to read a lot of textbooks. You just need to be reasonably healthy.