The Day My Best Friend Became a Narcissist

Janice Eastman
4 min readSep 20, 2021
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

“I noticed something was different about my best friend, we will call him Lance, after we had gone out to lunch. “He was so different than what I was used to. He’s always been the person that I could call on and say I needed something, and he was always there to help,” I remember saying to my husband. “But today, I thought, he was acting really weird.” I remember that day because it was the day that I realized Lance was becoming a narcissist.

The day I realized that my best friend was becoming a narcissist.

I was talking to a co-worker at work, a woman who I have gotten to know over the last few years. She is a very nice person and we have become good friends. We talk about many things, and I confided in her about my best friend Lance. I realized that he had changed. Over the past year or so, Lance had become more and more distant from me. I noticed that he wasn’t as friendly as he used to be, and I had to be clear with him that I wanted to be friends with him again. But over time it became more and more clear that he was becoming more and more distant.

I remember one time I asked him if he wanted to go for lunch as we usually do everyday, and he said no. The next day I asked again. He said no again. So, the next day I asked again. He said no again. This continued for some time. Eventually, I asked him why not, and he just said no, he had to go home.

Over time, I noticed that he was taking longer and longer to respond to my texts and phone calls. He would always respond within a few minutes, but not longer. I was really confused and worried. I asked him why he was acting so strange, and he told me that he was having a bad day and didn’t feel like talking. I didn’t know what to think. I was worried about something going on at home, but I didn’t know what.

Then one day, it hit me. Lance was becoming a narcissist. You see, Lance had always been a person who had an excessive interest in or admiration for himself. He has always been very self-centered and took every opportunity to talk about himself: his accomplishments, his likes, his house, his cars, his big idea. He has always been very, very self-centered.

But, over the last few months, he began to take this to a whole new level. He began to talk about himself more and more…

Janice Eastman

From reading my writing, I hope you will begin to break down self-imposed barriers and find your authentic self in the extraordinary story of life.