Questions: Family & Friends

I'm not talking about celebrities or people you watched on TV or YouTube.

I'm talking about people you knew personally.

Growing up I didn't have any good role models until around 8 because I didn't know anyone outside of my family and my parents weren't (and aren't) very good models. Long story though. Around 8 I started getting socialized and had a few very distant role models. My first real role model (s) came into my life around 15. The next big role models in my life came around 18. I'm now 20.

So what about you? Did you have any good role models growing up?

I know a few perfectionists, and they're great. My best friend is actually a perfectionist. We're friends because even though he's a perfectionist and I can drive him crazy (and he can drive me crazy), we both respect each other and hold ourselves to the same standards that we hold everyone else.

Now to the main event, do you know any perfectionists who don't hold themsleves to the same standards?

I've known a few, and we've never been able to stay in contact for long. With the most recent episode of a friend like that, I pretty quickly noticed that he quite often pointed out flaws or mistakes made by others (even if not verbally) and rarely (if ever) noticed his own flaws. But he was a self-proclaimed perfectionist.

At first I thought "maybe he's hyperfocused and that's why he can't keep track of himself sometimes" and then I thought "no, maybe he's just lazy or doesn't actually care?" And then I realized. He wasn't a "perfectionist," he just thought he was perfect. Basically, he was a narcissist.

Would you agree that perfectionists who don't hold themselves to the same standards are narcissists?