Entitlement To Authority

Those with Narcissism traits will inflict their own "rules of conduct" onto others, but will accuse those others of being controlling and rigid for even referring to "rules of conduct", or human social interaction.
Another projection that's related to Narcissistic Injury.

N:
"I'm allowed and entitled to behave rudely according to my moods,  emotions, and whims. I'm entitled to dictate what you can talk about. I'm entitled to treat others disrespectfully, and in a condescending and demeaning way....
"But YOU are NOT permitted to do any of these things, especially to ME. You are also not permitted to stand up to me about the way I treat you or others, because I am entitled to behave in any way that I please. You are challenging my authority, privilege and control over you when you stand up to the way I treat you and speak to you.
"Everything I do and say has a "reason" behind it that is 'innocent', valid, and irrefutable, but everything you do and say must be passed through MY approval, and if I'm not comfortable with it, I will feel entitled to shut you down.
"I am entitled to act and speak of my own volition with no self-checking or feedback from anyone all of the time; you are not, you must be approved of by me, as well as others."

Narcissists feel like they are in the "grown up", "elder", "authority" and "expert" group, and that they get to dictate who is NOT. And, whoever they decide is NOT gets dictated to, judged, punished, and expected to serve and submit to their "authority".

He Doesn't Like Me, But He Won't Let Go

If a person doesn't really like you, doesn't like what you're interested in, counters you when you talk, demeans or dismisses what you say, doesn't want to do things that you want to do, or talk about the things you want to talk about, and isn't motivated to make the effort to spend positive time with you, why would they want you in their life?
Because they can't let go of someone they feel connected to, and they don't care about how the negativity in the relationship affects you.
If they did care, there would be a whole lot of solution seeking, compromise, and genuine communication going on.
They don't want to let go, they don't want to lose the connection, whether they "like" the person or not, but they are not interested in making any effort to maintain or improve the relationship. If they're "content", that's all that matters, there is no worry or care about how the other person feels; the other person is always just "wrong" if they want or need something to change.

This dynamic is very similar to the child (or adult) who adopts a pet, for companionship, for cuddling, for the positive things pets bring, but tries to get out of the daily effort it takes to care for the pet because it's a "pain". They won't give the pet away, but they treat the pet like it's a "burden" that "demands" too much. What they don't seem to understand is that everyone does not share their annoyance with the care of pets; for those who truly care about their pets, caring for them is a joy, and improves their life, it doesn't take away from it.

Pets should not be kept by those who think of them as burdens, as a "pain in the butt", and neither should humans.

More Male Narcissists?

There are more male adult Narcissists than female in modern society for SOCIAL reasons, not simply because of biology.
If the reason was biological, then the social dynamics and belief systems would be a lot more similar from region to region, group to group, and family to family, in much more specific ways. Needing oxygen, needing water, needing food, and needing shelter and warmth are universal. Social beliefs and sex "roles" are not, because they're not biological; we make them up. And then we use biology as a way to rationalize (attach reasons to) our made-up stories.

For example, being protective of the dignity of a woman seems to be swept aside in sexist cultures, but protecting the dignity of a man is considered a "virtue".
The reputation of a man regarding business, ability, achievement and skill is held up by others as "important", but is often diminished and simply ignored when the person is a woman.
It's just conditioning; it's not about reality; it's how we're taught to think from one generation to the next, and from the influence of one culture or another, or from "offshoots" and subgroups of cultures.

Superstition and made-up stories also play a very large role in sexism and gender issues.

It doesn't make logical sense at all, and indeed the imbalance creates serious dysfunction in the culture, which directly affects the children and throws a large wrench in the forward progress of quality of life for all citizens.

It is absolutely more acceptable in most human groups, but not ALL, for people to treat a woman or girl dismissively, disrespectfully, than a man or boy. It is more acceptable in most human groups to micro-judge and "assess" girls and women for everything, from the way they look, to the way they dress, to the way they talk, what they do for a living, what they're interested in, and what they talk ABOUT, than to micro-judge and assess men and boys.
It is more acceptable in most human groups for people to feel entitled to dictate and tut-tut what a girl or woman "should" or "should not be" doing, in pretty much any area of life, from clothing to daily chores, to hobbies, skills, career, and life in general, and even what they're talking about, than to dictate such wheedling, control-freak details to boys and men.

It is more acceptable in most human groups for people to behave  immaturely and childishly toward women than toward men, and women are expected to just "take it" and "deal with it", or they are chastised (the way children chastise one another) for being "too sensitive". Men, on the other hand, (in general), are actually more protected by those same people from insult, humiliation, disrespect, betrayal, and rebellion.

So it's actually women who are LESS protected and helped in most societies, and men who are MORE protected and helped. Not the other way around. It may SEEM like it's the other way around, but when we actually look at real statistics and listen to real facts and real experiences, it's quite evident what the reality of the situation is.

(The fact that so many people will have an emotionally defensive reaction toward the previous paragraph DEMONSTRATES that we keep it "close to our chest" and take it personally, which means we are NOT objective and factual about the subject. We're covering something up.)

Boys witness this large disparity as they grow up, and are of course affected by it. To be a member of the group who does NOT get wheedled, micro-judged and micro-managed by others can feel like one's own group does not DESERVE this micro-management and demeaning treatment because they're so much greater and better, but that the other group DOES, because they're so much lesser and worse.

To exacerbate this further, boys are usually directly taught that they are entitled to be the "boss" and the "leader" over any females whom they're connected to in any way, and that the REASON for this is because men are superior in many ways to women, physically and mentally. These "reasons" are implied to be biological "truths", and are not to be questioned or challenged...

When adults teach children that their group is superior to another group, and then give them "reasons", it's not hard to understand why the children would believe it, and internalize it, make it a part of their identity.

The group that is being conditioned to be the "inferior" group is being taught also to believe that this is all true, even while they're being taught at the same time that it doesn't EXIST, that it's "ALL IN THEIR HEADS".

In racist cultures and groups ,the exact same method is used to condition one group to believe in their own "natural superiority", and to condition the other group to accept being the "inferior" group, thereby mentally conditioning one group to feel entitled to lord over the other, and conditioning the other group to allow it and go along with it.

Both groups, whether it's the two sexes that are being conditioned or two races, will be given "reasons" to explain the imbalance, and most humans will actually just buy into it, because they were raised inside of the fictional zeitgeist.

Amazingly, human groups that have been oppressed by other groups will STILL produce individuals who seek to be included in a "supreme" group. These individuals apparently learned nothing from being on the RECEIVING end of oppression, and now seek to be recognized as a member of a "superior" group, so now THEY can be one of the people who boss other people around.
~
(Imbalance, when not corrected, causes a domino effect, a "ripple effect", and even collapse. Basic physics. If one's goal is REALLY to keep a cart upright, (cart representing human life; society, family, relationship, community, education, government, business, science, "progress"), moving, and functioning properly, then one must make sure to keep the wheels in balance with one another, so they hold up the rest of the cart and roll properly. If one of the wheels is larger, then there is more weight on the smaller wheel because the weight shifts to the lower side of the load, and the whole cart is off balance, ready to topple. The large wheel is carrying LESS weight, not MORE weight, so one can see why a person would want to BE the "larger wheel" instead of the smaller wheel if those are the only two choices; you get to carry LESS real weight, but be more visible, and you appear to be the stronger wheel to those who don't understand basic physics.) The cart topples toward the side of the smaller wheel, or the smaller wheel breaks under the load. and everyone blames the smaller wheel for being "too weak", when what was really happening was that the bigger wheel was throwing off the center of gravity in the cart load, shifting more weight to the smaller wheel. A balanced cart that would get its load safely and efficiently from point A to point B would have the same sized wheels on each side, and both would be carrying the weight equally, in a cooperative fashion. That doesn't mean that the "small wheel" needs to be replaced with a "big wheel" so now there's two "big wheels"... it means, metaphorically, that we as human beings need to quit BEING "small wheels" and "big wheels" that compete for false credit, and who try to shift weight and blame on one another.

Denial and Letting Go

"Denial" is not just pretending something didn't happen, but also the refusal to let it go.
We can be "in denial" about ourselves AND about things that happened to other people, and things about other people.

When we're in denial, we are trying to throw something away, bury it, so we don't have to actually DEAL with it. That means we didn't do anything with it, and we're not letting it go, we're holding on to it.

For example a person may be in denial about their own alcohol use; they are avoiding the subject altogether, even with themselves. They're allowing their brain to pretend it's a "non-issue", because if they acknowledge it, then they'll have to LOOK at it, and feel the emotions that they've been avoiding, and then probably have to make bigger life changes. They would have to deal with why they're using alcohol in the first place, which is probably what they're really avoiding.
If it's because they don't know how to deal with a painful relationship, then acknowledging the alcohol use would mean they would have to also acknowledge that they're in a painful relationship, and therefore might need to either end the relationship, or work on themselves and come to grips with the fact that their partner is not the sole "problem". In order to "let it go", they would first need to admit that it exists.

A person can also be in denial about bad things that happened to other people, or good things about other people. Ironically, people who are in denial are usually the ones lecturing others to "Let It Go!" What they're really saying is "I can't handle it, I don't want to deal with it, cover it over with sand, blot it out so I don't have to look at it." Being in denial about something that happened to someone else means WE are the ones who aren't "letting it go", not the person who's talking about it and trying to deal with it.

When we refuse to acknowledge and let go of something that happened to someone in our circle, we are helping to delay their recovery, and thwart their resolution.
It's like hiding a piece of rotten food that they're trying to find and throw away. THEY want to find it and get rid of it, but we're hiding it, pretending it doesn't exist. In the meantime because we refuse to acknowledge it and bring it out into the light of day, it's growing more and more rotten, fermenting, stinking up the whole house. We keep denying it, and the other person keeps bringing it up, trying to find the source of the smell.

What do we do then? We BLAME the person for it! We continue our denial by refusing to acknowledge that we are the ones who refuse to let it go, who refuse to bring it into the light. We conveniently "FORGET" how the fruit went rotten in the first place, and that WE were the ones who hid it.
And then we still refuse to admit that we're holding onto it, and keep blaming the person who's trying to find it and deal with it, so the stench gets worse and worse until the person finally just gives up and LEAVES. Then we say something like "They just didn't want to deal with their own problems... that's why they left, they're so self-centered."

The human capacity for denial can be truly astounding.

We can also be in denial about the good qualities, skills, talents, and accomplishments of both ourselves and others.
Why would we do this? Simply because they don't fit in with the story we've created for ourselves to live in.

If Sarah has written her story so that Jeff is the best mechanic in town, then John can't be. and definitely not Susan. In Sarah's story, only men can be mechanics, not women, because that would mess up the other story lines. Like how the reason Sarah can't fix her own car is because she's a woman. If SUSAN can do it, then that storyline would have to be rewritten, and it can't be, because Sarah has it tied in with the rest of her story. Like why she needs Jeff, why Jeff is an important person, and why she went to college to be a teacher. (She doesn't like kids, she wanted to teach because she wrote in her story that women are naturally good teachers, and that if you're a teacher then that makes you a good person, and also that women "have to" do certain kinds of jobs because they "CAN'T" do the other kinds of jobs that men do.)
That's Sarah's STORY, not reality, and she does not want to have to rewrite any of it, because that would mess up the whole fantasy.

When others around Sarah write similar stories to hers (because they grew up inside of other people's similar stories), they compare them and confirm with each other that they're "true" and "correct". So when something or someone comes along that CONTRADICTS how they've written their stories, they try to delete the information, shut it down, bury it, or reject the PERSON. Because it's much easier, THEY believe, to deny information that doesn't jive with their story, than to deal with it in a mature way, and risk having their stories exposed.

To put it simply, anything that doesn't match the story is thrown out. Deleted. Yes, our brains DO "write" our reality, and constantly edit it. Our brains do it continuously, whether we believe it or not. When we blink, for instance, our brains fill in the blank spot from when our eyes were closed, and we think we didn't miss anything. When we hear something we don't think is true, we usually forget it immediately, even if it WAS true. If we didn't fool ourselves into believing that we're actually safe on this planet that whips around the sun (a giant fireball) in the middle of space, with debris whizzing toward us constantly, we would probably never leave the house, or not have enough confidence to build a house in the first place.

So when we don't want a certain person to be GOOD at something, or get CREDIT or RECOGNITION for something, or be knowledgeable about, skilled at, or experienced in something, it's because it would mess up OUR OWN fictional story line about OURSELVES.

It's the same reason we deny bad things that happened to them, or when we deny things about ourselves. If we acknowledged them, brought them into the light, and let them go, we would be giving up "control" over our own fictional story lines about ourselves, and that is terrifying to some people. Without their fictional story line, they fear they'll be accountable, held responsible, have to do more work, or might not keep getting the respect and credit they're used to getting. So they will do pretty much anything, mental somersaults, in order to keep their story line going, and not let anything "mess it up", like actual reality.

So the next time we catch ourselves telling someone "why don't you just let it go?!" we may want to remember the rotten fruit we've hidden under our bed or in our closet. When we tell someone else to "let it go", we're really telling them to stop bringing it up so we don't have to deal with it ourselves, and admit that it's true. WE are the ones who "won't let it go", because we don't want to admit that we're holding it and hiding it in the first place.

Narcissists And Children

An adult with Narcissism who has direct access to a child can wreak havoc on the child's self-esteem, on confidence in her or his own abilities, and on the child's belief in his or her own ability to LEARN and achieve.
An adult with Narcissism who has direct access to a child can wreak havoc on a child's belief that he or she is a good person, and on the feeling that he or she belongs, or deserves to be a member of the group at all, either the small groups the child is a part of (including family), or larger groups, such as sports, dance, or music lesson groups, classes or school in general, the community in general, the child's/ family church, synagogue or other religious gathering group, or the larger human family group.
Narcissistic adults tend to treat children like objects that are there to be judged, as open targets for criticism, as burdens on their lifestyle and resources, as unpaid servants, and as objects to use for their own agendas.

The level of psychosis an individual Narcissist is afflicted with is what dictates the level of abuse or neglect they inflict on children. Some Narcissists are abusive "only" verbally and emotionally, while those with more severe psychosis may wantonly sabotage, gaslight, terrorize, slander, or physically abuse a child. 

Narcissists are not always who we think they are, and they are quite often who we think they are NOT. 
Honest observation of others and ourselves, and open communication are the required tools to discern Narcissists from non-Narcissists. It's very difficult because most humans in modern culture are conditioned during childhood to turn a blind eye to it, and to buy into the glossy, or "responsible", or good-person facade that Narcissists tend to use as an image.