Why Do Narcissists Ignore You? – 8 Reasons

by Ella Carrillo · December 10, 2023

Why Do Narcissists Ignore You? End your search here for the reasons why the narcissist in your life may be ignoring you. Their immature actions may be frustrating, but with a narcissist around you, their actions are unpredictable.

Narcissists are manipulators, thus they have a lot of manipulative tactics in their bag that may include blocking, hoovering, ignoring, and much more. All these strategies are a means to trigger emotional responses from people, especially the ones they wish to control and exploit.

Narcissists may ignore you for numerous reasons, but the motive behind the act of ignoring remains the same. All motives are pointed towards achieving the same goal of establishing their power and control, along with self-preservation. You may also be taken aback to know that they might ignore you even when you might not have done anything wrong.

Usually, their manipulative and abusive behavior would always have to do more with them, than with you. You may always be burdened by their manipulative tactics. Narcissists would ignore you and implement a silent treatment as a way to punish their victims.

In some cases, their ignorance might not have anything to do with you and they may be simply seeking pleasure by torturing you, or just to get a volatile reaction from you they might be ignoring you. They may also do so when they wish to lay a punishment upon their victims for going against them, disobeying them, or any such reason that can be trivial for others.

Narcissists know exactly how to trigger your insecurities, helplessness, or emotional turmoil. Ignoring their victims is a passive-aggressive tactic, that they use to chasten their victim’s behavior. They may withhold attention, affection, communication, and anything that might establish a connection for a while just to receive an emotional retort.

A narcissist is someone who needs attention, praise, boost, and appreciation all the time. They want to be the center of attraction or the elephant in the room. They just want you to listen to them without putting in your opinion, views, or any criticism most of the time.

They just want to dominate the relationship and so when that does not happen, a narcissist feels underappreciated, undervalued, and unnoticed. This would surely make them furious beyond the range of words. They would treat you like you have done something illicit by not providing them with attention.

They would ignore you to the extent that you just cannot leave the matter either nor they would tell you what is wrong. It is like one of their manipulation tactics for you to make efforts for them, convincing and begging them to give you their attention. They would treat you like you no longer matter to them and you just keep attempting vague attempts to know what is wrong.

These silent treatment periods can be 2-3 days, a week or two weeks, or even as long as a month. There is no specific answer that can be quantifiable to this question. Unless a narcissist is satisfied that you would not leave them they will continue giving the silent treatment, but when they realize that you might leave them, they stop with the ignorance and start to win you over by manipulating you.

Why Do Narcissists Ignore You? – 8 Reasons

When something upsets them beyond the reach of words or fury, they would not use their usual technique of lashing out their narcissistic rage but instead, just ignore you and let you just figure out what went wrong until you go crazy thinking about the possible reasons. Here are a few possible reasons,

They are focused on someone else

The narcissist might ignore you when they have found someone else who would be fulfilling their need to obtain a narcissistic supply more than their current partners.

Narcissists are addicted to validation, attention, and adoration and may keep finding ways to fulfill their needs. It becomes like a basic life essential like air, water, and food. For narcissists, narcissistic supply is one prime reason they get into relationships and it also ensures their literal survival.

However much supply they obtain, it is never enough. When it comes to using people as a source of supply, they always find what is better. Meaning if they have met someone more interesting than their current partner, they may immediately switch to infidelity, chasing that someone better and ignoring their current partners.

They want to make you feel Jealous

Narcissists may ignore you by pretending to be busy when they are not just to make you jealous by prioritizing something else over you.

They do this to make a fake appeal of showing off their glamorous life from afar which may not be so glamorous when you look from a near distance. They do this to make you feel jealous of all the happening and cool things going on with them in their life. They do this to make you feel needy around them.

This type of behavior often comes from self-doubt and jealousy. If they fear that they might get hurt by something or someone they often ignore such situations.

They just want attention

Narcissists have a constant need or urge to gain attention. When none of their tactics work out with others and they are unable to secure attention, they might resort to such trivial tactics to simply gain attention.

They would pretend to be busy, just trying to get attention. When you call them or text them, they would provide statements like, “I am sorry, I have been so busy that I was unable to respond to your calls or texts.” While doing this, they might be scrolling your social media feed just to like your posts or even comment on them.

Thus their duality and lying habits help them gain attention by ignoring someone when they are in need. It would be so frustrating for the one seeking them out for some help, as they would simply keep you on your toes or leave you unattended for a longer time just to act mighty and busy.

If the narcissist might have gained something in the past while ignoring others to gain what they needed, they would repeat this tactic obnoxiously.

They want you to chase them

Narcissists like to involve themselves in various emotionally manipulative games, especially when it comes to their partners. They love the adrenaline rush, thrill, and stimulating emotion of being chased.

So if you have a narcissistic partner and they start ignoring all of a sudden, especially during or after the love bombing stage of the relationship, one of the possible reasons is that they start feeling overly attached to their partner and they wish to turn things the other way, meaning they wish that you for a change chase them and pursue them.

When a narcissist requires attention and feels a need to be wanted more, they start to ignore you without any reason. They would seek support from anxious partners after love bombing them. They would withdraw their attention from their partners all of a sudden so they are the top priority in their partner’s lives. They would take advantage of such a situation and gain attention.

They want you to feel Remorseful

There is a Dutch saying that says, “Turning a mosquito into an Elephant”, which means exaggerating the smallest and the most trivial mistakes or faults into a massive crisis. Narcisists tend to do so when you do or make a small mistake, and turn the world upside down acting all hurtful and at a loss. They make such situations a big deal even if it is trivial for others. They cannot let go of other people’s small mistakes, but others have to let go of their biggest crimes. They believe and follow such nasty beliefs.

Narcissists would make sure that you repent and feel remorseful for your negligible mistake. They would give you a silent treatment to punish you, wanting you to go beg for forgiveness.

They would never hold themselves accountable for their mistakes but would expect others to beg for forgiveness even when they are not at fault. They would never experience remorse and guilt the same way others do. If at all they do, you would be receiving fake apologies. They would always expect you to change but they would never actually change their ways.

They wish to start a fight

This reason may seem a little out of the box, but the reality is that narcissist like conflicts, and they thrive as they seek the narcissistic supply when others suffer. They enjoy such a situation. They would always be turning any situation into a win-win situation for them even at the cost of other people’s sufferings.

When Narcissists are upset with you about anything, they would choose a passive-aggressive approach and start ignoring you. Out of frustration when you lose your calm and approach them to know the reason behind the silent treatment, that is the moment they would suck you into a problem that might be bothering them for a long time, but they might be waiting for a chance to exaggerate it and make you lose your mind.

Thus they would lure you in by baiting you with ignorance to finally drag you into an issue by using manipulation and exploitation.

They are low on Supply

Narcissistic supply can be referred to as a psychological concept, that is related to Narcissistic Personality Disorder and people suffering through it. Narcissistic supply is a need or an indirect demand from narcissists to acquire attention, validation, and admiration from others.

A narcissistic supply is everything that helps a narcissist to make their life fulfilled. It is that one thing that a narcissist always craves even if it is in its negative forms. It is a term that is often referred to in a negative format or sense, as it may be referred to as a pathological problem that may persuade people suffering from it to demand attention for their reassurance and existence.

One can even say that a narcissist is only able to fulfill their life purposes based on supply itself. They feel handicapped without their sources of admiration, attention, validation, importance, and everything that makes them feel special. Narcissists seek supply more than anything, and they can do everything to obtain their dose of supply.

Supply is everything that makes them important like control, praise, worth, ego boost, and everything that makes them feel superior.

Thus narcissists would resort to doing anything to obtain supply, and one of the means is by enacting a silent treatment or ignorance to trigger their victims. Know the truth here, that you have not done anything wrong and the narcissist is just targeting you in their abusive and twisted ways.

They want to pretend like they don’t care about you

Some narcissists ignore others to act distant. They do this to maintain an image. By doing so they are protecting their image of coming across as someone needy or clingy. Thus they would ignore you to come across as someone more important than others.

Their partners start feeling anxious and they want this. They want attention even if they have to gaslight others into believing something that is not true. When you understand their manipulation, they would never admit it readily, instead would gaslight into believing something untrue.

Why the narcissist would stay with you despite seeing other people?

There are a few reasons,

You would be running the household, struggling, hustling, and achieving so much without any help, and all they do is relax and do whatever they wish.
They know your vulnerabilities and your willingness to bear the toxicity of the relationship.
They like to maintain the appearance of having a “Happy Family” and you serve their feed.
Having multiple people in their lives gives a boost to their superiority complex.
When they run out of supply, you will always be there for them.

Important Takeaway

These silent treatment periods can be 2-3 days, a week or two weeks, or even as long as a month. There is no specific answer that can be quantifiable to this question. Unless a narcissist is satisfied that you would not leave them they would continue giving the silent treatment, but when they realize that you might leave them, they stop with the ignorance and start to win you over by manipulating you.

So do not give into their tactics, and ignore them. This would even out situations and you would be safe from their abuse and manipulation.

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Ella Carrillo

Hey Reader, I am Ella, an Online and Offline Therapist holding an experience of 6 years in this field.

From Relationship, Depression, and Personality Disorder to Narcissistic problems, I have helped a lot of people find their solutions. Upon gathering a number of common problems that people face, I decided to put the information on this blog so that anyone can get their answers easily.

Why Do Narcissists Ignore You? – 8 Reasons