articles
China Elevator Stories
Real vs. Fake Communication
This article explores the difference between real and fake communication.
21/11/2025
Ruth Silbermayr
Author
Do you have the right to not have contact with certain people? Yes—you absolutely do. There’s no shame, no blame, and it is completely allowed. This is what I think about it.
When you are in the vicinity of narcissists, they will gaslight you into believing you don’t have those rights. You may still feel forced to keep them in your life because others project onto you that you have no right to go “no contact” with people who abuse you.
Lately, my ex-husband has been projecting exactly this onto me. He is trying to dictate my whole life, force me to accept his racism, place myself beneath him, and act as though I have no rights regarding anything. In his mind, I don’t have the right to make my own parenting decisions, to take care of my children in the way that is suitable for me (not for him), or to stop him from showing up here whenever he wants.
He has influenced our children into seeing themselves only as Chinese, and he has shamed me for using “Austrian teaching methods” when teaching our kids how to behave properly, to limit computer use, and to do things that are healthy for them—such as staying away from screens, especially since our younger son is already addicted to them. I see it as my responsibility to teach boundaries, healthy engagement with modern devices, and to take care of them in a responsible way, which he has a problem with.
He has also been portraying me as “insane” simply because I have boundaries. He feels threatened by people who have boundaries—even healthy ones—and has been acting out by constantly showing up downstairs, picking up the children whenever he feels like it, and shaming me for “being Austrian.” He shamed me for being “Austrian” during our relationship as well, constantly putting Chinese women on a pedestal. It wasn’t really about me being Austrian; it was simply racism used to make me feel smaller.
We have seen many narcissists pretend that you must stay in contact with everyone—especially those who abuse, stalk, threaten, or intimidate—as though constant “talking” would change anything and as though they were capable of real, genuine communication instead of fake communication.
Some people—often men who have never been verbally abused or degraded to the point of being unable to live peacefully—simply don’t have enough experience with high-conflict personalities to understand what I’m talking about. If you are constantly attacked by high-conflict personalities, you know what I mean when quiet time alone is the only relief, and yet “no one” allows you to have that. In a narcissist’s mind, you aren’t allowed to have rights or freedom from their harassment.
Others simply cannot imagine what it feels like to be degraded, devalued, or treated sadistically and inhumanely all the time, and yet they still claim that “everyone needs to talk to everyone.” If you are a man, you will never have been degraded the way I have as a woman by narcissistic, incel men, so don’t even start to paint yourself as knowing what I am talking about if you’ve never experienced anything like it yourself. You don’t need listen to those who won’t listen to you, who won’t let you close the door to them, or who won’t allow you to have a say in anything. You don’t have to allow people to trample your rights—people who talk endlessly without letting you speak, who control, coerce, push, shove, or even open your apartment door after you’ve closed it, forcing themselves into your life after you’ve said no.
These are not people anyone would want to talk to, since what comes out of their mouths is narcissistic word salad and fake conversation. Only someone who has been disrespected the way I have will understand what I mean.
If you have ever had your authority undermined by people suffering from a superiority complex—like the singer, or perhaps others you’ve encountered—who showed no compassion or willingness to help when you needed it most, then you know what it’s like. These are the same people who insist that you must always respond to violence or attacks with kindness, putting others’ needs above your own. They rarely do this themselves, yet they demand it of you, forcing you into a lower position than you would naturally occupy. This is exactly how a narcissist maintains their sense of well-being: by pushing you into an extremely low position so they can take up the space that rightfully belongs to you.
You may ask what real communication looks like versus fake communication. Here are the differences:
Fake Communication
Fake communication looks like talking at you, not with you. It’s often used for control, evasion, manipulation, or creating confusion.
Key signs are:
1. No real information is being shared
Stories are vague, inconsistent, or exaggerated. The person talks a lot but reveals nothing meaningful about themselves, or they change their opinion all the time without it truly reflecting their beliefs. They may actively distort your reality, making you feel alone with your viewpoint (gaslighting you into believing you are a minority, and that you are the only one who thinks like this, while they claim to hold the majority opinion). Or they may do so because they don’t have a well-formed identity and are repeating whatever opinion they think the majority currently has.
Vague stories may mean they talk about other people without actually knowing these people well enough to truly talk about them, then include you in a conversation about these people where they tell you what you are saying is wrong. You may simply have shared your impression, but they will talk about that other person without that person being present. Vague stories may leave out many details or omit exact dates of events (such as the singer, not telling me how long he was dating one of his ex-girlfriends, a person whom he constantly brings up and shames me for not praising her looks and purported “talent”).
The stories they tell may also change all the time. When asked to speak directly to you, you may simply get things thrown at you that have nothing to do with you, but still leave you feeling degraded horrifically.
2. One-sided control
They tell you what you’re “allowed” to think, feel, or believe. Conversations feel like lectures or attacks, not exchanges. They push you into a predesigned box of how you’re supposed to act, behave, speak, and what opinions you’re supposed to have. Their opinions are rarely truthful or consistent, and they may even change them whenever convenient. Many narcissists draw their opinions from external expectations rather than internal experience.
When you say no to their harassment, put-downs, brainwashing, and mind control, they may tell you you’re wrong, ostracize you, separate you from others who could validate your perception, or start smear campaigns. They may not speak in full sentences even in their mother tongue, but still demand agreement with their nonsense. They may suffer from such extreme superiority complexes that their half sentences convey no real meaning, yet you aren’t allowed to say that, because they assume men are naturally better communicators than women.
When you dislike them, they may punish you for asserting boundaries after receiving unwanted attention, projecting false accusations that are far from reality.
3. Emotional pressure
You leave interactions feeling drained, confused, belittled, or guilty. They may use comparison, guilt, anger, or pity to manipulate you. They may punish or even violently attack you if you say no to talking, refuse to listen, or maintain healthy boundaries. They may withdraw love if you don’t comply.
4. Avoidance of accountability
They deflect every question, change topics when confronted, twist your words (gaslighting), and share no real information about themselves. They extract private details from you without reciprocating.
5. The purpose is domination and control, not understanding
They want a reaction, not connection. They want to create insecurity or dependency. Their communication is a tool, not a bridge. They control topics, people, and content. Men, for example, may assign you to listen to their verbal abuse for hours while expecting you to praise them.
Real Communication
Real communication is grounded in respect, clarity, honesty, being direct and vulnerable, and mutual understanding.
Key signs are:
1. Transparency
The person shares real information, not vague stories or contradictions. They don’t only talk about experiences they have had—they also allow others to see proof of it. They don’t keep everything about their private life a secret, and they don’t act as though things that are meant to be shared with others in communication are some kind of huge secret no one is ever allowed to have access to. They don’t hide intentions. When they say A, they mean A. They don’t talk to you only to then put you down for “having voiced an opinion that was not his opinion”; instead, they talk to you to connect and relate to each other, not to later use what you said against you.
2. Mutual respect
Both people’s feelings and boundaries matter. When someone says she doesn’t want to talk about something, her right to not talk about certain topics or people is respected. When a person is an introvert, her need for quiet and being unbothered by people is respected. Communication isn’t forced onto the other person, and if she doesn’t feel comfortable sharing something too private, she won’t be forced to.
Respect in communication also means a person isn’t degraded or put into an asymmetrical relationship where she has no ability to share her viewpoint or what happened to her without it being distorted, gaslit, or punished. No one dictates what the other “should think” or “should feel.” When a person says she thinks or feels a certain thing, it is simply respected—not “proven wrong.”
3. Listening and responding
They actually listen to your words and respond to your point, not just talk at you. They care whether communication works. They also allow people to take turns—not just one person talking all the time, but others as well. They allow you to talk or listen, or to stay quiet, and they don’t force you to participate in communication when you don’t want to talk a lot as an introvert, or simply because the communication you have been experiencing hasn’t been non‑violent at all.
When you say no, the boundary is listened to, not undermined. You also feel like you can say no and won’t be punished for it. When you set another boundary, you are respected and not devalued, discarded, or otherwise disrespected for doing so.
4. Accountability
They can acknowledge mistakes or misunderstandings. They don’t rewrite reality or blame you for everything (unless you truly are to blame for everything, which is a different story—but if you’re anything like me, a scapegoat, you’ll simply be blamed by the narcissist for his horrific behavior, which he projects onto others as their responsibility to carry).
5. The purpose is connection
The goal is understanding, resolution, cooperation, or closeness. Even in conflict, the aim is to solve problems, not create further ones. The purpose is not to betray the other person by sharing private information she has shared with you, nor to place yourself on a higher pedestal. Sharing is mutual, not one‑sided.
If you feel more like you are in a Russian prison than in your own home, know that the other person’s purpose in communication is probably not connection but control—putting you down to make themselves feel bigger, or otherwise trying to have you make up for the flaws they don’t deal with within themselves: their own inferiority complex, which they project onto you so they can then call themselves self‑confident when they aren’t, and competent when they aren’t.
In my own experience, real communication can be hard to find these days, or at least it has been for me. Let me know if you have been treated differently, but for me, these years have been horrific because I have constantly been attacked for going no contact with rude, loud, obnoxious, and disrespectful men who have threatened to rape me, kill me, or have otherwise stalked and harassed me. To then have to hear that I am exaggerating or simply making things up—well, it isn’t my experience that I am exaggerating. But if you live in a peaceful, quiet community where people still act the way they did many years ago, let me know, because I haven’t, and my life has been extremely hard and horrific because of it.
The reason I became a blogger was certainly never to attract narcissists or stalkers, but on top of attracting them in real life as well, this has meant I have had more male stalkers than any sane and normal person would be equipped to deal with.
Have you ever experienced inefficient communication?