CASANOVA SYNDROME

By: Satarupa Mishra

“Right now, at this moment, you are the person I love the most and can give up my life for,” he said with moisture in his eyes. She sighed.

“But,” he continued, “What if I tell you I also love another woman as much as I love you?”

She was nervous, rolling her eyes with disapproval.

“Why would you object to me loving another woman if I make no compromises on loving you to madness?” he asked with deep intrigue in his eyes.

The fearless honesty with which he asked her the question, she was convinced that it was one of those tests he was putting her on in order to measure the sincerity of her promises that there’s no way she’d let go the soul connection she’d finally found after a long wait.

Such was his hypnotic charm. Apart from his gorgeousness, it was his mystical gray matter, compulsive affection, and impulsive passion that swept her off the feet into the surreal sail of the ninth cloud. And when he decided to uncast his charming spell, she was dropped ruthlessly into the hard ground of reality. He was gone; his flaming love and red hot passion had shifted to a new woman for whom he was ready to die.

Pic Source: Internet

If you think this is some story inspired from John Keats’ “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, you should know that these are fragments from a real story. And before you begin cursing the man as the ‘beau sans merci’ (handsome man without pity), we must dig a little deeper; probably, deeper into the concept of Borderline Personality Disorder in men, popularly known as Casanova Syndrome.

Who is he?

The very word “Casanova” throws most women into a state of frenzy for they don’t wish to be an object of seduction to be played with and then left in the lurch. But have you ever thought that these drop-dead charming men with expertise in romance and breach could be suffering from a medical condition? Understand that he must also be going through the sufferings that you are going through on discovering the game of deception he had been playing with you, probably, fiddling with another woman at the same time. Wondering how, and why? That’s because he thinks himself to be the victim who has never been understood and loved as deep as his expectations. But then you feel you had done your best to love him his way, to live upto his expectations even at the cost of your own basic grounds, values and peace of mind. And after doing all these, you realize he’d never been absolutely happy about you. Instead, he went to fill up the empty craters of his heart with the affection from other women while being in a relationship with you. No, he doesn’t even feel guilty about this because he feels he is the one to be wronged rather than doing wrong. That’s a man with a Casanova Syndrome for you.

A man with Borderline Personality Disorder or Casanova Syndrome is like a bottomless bucket who is never able to retain the gallons of love, care and affection poured upon him. His thirst for love is never quenched; probably because he is never able to trust that love. Deep down, this man is mostly a love avoidant that might manifest often in the shapes of commitment phobias and sex addictions.

The early rosy days

The early days of dating a man with Casanova Syndrome is nothing less than a dream. He sweeps the woman off her feet with his constant attention, overtly expressive romantic gestures (even at public places), and his profound understanding of her depths including the wounds she’d carefully tucked away in some corner of her heart. And what really pulls a woman like a magnet to him is the way he lays open his susceptibilities and makes himself emotionally accessible, unlike most men. He relates to her the stories of his failures, sorrows, insecurities, and becomes the confider who rests his trust only in her. He makes her believe that she is all that he’s got – his ultimate soul connection. And the lady begins to feel like the luckiest woman born ever! In no time, she unarms herself, ready to surrender her secrets, her body, her life, and her destiny to him. It’s not an exaggeration to say that she feels obliged to be loved by him. Wish she could see the guile behind his apparent honesty and emotional transparency!

The symptoms

One of the prime symptoms of a man with Casanova Syndrome is his narcissism. Yes, it’s always about him. And since he is empty and insecure inside, he serves his narcissism by seducing women and taking them hostages to his indomitable charm. Especially if you are the kind of woman who is difficult to impress, be ready to get steam-rolled by a tornado of dreamlike wooing and attention, for this narcissistic man finds a narcotic kick in chasing and conquering the unachievable. And when he is assured that the woman has been tamed under his stride, he struts for another adventurous chase. One can just not expect empathy from him for he is worried about none, but himself. And thanks to his well-trained charm and intellect, he will present to you his theories to baffle you over whether he is being insensitive at all. 

Dr. Sangeeta Goswami, a Counselling Psychologist in Guwahati, and President at MIND India, illustrates the symptoms of a man with BPD: “Borderline Personality Disorder, colloquially termed as Casanova Syndrome is a psychological medical condition with symptoms of emotional instabilities, mood swings, narcissism, a fear of abandonment, tendency of self-hurt, substance abuse, and the difficulty in establishing long-term relationships with people. He will play the blame-game as if nothing is wrong with him, but with the people around him. Such a man is also extremely impulsive, whimsical and experimental.”

Pic Source: Internet

Identifying such a man

Asked about the trick to identify such a man, the Counselling Psychologist says that it’s very difficult to track down a man suffering from Casanova Syndrome for there are also men who intentionally flirt and play around with women without any psychological disorder. “The only way to differentiate between these men and a man with Borderline Personality Disorder is to measure the sustainability of that pattern of behavior. If the behavioral pattern persists for a long period of time, only then you can call it a psychological disorder.”

Dents of a disturbed childhood

Most women who have dated a man with Casanova Syndrome have experienced those uncomfortable moments when he communicated his search of his mother in them. In every woman runs a streak of motherhood, and every man loves the warmth of that streak. But the restless intensity with which a BPD male tries to look for and forcefully uncover his mother in a woman (even during those moments of lovemaking and physical intimacy) isn’t really normal. The roots of these abnormalities are often traced in a disturbed childhood, especially related to his mother.

Possibilities are strong that he might have shared a deficit relationship with his mother in his childhood, leading to emotional vacillations. According to Dr. Sangeeta Goswami, more than the genetic factors, it’s the environmental influences that play greater role in the making of a man with Casanova Syndrome. “The childhood bonding with the mother is a decisive factor here. The sense of abandonment that he feels might be either due to a weak bond with his mother, or his dissatisfaction might also stem from a sense of stifle resulting from an overprotective mother.” His craving for love and distrust of women at the same time might crop from his experience of a weak mother, who could not shield her son against the wrongs in childhood.

According to Dr. Sangeeta Goswami, although a father doesn’t directly play a role here, but the influence of a role model cannot be ignored. The way a child’s father treats his mother influences the way he grows up to treat his woman. Furthermore, in the process of empathizing and taking care of his pitiful mother against his rather uncordial father, the child may end up instinctively repeating the nasty ways of his father with women as he grows up.

The treatment

The most serious problem with a BPD male is that he doesn’t accept that something is wrong with him. As Dr. Sangeeta Goswami says, “Since such a man always puts himself in a denial mode, he feels that everyone is a problem, but him. These kinds of patients seek medical help only when they are depressed, not otherwise. And since it’s more of a neurotic symptom than psychotic, it gets difficult to put in some treatment. Because till the time the patient is in a state of self-denial, no therapies can help.”

Anyone who has undergone the trauma of being in a relationship with a man with Casanova Syndrome would naturally find him a manipulative, treacherous and heartless menace. But as the Counselling Psychologist says, “they are not bad people.” Such a man isn’t faking it while saying that he is in love or that he is emotionally strained. It is his deep-rooted insecurities, and the intense fears of rejection and abandonment that makes him compulsively build-up a persona as a mode of defense mechanism. Inciting the desire of women to come into sexual contact with him becomes the recovery barometer of his severely dented self-worth. If you could manage to scratch a bit of his surface to get underneath his skin, you will discover an extremely scared and vulnerable person, who is also insidiously taken advantage of by people for their own vested motives. So if you are scarred by such a man, it’s time to cleanse the taints from your soul by forgiving him, and moving on. Remember that forgiveness will heal all your wounds, but that man has to walk ahead with the burden of incomplete love and an empty heart. If he cannot empathize, you can for sure.