Manipulators appear very charming and friendly, the first time you meet them. If a person is too nice or caring, suspect them.
Manipulation is the abuse of someone’s mind. Such type of crime leaves no footprints or evidence. You cannot reason a manipulator’s behaviour. So, if someone makes you feel uncomfortable or causes hurt but you still can’t figure out exactly whose fault it is, then you are being manipulated.
A manipulative friend shows a lot of care and may shower you with expensive gifts, in the beginning of friendship. Their gifts are a form of bribery.
When you suspect someone of manipulation, look closely at their eyes,while they talk to you.Eyes are more revealing about the inner world and real intentions of a person.Observe, whether the message the eyes convey to you appears inconsistent with their facial expressions and verbal behavior.
Never ignore your gut response to a situation. If a person talks a lot about religion and morality, there’s a chance they are really corrupt. Truly good people show with their actions that they are moral. But manipulators just talk about morality or outwardly appear religious.
If they make you do things, that you don’t really want to do, but you do them anyway because of them then you are being manipulated. In the first few meetings, Manipulators may appear selfless and helpful. It’s because they conceal their intention, ambitions and desire for power.
Manipulators share five common characteristics:
1. They are skilled at finding and exploiting your weaknesses.
2. They are skilled at using your weaknesses against you to take control of your thoughts, feelings and interpretations.
3. They are able to shrewdly convince you to give up part of yourself in order to serve their self-centered interests.
4. Once they succeed in taking advantage of you, they will likely repeat the process to continue getting what they want.
5. They do all the above while pushing the limits of your tolerance and testing the waters to make sure they don’t cross that line and “break their toy”.
Source: quora.com