I’m going to tell you a true story about how the main character (‘Deprick’) in my book, (‘Prick Radar’) gaslighted me with this phrase.

When a prick uses the gaslighting phrase in the heading, or a phrase that has similar meaning, he is questioning the value or accuracy of...

The horrifying truth is that some people love gaslighting. Pricks love gaslighting. Because it’s effective.

Gaslighting is a strategy commonly employed by pricks. It helps them get their own way. But what is it?

My definition is that prick radar is the capacity to identify pricks on first meeting. I think the best way to help you come to grips with what prick radar is, or can do, is to give you an example. When I was about sixteen years old, I was shopping in a suburb of Melbourne called Footscray. I was walking down a laneway off Nicholson Street. I can’t remember exactly why I was there, but I remember this. Up ahead of me some distance away but on the same side of the lane as me

I’ve been teasing out some simple clues for helping you detect a prick on first meeting. The first prick radar clue I gave you was obfuscation. The prick tries to use bullshit to cover a lie. The second prick radar clue was the feeling that you’re always walking on eggshells when you’re around them. You just cannot be yourself. Here’s another prick radar clue. You’ll feel trapped. As noted in the previous blog, constant pressure from pricks has an impact on you. If you’re a g

As I noted in the last blog, it’s most likely that intuitive prick radar is a skill developed in early childhood, by young children when they are in a highly dysfunctional and dangerous environment. They must learn to ‘dodge the bullets’. But if you’ve come from a good home most likely you didn’t develop intuitive prick radar. So what you must do is learn the cues that people with good prick radar automatically detect. The first prick radar clue I gave you was obfuscation. Th

It’s most likely that intuitive prick radar is developed in early childhood, when young children who are in a highly dysfunctional and dangerous environment, learn to ‘feel’ the atmosphere, ‘read’ the play, and are then able to ‘dodge the bullets’. Those who have developed strong intuitive prick radar this way often don’t know how they accurately perceive when a person is a problem, when they’re dangerous. They just know. But sooner or later in life, whether you possess intui

In this blog we tease out what is probably the last resort strategy used in prick attacks: used by pricks when other strategies have failed to give them what they want. That prick attack strategy is coercion. In one way or another, coercion holds a gun to your head and forces you to comply. When a prick cannot gain your ‘cooperation’ by other means, they’ll resort to coercion as the central feature of their prick attack. And they feel quite okay about that. Because pricks ref

In this blog we tease out a strategy pricks are very fond of when they launch their prick attacks. We are taking a look at the use of manipulation in prick attacks. The word ‘manipulation” covers a multitude of sins, doesn’t it? It is an umbrella term that covers both deception and lying. But equally, deception is a form of manipulation, and so is lying. And similarly lying is a form of both manipulation and deception. Actually, I like the word ‘bullshit’ because without any

I said last time that in this blog we would start to tease out some of the strategies pricks use when they launch their prick attacks. In this blog, we’ll take a look at pretexts for the prick attack. A key part of prick strategy is for them to try to justify the prick attack, in their own mind. For that, they need a range of pretexts they can draw upon, which they themselves seriously believe and which they also expect you to believe. Don’t believe them. They’re all bullshit

I said last time that in this blog we would start to look at the sorts of strategies pricks use when they launch their prick attacks. Prick behaviour is always strategic: even if only subconsciously so on their part. It’s always designed either to get what they want or to evade responsibility for, and the consequences of, the behaviour used to do that. It’s impossible to present every prick strategy. So as I unfold for you over the next few blogs, the strategies pricks use in

Prick is a pejorative term for a despicable person. If you’ve ever been subject to a prick attack, you’ll know what I mean, and you’ll know why I have no hesitation in calling them pricks. A prick attack is no minor matter, not from a serious prick anyway. Of course, if you can avoid prick attacks, all the better. That’s why I’ve written a book about pricks. It’s about how to detect them, what their strategies are when they mount a prick attack, and how they get away with it.