This is one of the most painful themes of the entire system of analysis of vampiric actions. The pain derives principally from the fact that we come to realize how great a part vampirism plays in so many so-called "emotional" relationships.

The Vampire, as we have already indicated, is someone who, while still alive, is already profoundly 'dead', because he essentially feels he is a non-entity; he deludes himself that he is hiding his shame by acting in such a way as to fool, mortify and humiliate others. This, unfortunately, is the condition of many human beings, and the familiarity, the sharing, the cohabitation typical of emotional relationships only accentuate the more dramatic aspects of that condition, driving many unhappy individuals toward the use of vampiric arts against those they care for.

A person becomes a Vampire because he is afraid that his own human and psychological shortcomings will be discovered. And who has a better chance of discovering them than someone who loves us and perhaps lives with us? Therefore all possible systems of defense, legitimate and illegitimate, are activated, to defend our own defects and transform them into extraordinary, legendary, almost superhuman qualities, through actions that are reminiscent of black magic. The most negative, ponderous, or harsh characteristics of a personality magically become attributes to be admired and revered, so that they flow together to form a single mythical, almost divine whole. Obscene language, overbearance, stupidity, the most merciless psychological pressure, even physical violence become all right, an acceptable part of everyday reality, when one embraces this kind of personality cult.

Often, unfortunately, there is no alternative. Human beings need affection, and may be content even with crumbs if necessary. At times they are obliged to be content with emotional food that has been poisoned by frustration, unhappiness, and violence. But it's still food. There is no greater crime than that of giving a venomous serpent to someone who asks for bread, that is, for healthy emotional nourishment to be able to live and grow. And yet, many commit that crime.

Those who cannot resist the temptation of blackmailing the innocent with the weapon of affection become Vampires. Maybe a poor, miserable Vampire. But nevertheless an enemy and exploiter of innocence, and therefore, when all is said and done, a monster.

The steps of this terrible scheme can be synthesized in what we have defined as "the six premises of emotional vampirism":
1. I feel like a non-entity and therefore I hate myself;
2. I want to ease the tension of my miserable condition by dominating someone else;
3. you love me and cannot live without my affection;
4. if you agree to accept my domination, you'll have my affection; if you don't, not only will I deny you my affection, but I'll make life impossible for you;
5. the ways of accepting my domination include:
a) revering my defects;
b) comprehensively mythicizing my personality;
6. now you know my rules: see to it that you behave accordingly.

The Vampire's personal success as the outcome of his victims' emotional confusion

The broad application of this system produces a generalized distortion in evaluating defects and qualities. Absorbed as we are in this kind of spell, we often end up mistaking a defect for a quality, and vice versa.

Every time we meet a person who is prepared to love us, or simply to give us his attention "freely", without strings, we may welcome this attitude, and even feel a great admiration for that person, or maybe actually fall in love with him; but our infatuation for something so profoundly different from what we're familiar with runs the risk of being short lived. Soon enough we will notice in these unusual individuals something too strange to be sustained, and we will begin to devalue them precisely because they do not subject us to any blackmail. We will mistake their availability for weakness and their serenity for a spiritual flaw, and soon we will begin to suffer crises of abstinence from the well known dimension of continual blackmail. It's the story of many couples in a relationship, in which a partner who gives affection without dictating harsh conditions ends up disappointing the other, because he does not trigger that particular vertigo, that particular shiver that is considered an integral part of emotional capture. The shiver of the Vampire, in fact.

In Angelo, mentioned above in the sections regarding the symptoms of vampiric aggression and the denial of dignity), this system can be seen in all of its malignancy. Ivan, in fact, pays the price for the honesty of his feelings by enduring not once, but twice, the humiliation of having an object of affection taken away from him by Angelo, the neighborhood tough guy who has engaged him in a competition to the death. As you will recall, Ivan's only fault is that of playing on the same team as Angelo and having an excellent talent for soccer which threatens Angelo's star status. Livia, Ivan's official girlfriend, is the first to yield to Angelo's tactics. Although still in love with Ivan, Livia is sucked into Angelo's mysterious whirlpool, that first drags her into intermittent betrayal and then into the fetters of a turbid passion that will result in the conception of a child and a sudden marriage to repair the situation. The second time Ivan endures the loss of Marisella, a young woman who in the past had been brutally dumped by Angelo, and who had attempted suicide precisely because of the latter's betrayal with Livia. As the relationship between Angelo and Livia was about to result in marriage, Marisella revealed her love to Ivan, who ended up finding a reason for living in that new love.

[Ivan] was still resignedly in love with Livia, but she had decided to expiate her guilt by leaving Ivan rather than Angelo. Thus, on the rare occasions that they happened to meet one another, Livia and Ivan suffered the pains of a Hell as torturous as it was unavoidable: she secretly loved Ivan, but did not think it was fair to share herself with both him and Angelo, and she was not able to tear herself away from Angelo because he inflamed her blood with the devastating passion of absolute sexual slavery. Ivan, on the other hand, who would have been prepared to go back to her and who felt that she secretly reciprocated the same compelling feelings of the heart that flowed in him, was forced to accept formal chitchat and behavior that formed a knot in his throat, suffocating him in the grip of a desperation which never overflowed into tears, but always into absolute dependence. The last time he met her, before the overwhelming abyss of the years opened up between them, she said to him in an empty tone of voice: "I know you're seeing Marisella. I'm glad. You really deserve a girl like her". And he, in a knowing tone of voice replied: "Marisella knows that I am seeing you. She's glad. I really deserve a girl like you". It was a declaration of perfect respect and absolute love, but she didn't understand it. She finished: "Don't be jealous of Angelo. You are, and always will be, the only one". Ivan was barely able to drop her off at her door in time, then he was finally able to release the torrents of the river that had been pressuring his eyes for months; he ended up crying against a wall, after a harmless spin in the Seicento which had reminded him that even the car was mad with grief at the memory of the kisses with which he and Livia, at one time, had filled it.

[…] Once outside, he embraced Marisella, throwing himself into her arms as an athlete throws himself into the arms of his trainer after winning a race. Marisella shivered and seemed to melt with passion at that gesture, which to Ivan on the other hand was completely innocent. They walked along arm in arm for a while, and once outside she asked Ivan to sit down on a stone bench.
"I have two things to tell you. The first is bad news and the other... I'm not sure, maybe even the second one is bad news. The first is that Angelo and Livia are getting married because she's in an "interesting" state "...
Ivan […] was about to faint and seized onto the ambiguity of that censured, irritating expression […] "What do you mean? "Interesting". What are you saying? Who exactly is interested in her condition? Huh? […]"
"In short, she's pregnant."
"There you are", Ivan said in the tone of someone who wants to show how much better it is to speak clearly. And how a death sentence, if pronounced with clarity, can be something absolutely normal. Acceptable. Sound. Natural. It seemed he was about to say: "Good good good. Now what shall we do?" But he did not say it, because as he was sinking into the lava flow of final grief, he saw a soul that was wandering, like a bird descending from the skies. His Livia was embracing the wandering soul and settling him on her lap. Life. Destiny. The most precious thing you have is falling into an abyss and you're stretching out your hands toward a horror […] He didn't even realize that he had gotten up and started running crazily, blindly, stopped only by the embrace of Marisella, who had run after him desperately; nor did he understand that the inhuman scream that seemed to reverberate in his brain was coming from him, until it was suffocated by Marisella's lips, opened wide to suck him into herself and into the swirling vortex of an unfamiliar mouth, a consoling love that tasted like clean teeth, like mingled tears, like hope.

[…] Ivan found himself suddenly plunged into a new nightmare. unexpected and terrifying. Marisella, the incarnation of comfort and warmth, had become his enemy […]. He began to feel like he was the weak half of their pair, the obstructed part, the part that didn't function. Marisella continued to grant him her time and her love, but from a position of concerned superiority, as the head of a family would allow an unemployed brother-in-law to sit at the same table with his children.
[…] Then, one day toward the end of autumn, on a frozen bench in a park on the outskirts, as he rested his head on Marisella's knees asking desperately for her help, she spoke up:
"You see, Ivan, your problem is that you're not really a man yet. You're still a bit of a child. And it's very cumbersome for a woman to drag a child along with her. I love you, and I do it willingly. But I assure you that it takes a lot of patience." Ivan, who felt more like an old man than a child, had the impression of having lived this same moment many times in his life, or in other lives. He got up from his position, which now seemed ridiculous, and looked directly into her eyes. She, the woman, lowered her gaze, but he, the child, continued to stare at her, just as children do to adults when the adults feel guilty and are trying to avoid those implacable eyes.
[…] He nailed her to her lie. […] He remembered when, several weeks earlier, they had seen Angelo and Livia and little Deborah walking along slowly on the other side of the street, as though in a dream. Marisella had stretched her neck like a puppy sniffing out a pleasant smell, and an expression of suspended anguish had appeared in her eyes. She had recovered herself pretending to be absorbed in a gentle thought, and had said: "How nice it is to have children... Who knows if we... When...". Angelo. As soon as Ivan had pronounced that name, Marisella dissolved in an emotion that was cathartic, childish and cruel: "I miss him so much. So much. Forgive me, but that's how it is. I'm sorry for him. I'm very sorry for him. He needs help. That's not a life: work, home, diapers, baby bottles, the little wife... Can you see someone like him living that kind of life? There's no love between them. He's unhappy. So unhappy. Seeing him like that should arouse pity even in you, who hate him so much. He needs help. But he's trapped. What can he do? How can he leave everything, how can he leave that creature? He needs help. He needs me. I don't ask for anything in return. And he doesn't ask me for anything. But he makes me feel I'm worth something. And for a woman it's very important to feel like she's worth something".