"They like triangles" and 6 other big signs your partner is a sociopath.

There’s no great time to realise you might be dating a sociopath.

In fact, it’s probably something you’ve had in the back of your mind for a little while. However, it’s not until you see these things laid out for you that the truth really hits home.

Perhaps, you thought, they’re just a little bit arrogant? Maybe the jealously is endearing after all? And even better, surely you can fix them?

Or maybe you actually can’t. Because maybe, just maybe, they’re a sociopath.

The Hare Psychopathy Checklist is a diagnostic tool used to rate a person’s psychopathic or antisocial tendencies, and these, my friends, are just a handful.

1. They were veeeeery keen on you, but now suddenly you’re chasing them.

They chased you and chased you and chased you, and now suddenly, without you even realising, the tables have turned. You have found yourself chasing them.

“He will choose you, disarm you with his words, and control you with his presence,” explains Dr. Robert Hare. “He will delight you with his wit and his plans. He will show you a good time but you will always get the bill.”

2. Their exes were crazy, but you're not.

I'm sure you've heard this one before: The person a little bit interested in you says everyone else they used to date was totally crazy, but you? You're different. It's positioned as a compliment, but with deeper analysis, it's really not. It's decidedly anti-feminist to pit women against each other like that.

3. They have an oversized ego.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders notes that sociopaths have an inflated sense of self. They are narcissists to the extreme and have a huge sense of entitlement.

4. Eye contact

This one seems like a funky one. Sociopaths have no problem with maintaining uninterrupted eye contact.

"Our failure to look away politely is also perceived as being aggressive or seductive," M.E. Thomas - a diagnosed sociopath and author of Confessions Of A Sociopath - says.

5. Their personality runs very hot and cold.

Are they fabulously into you one minute and the next as grumpy and possessive and annoying as ever? Red flag.

6. Their favourite shape is a triangle.

We're not kidding. According to Bustle, sociopaths want to be the centre of your world. If they're not the centre of your world, how else could they control you so well?

In order to do that, many sociopaths introduce a third person into the relationship for you to stress, worry and be jealous over. Hence, the triangle.

7. They don't have a heap of empathy.

“They don’t really have the meaningful emotional inner worlds that most people have and perhaps because of that they can't really imagine or feel the emotional worlds of other people," M. E. Thomas said.

"It’s very foreign to them.”