When love turns dark: how to recognise psychopaths, narcissists, Machiavellians and other toxic personalities

We’re raised with stories of finding a soulmate, but as Dr Anna Machin writes in her new book, relationships are easily perverted by those with ‘Dark Triad’ personality types

Love is an “evolutionary bribe” encouraging us to breed and nurture. Photo: Getty Images

Suzanne Harrington

What is the purpose of love? We tend to focus on the romantic definition — being crazy in love, falling head over heels, terms which describe something out of our control, overwhelming, thrilling, random. Something that can happen in an instant, change the course of our lives, trigger bliss and/or agony.

Think of all those love songs, all those great works of art, poetry, literature and film based on the idea that love is a state of beautiful insanity, something magical and intangible. Love, crooned Roxy Music, is a drug.