At least I cut things off with the narcissist by Stage 3 of these 21 Stages of the Relationship Between a Narcissist and an Empath.

Stage 3: The narcissist will try to break the empath's self-esteem by making them feel weak and unable to do things. The narcissist will never openly attack the empath, but will say things like, "I don't mean to hurt you but..."

This guy said that several times to me when I confronted him about all the social media attention-bombing he was doing to me after we met in person. To defend himself, and deflect attention off of himself and try to blame me, he said, "I don't mean to sound mean Blanche, but none of my other friends have a problem with all the messages I send them..." And things like that.