It is common to have the ingrained idea that selfish people are narcissistic. We believe that these people only care about themselves, that they value and love each other above all else. However, the reality is quite different:  selfish people have not only difficulty loving others, but also loving themselves.

We understand that a selfish person is one who only cares about himself. It lacks respect and interest for the needs of others, it relates to people primarily because of their usefulness and the benefits they can derive from them.

They establish, therefore, instrumental relationships to cover their needs, without considering the emotional aspect of the people. This can happen, in turn, by the fear of getting too involved in relationships and getting hurt. So, in fact, they are doing it is to flee from love.

The selfish person does not get satisfaction in giving; Your concern is basically what you will receive in return. It may give the impression that all this energy that focuses on itself derives from the self-love it feels. However, all these attitudes imply a great inability to love oneself.

"He sees no more than himself; Judge others according to their usefulness; Is basically unable to love. Does not this prove that worrying about others and about yourself are inevitable alternatives? That would be true if selfishness and self-love were identical, but such an assumption is precisely the fallacy that led to so many erroneous conclusions about our problems. " 
-Erich Fromm-

Selfish people have no self-love
It is common for people to confuse self-love with being selfish. The person who loves himself is far from seeming a selfish person , since there are notorious differences that denote a real concern both with himself and with the people who surround him.

When we immerse ourselves in our own knowledge of ourselves, we begin, in turn, a better understanding of others. Self-knowledge is the only way to be aware of our own limitations,  the lack of self-acceptance, and all the fears underlying our behavior.

"Selfishness and self-love, far from being identical, are really opposites. The selfish individual does not love himself very much, but very little; In fact, he hates himself. Such lack of care and care is nothing more than the expression of his lack of productivity, leaves him empty and frustrated. He necessarily feels unhappy and anxiously anxious to wrest from life the satisfactions he is prevented from obtaining. 
-Erich Fromm-
Love to be able to love
It is fundamental to love yourself first so that you can love others . This fact is primordial and is far from selfishness. Attending and listening to our own needs, giving them the value they deserve, supposes a respect for themselves, essential to learn to love.

Considering our own emotions, expressing and accepting them, makes us more authentic people with ease to relate to us from intimacy and trust, not through the fear of being hurt, which only ends in superficial relationships, where we go Adding layers that prevent us from seeing our own ability to love.

"The idea expressed in the biblical verse 'Love your neighbor as yourself' implies that respect for one's own integrity and oneness, love and self-understanding, can not be separated from the respect, love, and understanding of another individual . Love for oneself is inseparably bound up with love for any other being. " 
-Erich Fromm-

We deceive ourselves by thinking that we love
Just as the person who is selfish is incapable of loving, so it is with the person who has a great concern for others, and dedicates himself completely to those around him, disconnecting from himself. In this way, you think you feel so much love that you are able to give up your needs.

This example is easy to see for overprotective mothers and for those who forget about themselves to pay attention to others, and to be at their disposal for when they need them. They are people who pour themselves into the needs of others as if they were their own.

This way of loving can be confused with very good people, who are willing to give themselves unselfishly, and love their neighbor even more than themselves. This conclusion is equally misleading to the selfish self-love. Both forms of love are a self-deception in which an exaggerated compensation for their inability to love is manifested.

"It is easier to understand selfishness by comparing it with avid concern for others, such as we find in an overprotective mother, for example. Although she consciously finds herself extremely affectionate toward her child, she does have a deeply suppressed hostility to the object of her worries. Her exaggerated care is not due to excessive love for the child, but to the fact that she must compensate for her total inability to love him. " 
-Erich Fromm-
As we can prove in the examples of selfish people and people who do not care about themselves, these are two ways in which there is no love for oneself , so there can be no love for other people.

"From this we deduce that my own person must be an object of my love, just as it is the other person. The affirmation of life, happiness, growth and self-freedom are rooted in one's own capacity for love, that is, care, respect, responsibility and knowledge. If an individual is capable of loving productively, he also loves himself; If you only love others, you can not love at all. " 

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