Throughout A Hero Of Our Time we see that Pechorin is constantly doing things out of selfishness in order to fulfill his narcissistic needs, which ultimately prevents him from being in a relationship with any women. He chooses to go after a woman with the sole purpose of having her fall in love with him. Once she has, she is no longer desirable and Pechorin looks for his next conquest. Because of his narcissistic ways he is unable to have a relationship with a woman whether he wants her or not. His actions don’t only affect his  romantic relationships but platonic relationships as well, like the one he had with grushnitsky. They weren’t friends but they respected each other. We see his romantic relationships being affected through  Mary and Vera. Mary is the girl he pursues because his pride had been hurt by her, and Vera is the women he truly loves but is unable to be with because she is married.Pechorin has never been able to been  a relationship because of his ego. When he first meets Mary, he doesn’t pay much attention to her until she ignores him and shows interest in Grushnitsky. “ I further confess that a nasty but fami- liar sensation, at that moment, skimmed over my heart. This sensation was envy…it is doubtful if there can be found a young man who, upon meeting a pretty woman who has riveted his idle attention and has suddenly given obvious preference to another man equally unknown to her, it is doubtful, let me repeat, that there can be found a young man (provided, of course, that he has lived in the grand monde and is accustomed to indulge his vanity), who would not be unpleasantly struck by this.”(Lermontov 89). Through this we can see that pechorin has no real interest in Mary, and was simply annoyed at the idea that there is a women who has bypassed him for another man. He clearly stated that he is accustomed to indulging his vanity  and that this hurt his ego. He therefore takes it upon himself to win over Mary at whatever the cost.He does this even though he knows that Grushnitsky’s feelings towards Mary are sincere.. Through his attempt at getting Mary, he reveals the steps he followed to ensure that she fell for him. He would ignore her and anger her, then would save her from an uncomfortable situation. After he would disparage Grushnitsky In front of her in an attempt to have her lose interest in Grushnitsky. He would finally condition her by leaving every time Grushnitsky showed up. Through this he was able to have Mary feel compassion for him and later on confess her feelings to him. The way he explained it made it sounds as an instruction manual on how to seduce a woman that was meant for other men to do the same if there was a woman they wanted. This shows that it is more important for him to feel good about himself then to have a real connection with someone.Because of his choice to pursue Mary his relationship with Grushnitsky grew tense. So his narcissism not only affected his love life but his relationship with others in general. Pechorin knew that Grushnitsky liked Mary but decided to go after her anyway. Even though him and Grushnitsky were not exactly friends, he still had no respect for his feelings. “ And you did not feel at all touched looking at her at the moment her soul shone in her face?”No.’I lied, but I wanted to infuriate him(89), Pechorin constantly tried to sabotage Grushnitsky by lying or doing things behind his back. He went as far as to reveal the fact that Grushnitsky was a cadet to Mary so she would see that Grushnitsky lied and lose interest in him.All of these events lead to the duel between them. Pechorin knew that what he had done wasn’t right which is why I think he gave Grushnitsky several opportunities to retract his statement. He didn’t really want to harm him because deep down he knew that it was his fault that things were like this. Even then, his pride would not allow him to take ownership of his actions and he followed through with the duel killing Grushnitsky. After the duel he said “Finita Ia commedia”(156) and went on his way. This to me sounded like he didn’t care much and was kind of mocking the situation because this is an Italian phrase meaning “End of the Farce”( can mean the end of someone or something). This also sounds like “End of the comedy” in Spanish. “We have the beginning of a plot! ‘I cried in delight. ‘The denouement of this comedy will be our concern” He mentions the word comedy in these events which makes it seem as though this was a game to him or a “comedy”. So he never took his actions seriously..He not only hurt Mary but killed Grushnitsky as well.  Once he got what he wanted from Mary he left her and killed grushnitsky instead of allowing him to be happy with Mary. He basically discards anyone who he feels he no longer needs or wants.His narcissistic behavior also affects his relationship with Vera because he wants to be with her but can’t because she is married and because he has to accomplish his goal with Mary.He also put both women’s honor at risk when he secretly went to visit Vera but Grushnitsky thought it was Mary(141). So this also contributed to his duel but not because it could affect both women but because it stained his honor. So once again he was only thinking about the consequences his ego and honor could face. Even after this situation he was still unable to be with Vera and went back to Mary and hurt her once again. He knew that Mary was deeply in love with him but he couldn’t accept her feelings because he never loved her. So he went to her and told her the things he did, “’Princess,’ I said, ‘you know that I laughed at you? Youmust despise me”(162), so that the Mary would hate him. I feel like he did this because he felt guilty about the things he did for his ego and wanted her to forget about him. In the end, he is by himself with no one to love him because of his narcissistic behavior.He seduced Mary but  then left her  in pursuit of Vera but that did not turn out well either. Vera’s husband found out about the affair and sent Vera far away so Pechorin was never able to see her again. He also killed Grushnitsky knowing that he was in the wrong. I feel like this was karma in a way for the way he treated everyone around him. He had to live with the guilt of his actions and with never being able to have an honest relationship with someone he love