Love bombing.
Its a trendy new dating buzzworld that alludes to a negative dating situation. So what is love bombing and does it matter in adult dating? How do you spot love bombing?
The answer is a bit tricky. Let’s take a look.
For the most part, love bombing occurs less in adult dating and more in traditional dating. By traditional dating, we mean dating that’s intended to slowly develop into a relationship with the sex as an initial afterthought.
In adult dating, the sex is the main course. And often, there’s not much focus on guiding the relationship into anything longterm.
But love bombing happens in any dating relationship. In adult dating, love bombing can be used to keep you in a sexual relationship.
When someone love bombs you, they alternate extreme forms of praise and blame. They do this to influence your actions, to control you, according to science.
When you are high, they are low on you. When you are low, they are very high on you. This vicious cycle keeps you almost distracted to a point that you just keep going on with the relationship.
But how do you spot love bombing?
They Tell You They Love You Very Fast
In mainstream dating, it can take a while to hear those precious three words. In adult dating, you often never hear them. Love bombers tend to drop the “I love you” incredibly fast (think weeks or even days).
By telling you that they love you, they attach you to their emotions. They attempt to leverage your own internal guilt when you consider moving on or cutting all ties.
In adult dating relationships, like the ones you find on Fuckbook, some guys may seek an attachment beyond the scope of their partner’s wishes. In some cases, they may drop an “I love you” to start the love bombing process. In doing so, they hope they lay down guilt on their prey. When the person decides they want another hookup, they feel bad because they feel this sense of responsibility for the person’s feelings.
Often, they use the “love at first sight” play to deploy.
When someone says they love you right away, particularly someone you met on a hookup site, it is a sign they don’t build healthy relationships.
This isn’t to say love at first sight never happens. I’m sure it does. But always have your guard up.
The Gift Bomb You
The gifts come early and often. Flowers, cards, candles, etc. This all sounds good, until it isn’t. The gifts are often used to lure you in and believe me, when things go sour, they’ll use the fact they sent these gifts against you.
Gifts will also be sent following dramatic fights. It’s part of the up and down emotional cycle that traps you.
The gifts are far from attempts at flattering and impressing you. The gifts help them control you.
They Incessantly Praise You
The complements come hard and fast when you are in a love bomb triangle. The complements are so insanely over the top, they are difficult to believe. While it might feel nice to be told you’re the greatest person of all time, that might be a bit too much.
They Will Expedite All Relationship Markers
Relationships have markers.
When a couple starts alloting weekend nights over weekday nights, that’s an evolution, or marker in the relationship. It signals a step forward. Moving in together is another signal that the relationship is progressing.
A love bomber pushes all these timelines way forward. If it should take you a couple of years before you move in together, the love bomber is saying “it is love at first site, we should move in” at two weeks.
Nothing can naturally progress for the love bomber. The love bomber must secure all relationship markers in fast-order.
You Can’t Do Enough To Make Them Happy
It may feel like a bottomless pit when you do nice things for them. Because no matter how much of your heart you give, they don’t feel it is enough. They constantly bait you into feeling inadequate in concern with your affection.
This is a strategy that keeps you doing more and more but without end. You eventually lose yourself in trying to please the love bomber. That’s the point.
They Will Text You To Death
If you are away from them, whether at work or with friends or family, they will constantly text you. Or even call you. The idea is to keep you distracted from your present environment and focused on them.
They need you to fill a bottomless pit of emotional neediness. Any stretch where communication lapses, they become aggravated. They will do anything to draw you back in. They may praise you, or pretend they have a health emergency, or start a fight. Anything and everything that keeps you locked in and focused only on them.
What To Do About a Love Bomber?
It is easy to believe that you will never fall victim to a love bomber’s ways. But that’s naive. Love bombing works. It sneaks up on you. You feel you are in some awesome love whirlwind when suddenly things collapse. Love bombing creates a house of cards. It will collapse. But if you wait for it to collapse, you might feel its too difficult to escape the relationship.
Avoiding a love bomber by picking up immediate signs is best, but most of the time, you’ll figure it out a bit into the relationship’s evolution. And that’s OK.
When you do figure it out, cut ties. Make it explicitly clear that you’re moving on. And then, move on. Do not get baited back into the rabbit hole. They will do anything to get you back to communicating, usually by starting fights. When one method fails, they abruptly change course. They may send you pictures of their travels, then later, tell you they hate you.
Love bombing characteristics are obvious once you understand what they are. But sometimes cutting ties with a love bomber feels overwhelming. Talk to a friend, talk to a therapist, take deep breaths. You can do it.