Why YSK: some very dangerous people and organizations use love bombing as a strategy to manipulate and recruit people. Love bombing is often an early warning sign for a traumatizing relationship, so it’s helpful to be able to spot the signs.
What it Is
Essentially, it’s when someone showers you with love and attention. It often includes a lot of reassurance that you belong with someone or in a group. It can include gifts, flattery, praise, and it usually includes a lot of excitement about your future together or with a group.
The catch is that the love bomb goes away, and you become devalued after the love bomb. This is usually followed by a “discard phase”, where if you try to confront the behavior, you are rejected and made to feel at fault. After you’ve become upset by this, they will often start the cycle again to keep your loyalty.
There are some really key warning signs to look out for:
- They give you gifts, especially random gifts
- They want all of your attention
- They’re desperate for commitment from you
- You feel pressure to not tell them no
- They constantly talk about how much they love you, how special you are, etc.
- You feel flattered but uneasy around them
- They want to know a lot about you very quickly
- They emphasize how much better everything is when you are with them
Where can I spot it?
Love bombing is very common in abusive and manipulative relationships. It’s also often noticeable in cult recruiting, when members are trained to shower you with love and affection.
What can I do about it?
It can be good to seek help from a mental health professional if you’re already hurt from the effects of love bombing. If you’re in crisis, consider contacting a local crisis or emergency line.
If you notice signs of love bombing, there are some strategies that often work to keep people safe:
- set firm boundaries early
- stay grounded (i.e., take their praise with a grain of salt)
- ask, “what might they want from this interaction?”
- end a relationship if it’s not working
- give as little information out as possible at the start of a relationship
- ask an objective 3rd party how they feel about your relationship with this person or group
More resources
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/love-bombing https://www.choosingtherapy.com/love-bombing/
I feel like this can be age and maturity specific as well. When I was like 14 to like 21 I was a love bomber. I had never been in a real relationship and I didn’t understand how to express myself. To my misfortune, the only thing I had to go on was movies. It’s the same kinda situation like having unrealistic expectations about sex by watching too much porn. Because of this I always went over the top thinking that’s what you were supposed to do. I didn’t understand the differences between infatuation and love until I had my first real relationship. Put a lot of things into perspective after that and I realized how much of an asshole I was being.
You should definitely know the signs and should definitely do what is listed. I’m just saying sometimes it comes from confusion and ignorance and not just malice and manipulation. The issue isn’t black and white. But at the same time, even if someone is doing it out of ignorance I still believe everything above is true.
I’m not sure what my point is besides sharing my experience. I guess that sometimes the one love bombing might just be someone that is lonely and isolated and doesn’t know what to do. But that shouldn’t change how you react to them. Boundaries are important and this can easily be a very bad situation even if they are a good person.
Be careful, it’s also very common when falling in love.
I was just going to say the overlap with being head over heels for someone is huge here.
Well the positive part is. But if you are genuinely in love, you shouldn’t go through the whole cycle of being devalued and guilted.
Yeah, that’s the abuse part… Thing is, reading the post as it is might make one suspicious for any kind of exaggerated show of love.
As someone recently love bombed, yep, this is accurate. The worst part is if you let it continue it will work on you. The only winning move is not to play
Sounds like you’ve met my ex-wife.
Information that should be taught in school heath classes. It makes me queasy how often I have seen this from organizations and unscrupulous people in the wild. Happens a lot on campuses and wherever a lot of people are ‘new’ to an area or otherwise vulnerable socially. Predatory shit.
Awesome post, OP!
Here’s a video on the topic that I found useful. It’s an interview of a CIA operative explaining how conmen pick, prime, and use their prey. Fun fact: About 10% of the population lives in a world where everyone else is a tool to be manipulated using levers of reward and punishment. Once you see it, you can’t go back.
Can I somehow do this in reverse to my health insurance provider to get them to pay for my fucking antidepressants
I once posted a comment to Reddit that was misinterpreted as supportive of fascism (can’t remember the comment but my wording must have been atrocious), and I experienced online love bombing from Nazis who were trying to recruit me into various groups. They were so nice, apart from the whole Nazi thing! It taught me something about how these groups recruit that I didn’t know before. They start by showering you with compliments and offers of friendship and invitations to join various “exclusive” online groups. If I had been the kind of person they thought I was, it would have felt so good to find all these new friends, much more exciting than just a political affinity. They really try to make you feel you’ve found your people, who value you. Anyway, I never really knew about this side of modern Nazism before. It’s quite culty. I didn’t join up, by the way.
Is this the DENNIS system?
Separate completely.
And as always, don’t forget that good people do exist. If the other party responds appropriately to you asking to set boundaries, then it’s probably not love bombing and might genuinely be something good.
I disagree. Good people love bomb. People that love bomb don’t always do it for nefarious (from their perspective) reasons.
This is true. You can be so wrapped up in your emotions you don’t even realize it’s too much. Self awareness is important.
