People who have been damaged by narcissistic abuse or otherwise abusive partners often wonder why they didn’t see the signs when they were in the relationship. They blame themselves for not recognizing the red flags when they appeared, forgetting that abusers don’t start harming people immediately: they get them to lower their guard first so strong bonds can be established.
One of the primary techniques they use is known as “love-bombing”. That is, trying to speed up and manipulate the growth of feelings in a relationship by creating an atmosphere of adoration and attention.
This method — including the examples listed below — often appears like passionate romance at the outset, and can fool just about anyone.
1. Wanting to spend every moment with you.
When you’re smitten with an amazing new person in your life, it’s understandable that you’d like to spend as much time as possible with them. After all, spending time with them is intoxicating: you love the sound of their voice, their scent, and all the special little things the two of you can share with one another.
When you’re getting to know someone new, it can make you feel special and wanted if they always want to be in your presence or are otherwise communicating with you as much as possible.
As such, it can be hard to tell what’s “normal” attention and what’s manipulation. However, you’ll know it’s love-bombing rather than real romance if they get petulant or angry when you want to spend time alone, or make plans with other people. They may even get irrationally jealous or upset if you want to spend time with your family or long-term friends instead of them. This is not healthy. Someone who actually cares about you deeply will encourage your relationships, not stymie them.
2. Going overboard with gift giving.
If you’ve been dating for a month or two and this person surprises you with a bouquet of your favorite flowers or tickets to a concert you’ve been looking forward to, that’s a sweet gesture. It tells you that they’ve been paying attention to what you like, and are putting effort into doing nice things for you.
In contrast, if you’ve only been dating for a month or two and this person shows up with a piece of jewellery that costs a quarter of your salary, that’s likely love bombing. Essentially, if they’re putting far more time, effort, and money towards you than you’re comfortable with, there’s a good chance they’re trying to put you in a position where you feel obligated to reciprocate. They’re trying to make you feel like you are “theirs” because they’ve invested so much into you.
3. Overstepping personal boundaries under the guise of being smitten.
I recently saw a post on social media in which a woman had booked a solo beach vacation so she could have some much-needed alone time and decompress from stress at work. On her first day there, while she was relaxing at the beach, her new-ish boyfriend “surprised” her by showing up unannounced.
This guy knew full well that she had booked this getaway to have some alone time, and chose to completely disregard her needs (and her boundaries!) by intruding upon her peace. He framed it in such a way that he couldn’t bear to be apart from her and wanted to spend some quality time together, and played the wounded party when she told him that he wasn’t welcome there.
This type of behavior is common with those who see the object of their affection as exactly that: an object. Their own insecurity causes them to take whatever actions they feel are needed to secure their prize, on their terms.
4. Implying that you’re the person of their dreams.
Some people are fortunate enough to connect with partners who embody everything they ever dreamed of in a spouse, and live happily ever after. Those are few and far between. In reality, most people are drawn to each other because of mutual attraction and shared interests, and acknowledge that either partner has some quirks that are a bit weird, but not dealbreakers.
If the person you’re dating keeps telling you that you’re perfect and “everything they ever dreamed of,” it’s because they’ve put you on a pedestal. They’re fixating on aspects of you that they’re enamoured with, rather than seeing you as a complex, multifaceted being.
Be warned: once they get to know you better and discover that there are traits about you that don’t align with their vision, they’ll redirect their focus towards the next person.
5. Expecting too much intimacy too soon.
This goes beyond physical intimacy and encompasses anything that falls under the umbrella of closeness between two people. Sure, a person who’s incredibly into you won’t complain if you get physical right off the bat, but they’re unlikely to ask for the passwords for your phone and email, nor will they ask to share a bank account with you.
Love-bombers often attempt to force a bond before it evolves naturally. Instead of easing into the different onion layers of personal closeness and comfort, they try to bulldoze their way into your innermost sanctum so they can set down roots there.
6. Unceasing compliments.
It’s worth mentioning that someone who’s both a bit socially awkward and smitten with you might go overboard with compliments towards you, without toxic intent. They might honestly think you’re the most wonderful being they’ve ever encountered, and want to make sure you know it. It comes from a good place, but still, those compliments may start to feel insincere after a while.
Someone who’s love-bombing you will also offer overabundant compliments, but they come from a manipulative place and will come with the other behaviors on this list. They may make sweeping, generic compliments that don’t acknowledge who you actually are and what you’ve accomplished, compare you favourably to other people, or use compliments to smooth over situations where they’ve crossed a line or need something from you.
The reason love-bombers do this is to overwhelm your rational judgment and create a sense of indebtedness: if they constantly tell you how amazing you are, you’ll feel obligated to reciprocate their affection, and you’ll be less likely to question their behavior or enforce your boundaries.
7. Discussing future plans after a short period of time.
When people are getting to know one another to determine potential romantic compatibility, most of them discuss personal preferences about things like whether they want children in the future, what their career goals are, and so on. This is completely normal. What isn’t normal, however, is immediately talking about how to redecorate your space when the two of you live together, or what your future children’s names should be.
Depending on the person in question, this may be a situation of “future faking”, which is when they try to manipulate you into thinking that the two of you are meant to have a life together. They’ll seem utterly sincere and talk about all the dreams they have that the two of you can share, but they have zero intention of following through with any of them.
8. Trauma dumping.
You wouldn’t think that someone telling you about all the horrific crap they’ve been through would be a form of love-bombing, but it certainly can be. It’s often done to intensify the false intimacy the manipulator is trying to establish. Essentially, they try to show you how much they care about and trust you by being open and vulnerable about the awful things they’ve been through.
The implication here is that you’re the only person in the world they’ve been comfortable enough to open up to, and that makes you a rare treasure in their life. It may seem sweet and romantic on some level, but the underlying goal is to make you feel irreplaceable in their life while simultaneously preying on your empathy. Since the goal is to force a relationship, making you feel like you’d be an awful person for leaving them is absolutely on brand.
9. Telling you they love you after you’ve only known them a short time.
Real love takes a significant amount of time to develop because it requires people to get to know every facet of one another, and then choose to love one another for their many quirks, not despite them. In contrast, infatuation happens quickly and is usually based on physical attraction and projected misconceptions.
A person who tells you that they love you within a few short weeks of meeting you may seem like they’re being romantic, but they have no idea who you really are, love bomber or not. As such, it’s their idea of you that they really love, and when it comes to manipulators, they’ll love the idea of how they can adjust you to best fit their personal preferences. This “love,” however, will only last as long as you continue to look and behave exactly the way they like.
Final thoughts…
One of the best ways to determine whether it’s real romance or love-bombing is by how they react when you ask them to dial things back a bit. If you let them know that you’re uncomfortable with their gestures and they apologize and back off, or ask what would be more comfortable to you, then you know their overtures towards you are sincere. In contrast, if they get angry or offended, and either maintain their behaviors or intensify them, you know that they’ve been love-bombing you for their own benefit, not yours.
