How to detect Love Bombing?

Social networks have changed the way we forge emotional bonds. In fact, the word “forge” has a solid, strong connotation that has little to do with the dynamics of the relationships we establish today.

The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman crowns this phenomenon as liquid love: the inhabitants of the liquid world, the 21st century, having stripped ourselves of modern notions of progress, savings and the future, we are now accustomed to the fact that nothing in our lives is static, that there are no certainties, that everything must have an instantaneous use, in the present and with little effort.

Of course, these facts are in line with other social and economic processes such as globalization and the establishment of the logic of consumption. It is not surprising that the way in which we bond (or, rather, connect) has also been affected by these transformations. Bauman points out that establishing a bond of affinity today has the price to pay “the hard currency of the monotony of everyday life.”

Committing to long-term emotional or loving relationships seems to be a risk that many people are not willing to take. This scenario has given rise to phenomena that we usually identify with Anglicisms such as ghosting, he breadcrumbing and the love bombing. The latter literally means “love bombing” and is a particular form of manipulation that can be very harmful to the mental health of the victim. In order to prevent such damage, In this article we will develop what love bombing is and how to detect it in time.

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Love bombing: what is it?

Love bombing is the tendency of a person to “bombard” his or her partner with displays of affection. It should be noted that love bombing is a phenomenon marked by the use of technology because it has provided a qualitative leap to this mode of manipulation: thanks to mobile phones, it is possible to be in permanent communication, throughout the day and at all hours, via text messages, phone calls, video calls or tags on networks social. The digital age has always made us available to others, since phones, the gatekeepers of our lives, will be in charge of receiving the message and keeping it there until we see it.

People who practice love bombing tend to be individuals with predominantly narcissists. This is because they are making an effort to ensure that they are the most important people in their partners' lives. They hope that the admiration they express at all hours through messages and calls is reciprocal, because The narcissist's true desire is to obtain a look of agreement from his partner., the affirmation that he or she is also beautiful, good, loved and desired, or failing that, seeing that the other is always in their chat writing...

It is important to note that the person who manipulates her partner through love bombing does not do so consciously in most cases. This is not a subject who is deploying a macabre plan against his partner, but, on the contrary, he is a person who needs the approval of the other; that he has learned and reinforced throughout his life to bond in that way. Although love bombing is a term that has become popular on social networks, in 2016 the first empirical study was carried out in which this construct was tested.

In relation to the above, the results indicated that love bombing was a strategy that those participants who had low self-esteem and high levels of narcissism. This is quite consistent with previous research that found a strong correlation between narcissism and low self-esteem, breaking the myth that the narcissist is one who has “high levels of self-confidence". In truth, according to these studies, the fear of not being loved by others predominates in the narcissist.

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Recognize the phases of love bombing to detect it

Love bombing would not have major complications if it were not such a harmful bonding dynamic for the victim. And the person who is bombarded by the affection of another can even become intoxicated with the love they receive. Love, as an emotion, has been key to survival; It is a pleasant internal experience and it is the north that we tend to seek in all our relationships.

Some people may feel overwhelmed when receiving an avalanche of demonstrations of love from their partner., but at first, most tend to feel comfortable with it. For this reason, to detect love bombing in time it is necessary to recognize that its first phase is the one that usually called the idealization phase, where the narcissistic person carries out all possible displays of affection, given and for having, custom made, so much so that she seems to be the perfect person to establish a relationship with. Some clues that could indicate someone who tends to bombard her love for manipulative purposes is receiving calls, messages and gifts at all hours, wanting to meet friends or family members excessively quickly, being willing to do anything for the other person - since later, they will demand the same in return - or rushing the formalization of the couple when they are just getting to know each other

However, when the victim of love bombing begins to demonstrate a certain autonomy, the narcissist's love will mutate into control and punishment. That affection that used to be more cloying than chocolate is suddenly tasteless; or worse yet, it is absent. This is a form of emotional manipulation, since the victim feels that by carrying out a certain behavior—embarking on a new activity alone, meeting with her friends — you could end up losing the love of your partner, the one that has made you feel so good, the love perfect. This stage is called devaluation, and it materializes in jealousy, denigration and silence on the part of the love bomber.

It is not about distrusting all people whose way of showing affection is based on being thoughtful or generous. Love bombing is evident when this dual dynamic occurs, the ambivalence between love and punishment. Something characteristic of love bombing is that it is cyclical: is repeated over and over again, idealization and devaluation. The person, when they are in the idyllic stage, even seems to forget how hurt they feel when the manipulator denigrates them. Becoming aware of this back-and-forth is key to registering a case of love bombing that has been going on for some time.

In this way, the victim could advance towards a discard phase in which he finally decides to end this bond. Otherwise, there is a possibility that it is the manipulator himself who decides to end the relationship, since he will have found someone else to manipulate with this strategy.