Ah, love. Some would argue that there’s no better feeling and I’d have to agree. Especially during that ‘honeymoon phase’ when you’re first falling for someone and can’t get enough of them. But have you met someone that showers you with endless compliments, grand displays of affection and constant attention right from the start? Sounds perfect, right? But is it genuine or are you being love bombed? Well, turns out there’s ways to find out.

WHAT IS LOVE BOMBING?

It’s highly likely that you already know what genuine affection is, but what is love bombing? Well, love bombing can feel like you’ve stepped into a whirlwind romance all of a sudden. It feels like true love, but it happens fast, with seemingly no build up or getting-to-know-you phase. Put simply, it’s just like the stuff you might see on your favourite rom com. 

It feels like you have become the main character in a song or a movie. It doesn’t feel like real life, instead feels you’ve been sucked into this perfect love bubble that’s full of adoration or gifts, affection and constant attention. Just like the character Joe from Netflix show ‘You’, he stalks and manipulates them, yet this excessive attention is under the guise of ‘love’. It’s intoxicating and if you’ve been longing for connection, it’s exactly the thing you’re after.

As an example, love bombing goes a little like this… 

Picture you met the ‘perfect’ person at a club (do people still do that these days?!) well, picture meeting that perfect so-and-so, you instantly connect, exchange contact details and within a couple of days a bunch of flowers gets delivered to your work. So flattering right?! You start receiving good morning and good night texts, there’s declarations of soul mate status on the second date, and before you know it, there’s talk of your ‘future’ together after just one week! 

Or you meet someone new and you spend maybe one or two dates together and while you may be really excited about them because you know – they seem “normal” and that is rare enough these days (lol). As keen as you are, you are going to play it cool, pace yourself, remember that it’s still early days and you can’t quite judge something from the first few meets. However, suddenly you are receiving messages, invites, spending hours talking and you are being told how amazing you are (you are!) and how connected they feel and how this feels magical and special and unique and other worldly and they usually don’t feel like this and they cant imaging finding anybody better and they don’t want to take it slow and life is too short and why play games and shouldn’t we crazy kids just jump in now and end our singledom-suffering……. Yep you’ve guessed it I have been there too – too many times!

You just think, wow, this person is serious and must have fallen hard! So, what’s so wrong with that? Well, unfortunately this pattern of excessive praise, over-the-top gestures and declarations of love are often a tactic for control. Love bombers use these behaviours to create dependency, making you feel like you ‘owe’ them your time and affection. They often create a relationship where it feels like you have barely any time left for anything else and if you pull away or assert your need for independence, they’re likely to guilt trip you, threaten to leave, or even pull away their affection as a way for punishing you.

The crazy thing is they’re not just complimenting you, but they seem to be picking out the qualities in you that you truly value and hope that others see. They are not vague blanket compliments, instead they point out the qualities and virtues you are proud of and have taken care to cultivate. This can’t just be manipulation right? Can’t it be that someone truly sees me and values that, and is like ok let’s not muck around, I want to lock this down. Isn’t this what love is supposed to be like?! Is this not how men act when they truly fall in love?! Well, the kind of answer I am going to give you will sting a bit.

While the compliments you are receiving are probably fundamentally true – and this is important – because people who love bomb are not lying to us – we probably do possess many of the qualities that they are telling us which has inspired this outpouring of affection and feeling. The Issue with love bombing is that normally people do not let other people know these things so early on in a relationship. Healthy, normally paced (and yes even very deep levels of attraction), are usually kept under wraps or allowed to unfold slowly. In many other situations in life, no matter how swept up, excited about and keen we are for a relationship to develop (think that cool girl in your pilates class who you’d love to be besties with, or that life changing job you are interviewing for) we generally know that expressing our feelings so openly would likely result in being seen in a negative light. We don’t want to appear desperate or without any boundaries and scare people off. We want people to get to know us over time and we want to get to know them over time so that we can SEE if our initial attraction and impression of them is accurate. 

So why does love bombing work? And why do love bombers then love bomb?

This is where it gets juicy and why love bombing is a red flag (often pointing towards relationships that become coercive, controlling or are unhealthy). Love bombing cannot work unless the person receiving the love bombing gets hooked. The hook for many of us is that most of our notions of romantic love come from stories, fairy tales, songs and myths that romanticise love bombing. So there is a precedent in place culturally that states that being hotly pursued, wooed, and bombarded by confessions of love and ardour from someone who hasn’t known us for all that long is a sign of deep and significant love. The love bomber has seen the same movies, heard the same songs. They know that that much attention and pursuit is likely to activate our ego’s deepest desire. While on the surface we may all rationalise that love bombing is obviously not a sign of earnest and honest affection, when we are in it (just like opening that email from a scammer) there’s a part of us that really wants it to be true. Because if it is then it means our pursuit for love and our past pain has all been worth it. 

When we harbour insecurities, especially about our loveability, attractiveness or worthiness, it’s a magnet for the type of attention and immediate adoration you will receive from a love bomber. 

There would be nothing wrong with this level of affection or attraction. I’m not suggesting it doesn’t exist or isn’t real. I am suggesting that the way it is expressed and when it is expressed gives us the clue to whether or not it is a red flag. 

A love bomber’s main goal is to make you fall in love or want them BEFORE you have had time to really get to know them. The danger with love bombing is that it allows our normal defenses to lower, the kind of boundaries and criteria we have for getting to know someone, or the boundaries we have about different levels of intimacy or sharing or commitment that we may grant someone in our lives. For example, most workplaces will not entitle new employees to holiday leave and pay until they have been with the company for at least 6 months (and until that time they are on probation). Meaning that there is an acknowledgement that it often takes 6 – 12 months to really get to know what someone is like. And that may be someone you see at work for 38 hours per week. So love bombing is not about how deeply or strongly attracted or connected we feel about someone, it is about expressing it at times that may be seen as too soon or early enough to really have had the opportunity to allow the connection and knowledge of one another unfold over time. This is a very important point. It is not that we cannot feel strongly at an early stage or feel head over heels. But it’s about whether expressing that or showing it so early on in the relationship leads to someone feeling so bombarded with affection and pursuit that we don’t quite feel that we have had time to really get to DECIDE about the other person. And once we also allow another process called cognitive confirmation bias to occur we are truly hooked. We are likely to assign positive attributes and virtues to someone who values us and thinks highly of us. In any relationship, this can mean that you are likely to start seeing this person through rose coloured glasses. They are openly loving and pursuing you the way you have always dreamt about and so now you will start to see them as the kind of PERSON you have always dreamt about. It gives permission for your emotional attachment system to activate before you have truly gotten to know this person. 

This is where the red flag is. Usually, this person is not really that interested in getting to know you or you getting to know them. They are probably in love with the idea of falling in love and the romance of it all but often, those who have been love bombed will often tell you – Once you have fully committed to these partners they can become withdrawn, they can begin to criticise you, or devalue you and you can then spend the entirety of the relationship attempting to get these same people who made you feel that you could never do any wrong, to see you as the good and decent person that you are. You may begin to work harder and harder at being the person they admired so much when they first met you (only to be met with shorter and shorter bursts of love bombing or idealisation only to be followed with increasingly longer and more disparaging criticism and devaluation). 

So the love bombing not only gets you to fall in love with someone prior to them showing you who they are over time, but then also gets a partner who ends up working harder and harder to gain the very praise they so generously gave you at the beginning of the relationship (by simply taking it away). It’s a win-win.

The last time a man love bombed me he said I was a unicorn. I laughed and said I know I am. But you don’t know I am yet. Because “you don’t know me”, And that was shut down immediately.

HOW CAN WE TELL THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GENUINE AFFECTION AND LOVE BOMBING?

Genuine affection and love is shown over time. It doesn’t have to be grand gestures. In fact, most acts of love are simple gestures that ease you, comfort you and make your life happier, easier and more full. 

Love bombing feels like riding a rollercoaster. It feels too fast, dangerous and all consuming. It is hard to think of anything else or focus on all the other things in your life. It’s as if the relationship becomes the only thing you want to give to or receive from. This type of obsessiveness usually is a signpost of a relationship that is built from need, anxiety and insecurity. Both sides are being fueled by fear. One side is fearful that allowing the pace to be “normal” and that you reveal your feelings over time, at a normal reciprocated pace that the other person will not return their love. There is usually a deep seated fear of rejection and abandonment which leads to love bombing (which is a part of the coercive control family). 

The love bombed fears losing the affection of someone who appears to be loving them and wanting them in a way that they have secretly wished for all their lives. Especially if you have had dating disappointments (it can feel like all your prayers have been answered)! Our fear of not finding love, of staying single and of being unworthy makes us move faster than what we normally would and hang up any of our normal safety breaks so we dive deep into something that we think is genuine (but all too often turns out to be just veneer).

How do we know that this love we’re being showered is not actually genuine affection? It feels unfair to question it! Well, love bombing feels almost too good to be true. Perhaps your friends have warned you to be careful and not to fall too hard too fast, or family members are wary of your new beau (for what seems like no reason at all). The key difference is that love bombing is fast, pressured and conditional (especially if you don’t comply), whereas real love (ahem genuine affection) grows gradually, respects boundaries, and is rooted in mutual understanding. Real love earns trust through consistency – showing up when you need it, respecting your privacy and keeping promises. Love bombers demand instant trust (usually when you barely know them) and expect all the bonds of a long-term relationship within just a couple of dates.

The important thing to know is that love bombing isn’t always intentional – it often stems from deep insecurity or attachment issues. Fear of abandonment can also be at play, or unresolved trauma (where love bombing feels normal to them). Yet regardless of motive, it’s a form of emotional manipulation that can erode your sense of self over time.

SUSPECT YOU’RE BEING LOVE BOMBED?

If you’re reading this worried that you might be stuck in the middle of some very real love bombing, we need to look at insecurity, prior dating history and core beliefs.

Examine any deep seated fears and insecurities you may have about yourself. The more confident we are, the more self worth and healthy self esteem we have and the less vulnerable or “needy” we are of attention, compliments, grand gestures or confessions of love. The healthier our confidence and self esteem, we tend to even start to feel repelled by this level of “chasing”. So before we begin to date again, we should identify some of our underlying beliefs about love and relationships as well. Have we romanticised the getting-to-know-you phase of a connection? Do we secretly long for being love bombed (but with a healthy guy this time- lol) or these types of passionate relationships. I always say that we should hope for intense passion and connection, but the type that is still there in 10 years time, not one that disappears ten months into the relationship.

Below are some questions you can ask yourself to determine what you’re dealing with:

·           Are things moving faster than I’m comfortable with?

·           Is their affection overwhelming or suffocating?

·           Do I feel pressured to commit or reciprocate their intensity?

·           Am I losing touch with family or friends in order to meet the demands of their time?

·           Do they react angrily when I say no or ask for space?

·           Do they monitor my whereabouts or social media activity?

If you answered yes to some or all of the above questions, time to start really monitoring how this relationship is playing out. If you haven’t yet tried to set any boundaries with your partner, then see how things go if you put some in place. Talk to friends or family members about what they think, and if you’re concerned, consider talking to a professional like a psychologist who can help you determine what you’re truly dealing with.

Dr. Maria-Elena Lukeides is a highly experienced clinical psychologist based in Sydney, with over 25 years of expertise in the field of psychology. She is the founder of counselling clinics in Paddington and Clovelly that specialise in treating a wide range of psychological issues, including anxiety, depression, trauma, and PTSD. Find out more at www.drmariaelenalukeides.com.au or follow her on Instagram at  www.instagram.com/drmariaelena_lukeides