Love Bombing

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Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to YNA mental health. This is Cheyenne, joined here in the Waianae studio by my co host, Brandon Sina. And will today we're going to be covering the topic of love bombing. Sina, tell us a little bit about love bombing.
So the phrase love bombing comes from a recruitment technique used by cults. The term came about in the 1970s and 80s, reportedly coined by the Unification Church, a controversial religious movement in which missionaries from Japan and South Korea were sent to the United States by the church founders. So they use this to bring you a part of the cult they would try to find different methods and techniques and now will will tell us what is love bombing?
Yeah, no, nothing against cults or anything like very cold. That's fine. Don't let us judge you.
I don't know. Okay, well,
so love bombing is a toxic and manipulative behavior by Constant Contact, nonstop attention, and grand Jen's gestures early in a relationship. It's pretty much just a manipulation technique often used by narcissists to overwhelm their victim with romantic gestures designed to make you feel more than simply flattered, right. And that's from psychology. today.com. The one thing that I think is important to say before we really get into it is like, what's the intent behind the decisions that people make towards you in like a relationship. And again, this can be we're going to talk I think more about like, love relationships. But you know, this could be like a friendship, or relationship with a family member, like, it could be anything. How I kind of see it is love bombing has a few different kinds of categories, you can go down. There's love bombing, you know, on purpose, but with malicious intent. So you know, you are actively trying to, like, get in this person's head. And we'll talk further about what that kind of means, but you're doing it with malicious intent. And then second, you're doing it on purpose, but you don't mean to do it in a malicious way. And then thirdly, you don't even know you're doing it, but you are love bombing. So you know, anything you hear, I don't want people to like hear this. And then they're like, oh, shit on the love bomb, or like, Holy fuck, I'm messed up, you know, you know, like, don't, don't don't like feel bad about it. But like, be aware. And what's kind of talking about the conversations you can kind of have with somebody and how you respond to those conversations? To see like, you know, are you doing it in a malicious way? Because I don't know maybe you're doing it in a malicious way and you don't even know maybe you're not doing it? Maybe you aren't doing it but you don't know you're doing you know, I'm saying
it's really funny. He said that because when we all for it got together and we kind of brought our notes together and research to figure out like, what is love bombing? Three of us said that we might have been right, like, in mind.
That was the importance of those categories. Right? It's like, I didn't know I was doing it, but I don't know. Maybe I wasn't doing it shit.
Yeah. So if you're listening to this, and you feel like wait, maybe I am a love bomber. What Will said was really important was what was the focus of your intent? Because that's where it seems like we draw the line of it to become a malicious activity or manipulation technique to really gain the kind of brainwash somebody to really love you. So
oh, wait, before you go, a good test with if you're a love bomber, not maliciously, is how you respond to this podcast. When you heard Hey, you might be a love bomber, or you hear something that you do might make you a love bomber? Do you say? No, that's not true. Or do you think about it, you know?
And do feel as if you might be a love bomber? Send us an example or DM us on Instagram at Waianae mental health to share your story about why you might be a love bomber. While you might have been loved bombed, so that we can kind of get a cool grasp and that we might be able to share your story in later episodes as
well. So yeah, we're certified.
The biggest motives of love bombing, and we split it up into four kind of important topics that we're kind of jump into. So the first one is family culture of affection, expressiveness. And so in a lot of cultures in diversities, giving gifts, and being affectionate is very normal. So I come from a Persian background or Iranian background, and in our culture, being very affectionate and gift giving is very normal. It's something that we personally feel As if it's a sign of expressing yourself on how much you care and love about somebody. So I didn't think I was a love bomber until I looked back into my background. And I realized, Wait, maybe I am a love bomber simply just because of the culture that I come from. You know, it seems like it's normal, but it might not be actually a very good thing to be doing. Does anybody else have anything that they come back from their culture, their families, or something that they saw maybe that they're like, wait a second, I could have been loved bombing, because of my family that kind of showed me this
will see is that love bombing? You know, because like, like to you that's not love. Like, you wouldn't take that as love bombing, but to someone else who I don't know how to, you know, I don't know what culture would be but just more of like a disconnected family maybe right. And they don't get gifts often. So they might see that as love bombing. You. I think like communication is just a big thing. Like here because to you it's not
right. And I think the one thing we were trying to jump off of it was like, how quickly does it happen? It seems like love bombing happens, like right away, first date, gifts, things are being expressed to you right away. In my culture, it's, you're not giving gifts right away. You're just showing a lot of affection and showing a lot of love for the person because love is very important in the Iranian culture. And so when it comes to things like that, I think, again, where we're going to show people's, what is the intent? What is your focus? What do you want to do? When you love bomb somebody at the end of it? Like, what are some things that you say to yourself, what are some things things that they say to you, and it's really important. So this is something that you might find a way to respond to, if you're being loved bombed by somebody who has like a family culture. And this is telling them that that's so much attended is not something that you're accustomed to, and it makes you uneasy, or it's just not how you generally approach a relationship. If they're not intent on manipulating you than they should be able to stop the behavior and give the relationship more time to develop. So it kind of gets thrown back into your ball of like self awareness, and kind of understanding how quickly the relationship is moving.
Oh my god, do you okay, sorry, my brain is going down a river and I just hit a rock and I wanted to touch the rock. So I'm going this way. Please do it. I just remembered in high school. I totally remembered I dated this girl for like two weeks, that literally from day one. I started calling her like beautiful. And I told her that every single day, like every second of every day, and she had a conversation she was like, like, I don't like like, it makes me feel uneasy that like, you're telling me this? You know, we're in high school. I don't fucking know, like, and I kept doing it. And then like, obviously, we broke up like a week later. It was like, yeah, what happened? She told me I was dude, I was love bombing?
Yeah, well, I think that when you're in like middle school, high school, or just growing up, I think it's okay to be naive to these things. Because you live and learn, you know, you go through relationships, but like the, at the point where this really hits it, where you should probably stop doing is when you, you know, get away from college, start becoming an adult, start having these genuine relationships with people it's like, at some point, you got to learn. And that, you know, that's what we're here to do. We're here to help you learn help you realize the intent behind the gift giving and you know whether or not what your actual intentions are to this person.
And so it jumps into the next motive. A lot of people who love bomb are lonely, and they desire for a close relationship to develop quickly, this is something I've had an issue with is, I get very excited in the beginning of our relationship that like I start imagining about, like, where these things can go where our relationship can head and how I can make this person fall in love with me so quickly. So I've definitely had some kind of issues with this is where I jump in so quickly that it's just like you go from being on a diving board straight into the deep end of the water. And you're just gift giving affection it just like you said, well, like it was like something that I continuously did. Because I haven't had something like that special in a really long time. So I definitely see myself seeing those kinds of issues. And of course, as everybody, we got to adapt, we got to learn, we got to be better. And now I don't do those kinds of things. I don't jump into the deep end, you just kind of dip your feet into the water and kind of get an understanding of where the relationship is.
A big part of that, too, is like that loneliness thing is more like the happiness Right? Like if you're not. And I'm sure people have heard this before, but you want to be be happy to be by yourself. You know, like, you don't want to have that person around 100% of the time. I mean, you might want to but like, Can you are you capable of being happy on your own? Right? Because you don't want that other person to be the 100% reason for your happiness. Like you want to be able to, you know, their happiness, the happiness that they give you should just be an addition to yours. It shouldn't be the purpose of your happiness.
Yeah, definitely. I think that self awareness and self love can can really help you get away from the love bombing tendencies. Because I feel like when you grow up and you first start loving somebody, it's not like, everybody's read the rule book on love how to treat other people, you know, it's a learning process. So, I mean, of course, I feel like maybe like 99% of everybody around the world when they've gotten in a relationship they've loved bombed at first.
Yeah. And there's no like rulebook to love exact, there's no like someone giving you rules. And this is how you do it. This is the guy and I feel like everybody loves differently, everybody finds their person differently. And I think that different people bring a different energy out of you. That just plays a really important part of the relationship and how you kind of adjust to not throwing so much affection at them and throwing so many gifts at them that you got to take it slow, you got to take it at their level of comfort. So
actually, here's a question go live if both people are like that, is it love bombing?
That's a good question actually.
Depends because, like, if you, let's say you're growing up, and this is mostly about like, give gift giving, and like showering somebody with compliments, I think it all comes down to whether or not you expect that person to do the same thing in return for you. Like, whether it's giving the gifts or to compliment you, it's a nice thing to do. But once you start expecting, or you you have the intent of doing this love bombing in order to get it back, so you feel better about yourself or to have control over the other person, then that's when it would be both you love bombing whether or not you you both are doing the same thing. It just all comes down to the intent. It doesn't matter if it's both of you.
What happens if you try to manipulate each other like what happens if you meet somebody who's just you know,
aside thing time is gonna say then you two are the perfect pair you two were meant for each other just go off and have actually Robert relationship, I want nothing to do with
this. Statistically speaking, your significant other is at the highest percent most likely to murder you. Not that, you know, it's going to happen. But it's a nice, your significant other is the most likely one to murder you. Maybe it's just higher if you're both mean, manipulating each other.
And this is where communication plays an extremely important part in your relationship. I think just expressing how you feel, even if it's a first date, even if you're about to go on a first date, communicate, figure out what's comfortable for you don't just be like, Oh, this is okay, I'm okay with this, because it can lead down a very, very dark road.
That is such a true thing. I have learned that and that is great communication is so fucking nice. But it really it is hard. But like, it's only hard when the other person is not like receptive of that right? Or, you know, like when you've just like we said, like you go through life and you learn, right, but then eventually, like, both of you guys can be like, not that especially in the beginning, it's hard to say like what you feel because you don't want to like lose the other person like you're working on something, of course, but you know, how it how they respond, you like base your decisions on so maybe something right away, you don't get into right. And as it progresses down the I don't know relationship Rainbow Road, you start giving out more yourself, you know, like somebody you're dating for a month versus somebody you're dating for a year is completely different than what you talk about how you approach situations. You know,
I also feel like it's really easy to scare somebody away these days. So you don't want to like jump right into like saying, I love you or you're beautiful. I have a friend who actually kind of does that where they've been dating for about two weeks. And He already said I love you to the person. Wow. It's just like there's, there's levels to it. And taking it slow is really important. But at the same time communicating with your partner and figuring out what they're comfortable with is by far one of the hardest things to do but at the same time, it will truly create a beautiful relationship for you if you can kind of figure out the details in the beginning.
Here's another fact for you. I don't remember where I read this from it was from like a psychology journal. And it couldn't be were doing doing research for this one Psychology Today. So going slow in a relationship will lead to more success. Okay, right like that. That's I don't know how they say scientifically proven, but based on their research, they've come to the conclusion that the slower relationship builds and is able to still be a relationship and develop into a relationship. The longer that relationship or the more chance of success that relationship will have right and you kind of think about it like if you're especially in college like you go to college you meet a girl you you have sexual tendencies for the right after week one and then like a month later, you already bored like what comes after that, right? Yeah, you might not even be comfortable talking about like, I don't know, feelings or emotions. with them or how you feel towards that person, but you've already like done, like, the dirty, like, where do you go from there? You know? Like, do you have to talk about anything else do you? Where does that go so I can see like, why and even in my own life, I can see why going slower in a relationship is so much better and it's but it is hard You are right, it is hard.
So this kind of jumps into the next motive, which is desire to keep you on hold, while they decide whether they want a lasting relationship with you. They are motivation is to find a way to secure and keep the relationship stable, but are hesitant about being vulnerable with you and their emotions, which this is something that a lot of guys do is they keep something on hold until something better comes along, and then they kind of just move along move their tendencies that way, which has become a very big issue today in this relationship world. But let me ask you, Brandon, while you're trying to understand love bombing, have you ever just been wanting to keep in a lasting relationship, but it's been it's been such a struggle for
you, you know, I can say my past 100% Um, there has been times where like, you kind of do want the relationship to last forever. And in fact of holding on and trying to make it happen. You know, I feel like you kind of love bombing your own self in a way if that makes sense. Because you have the idea in your head that you don't want this to end you know, this is your, your everything. This is kind of like what you want for your life to be with this person this and that. So I feel like yes, you can love bomb someone else. But you can also love bomb your own self with a false ideas that you think this will work this will happen. So I feel like when you go to the part of trying to keep someone for whatever reason, I feel like that at that point you have to know are you know it you're actively holding on to that person with malicious intent because you're trying every way to keep that person or just stringing them along. While they think that all these man cares about me or this girl cares about me. Both sides know 100% for a fact that you are looking for something better, without telling them that like in your mind, you will not tell the person of course, but like you will know that you get bored of the person or you're kind of being shady in your own thoughts and okay, like this person, I had enough for this person for their keys, whatever the reason may be so yeah, you could love bomb your own self. And you can also bomb someone else.
Let me jump off what you just said, which was really important where you come from a family where you might not feel that affection or you might not feel that love. Love bombers look for people like that. They people love bombers who have intent of manipulating you look for people who are in broken families, broken relationships with their friends, who aren't given a lot of affection, who aren't given a lot of love. And it's so much easier for them to prey on you. Because it's easy to be like, I'm gonna give you all this affection and love. And you've never felt that before. So everything that they've been missing. Exactly. And now you're like, and how are you going to break that up with somebody when you're just like, this is the first time I'm feeling something like this. This is the first time anybody's given me this kind of affection and love. How, how do you? How do you get out of that, and then go back to your broken family, go back to your friends who don't give you that kind of sort of love that you're allowing the other partner to give you so it makes it even harder for you to leave the relationship? Yeah.
Do you think that they do look for those people specifically? Or do you think that they look for everybody, right? Because if you're if you're not, if you're like, say, take that example, again, from a broken family, if you're not from a broken family, you see that where you might think like, oh, i Hey, I have these other support avenues of people that I can go to you talk it out, okay, they break up. Now, the reason we see people like this with people who come from, like broken families is because they don't have that, you know, like, do you think they target everybody? Like my question is, everybody I think should be like aware of this. It's not just oh, the people from broken families are the people who are more obviously the people who are more capable of being a victim to this should watch out too. But I still think people who love bomb with intent and malicious intent would target anybody. It's not just like they go out and look like oh, yeah, that girl doesn't have a dad I'm gonna go get her or hey that guy.
I would say that the people who have been missing that affection from their lives those are the easiest people to kind of be attacked by this form of manipulation and control from from somebody.
I'll give you an example. A lion looks for a gazelle that's wounded looks for a prey that is easy targets and it's not going to I don't believe like a love bomber and goes and like see somebody in the crowd. It's like, I know that person has that was a horrible relationship with the family. But I think they bait them. You know, they throw the throw lower into the water and they wait to see what bites and they just wait so I
think they use like special word or Special Tactics is To separate which people are strong, which people are weak,
I don't think they use special tactics or anything. I think they listen. And they've tried to like poke at certain things like, how is your family? How's your relationship with your family? How? And like, on a first date? That's not a uncommon question to ask about, like, how's your relationship with your mom and dad, how's look, it's like, boom, I don't have a great relationship with my mom and dad. And it's this and it's been pretty broken. I think they look for certain words enhance to be like, boom, this is wounded Gizelle.
And they might, they might not even be doing it necessarily on purpose. That way, it's just like, that just happens to work out. Yeah, like, exactly. So like, anybody could be a victim. But just like, I like your analogy. It's just Yeah, throw the hook out there. And, you know, see what bites
see what bites Yeah. And it's, it's definitely a lot harder for the love bombing to be kind of brought into light in those type of dynamics and those relationships
that because those questions, it communication is not going to be that great, right? It's good. They're going to be very evasive of those questions. Oh, yeah. Already, without having a support stream of your own, or for the, quote unquote, victim? You know, it's like that, who do they talk about? of it, you know, it's just kind of like shrugged off.
Exactly. And with broken people, sometimes it's so much easier to, I wouldn't say like, walk in and learn all about them. But when, like with broken people, when you're in like a loving, romantic moment, your your walls start to go down, you start opening up more, you'd be vulnerable. And that's what that's what a love farmer looks for his vulnerability. The second, and I don't want to come out and tell everybody, don't go on relationships. Like don't be vulnerable with people like be vulnerable, but be understanding at the same time and take it slow, you don't have to go straight into talking about how your family is how this is. See how the data is going. See if there's any signs if there's a little bit of too much affection, too much love in the beginning, we're just trying to teach you and tell you about what we've read and what research to make sure that you look out for these signs. So it doesn't happen to you,
right. And again, intent being, you know, the most important thing,
exactly intent is 100%, the thing you want to look out for.
And so this jumps into the perfect last motive, desire to manipulate, influence or take advantage of you, it tends to occur in three phases with the showering of attention and gifts being the first phase, also called idealizing. The phases followed by devaluing in which the receiver is ignored or otherwise punished for not responding to the attention as hoped by the love bomber. A third phrase is eventually the discarding of the receiver who is no longer serving the needs of the love bomber.
You know what that what you just said? Relationships. So you know, how you see relationships, when people are on and off a lot. Either they break up, they're back together, like let's say, a week later, this neck keeps on happening. I feel like well, not I feel like I do know that it's a perfect example of love bombing. Because every single knows people are like, you know, they break up and then the person wants the person back.
So So basically, what you're saying is that, because like they want is especially like in the case where somebody wants to get back with another person. This is where this could also come into light to the love bombing. Because you know, the intent is that you want to get back to them. So like you're you start to overcompensate, you start to shower them with gifts, you start to like give them even more affection. But in the end, the intent is almost for selfish reasons. Like you need to be with this person, rather than like, okay, like, I've changed my ways, let me be nice to this person. Because the thing that you expect in return from that is ultimately to have to continue the relationship with them. And to kind of bring them back into your circle and have that control where they're like, Okay, I'm with this person. And I like you initiated that.
Yeah. And then they over affection them so much to the point where they go back to the old self, again, this class, maybe like a week or two are saying, I'll be better, I'll change and I'm pretty sure a lot of women have heard that so many times, oh, he's gonna be better this time. This next one's good for two weeks, and then boom, it's back to the same routine all over again. But this time, the pain that they're going to do is even worse and worse, because they're going to feel to themselves and be like, oh, like, I feel I feel dumb for actually believing what he says. And then it happens again, they break up and then they go back to get together again. It's like a continuous cycle, where the woman's mind is completely fucked. But then the male is I don't know, having some sort of like, some sort of like, I don't know, like, getting a dopamine effect getting like feeling like good about it. Like it's really weird. Yeah, it's really weird. It's really toxic. Because
with any relationship, I mean, of course, like being with another person can can make you happy. So you want to chase that feeling and not be like, where it was in the follow up. Everybody wants that honeymoon stage. You know, so it's like, you do everything you can just to get back to that stage. But then, you know, if you don't have these conversations before the honeymoon stage ends, then it's gonna be a huge drop off. It's gonna be just all gonna go all the way down to rock bottom, you know, you went from up here, all the way down here, just because you either couldn't communicate, or, you know, you had that malicious intent. And this is this is what this, this podcast episode is about kind of bringing that to light, helping people become more self aware, helping them kind of avoid these situations so that you know, it's better for your mental health, it's important for you to stay happy. So, you know, you need to catch these cycles won't be able to have those conversations to exactly, and you need to catch these things before they're at their peak, because you will, it will be a very long fall to the bottom,
especially in a relationship if there's something that bothers you. And it again, being self aware, like is that, okay? For them to be acting the way they are? And is it okay for you to be responding the way that you are? But more importantly, can you or do you feel like you were able to have a conversation with that other person without fear of, you know, being shit on I,
I definitely phrases,
I'm quote, Master,
I definitely feel like whether or not this is within your realm of comfort, if this is in your comfort zone or not, this needs to be talked about. Because in in some cases, you know, the relationship just doesn't work out the relationship isn't good for either one of you. And the thing is that you don't need to take it to these extreme measures in order for for you to get the outcome that you want. Because a lot of relationships with just natural, like they just happen. The only time that it's bad is if it's unnatural, you're forcing things, you're forcing these gifts you're forcing, kind of like this false sense of happiness for the other person. I think that's when you really need to take a look at it in whether or not it's hard to look yourself in the mirror or to face your partner asking him these tough questions. It's a conversation that definitely needs to be had.
And what our research told us was that men are more likely to love bomb than women. But at the same time, guys, if you can be loved bomb by a woman as well. And whether you're also in a different type of relationship, whether it's a man on a man or a woman with a woman, these things can still happen in your relationship. So don't just look at it as gender roles, but look at it as what's going on in your relationship or what's going on and things that you see with your partner.
Because then outside of it, even outsider ends. Yeah, family talk to
let what love bombers like to do is they like to pull you away from that kind of what is it the good voice in the back of your head, which are your friends and family. Most of the time, not all the time. But they're always looking out for you. They always want to have your back. So if you see something that's going on, and you don't want to bring it up with your partner, bring it up with your friends and family see what they have to say see if it's kind of like if they feel as if you're moving too quickly, or things are progressing way too fast. So always be able to have these conversations with yourself, but also with the people around you. And if you don't have anybody around you to have this conversation with, you're more than welcome to DM us, we are always here to have conversations with you as well. If anything's going on in your life, please feel free to DM us on when a mental health on Instagram. Just because sometimes we don't always have the perfect person to have this conversation with.
But also it'll give us more ways of looking at a situation, you know whether it's you know, even about love bombing, but anything that we talked about, feel free to reach out, because that's something we can address not using any names or anything but in a later episode is something to expand on. You know, maybe we missed something we didn't realize, you know, was such a major factor to to anybody.
Right, exactly. Feel free to DM us, hit us up with your stories. Well, if you guys have ever experienced love bombing, or if you have questions like Am I the love bomber, we're more than happy to have a conversation with you guys. We want to reach out to the community get everybody's story. And yeah, maybe we'll we'll post you on our on our Instagram or on our Facebook. We love connecting with our community. So give us your stories. And we'll be here for any advice that you guys might need.
So here's some questions you should ask yourself if their love bombing you or their or their interactions with you usually transactional, I gave you that expensive gift and now you owe me. Do they ask you for too much of your time leaving little for other friends or family? Is there pressure to move the entire relationship along too quickly for your comfort? If you deny any of the requests, this is very important is that attention phase quickly followed by the devaluing phase which jumps into the love bombing cycle which is first you get love bombed, then they devalue you. Then they discard you. And then there's actually a fourth one that says hoovering. And what hoovering is is hoovering involves various manipulative tactics to stay close to this Reviver random I know you had a good example. Do you remember your example?