“He spoke to me as if we were a lifelong couple and we had not even seen each other. I didn’t see the red flags”, explains Neus Vich Sendra, 26, to La Vanguardia. She lived in first person what is known as “love bombing” or, in English, ‘love bombing’. Although the passage of time and her therapy helped her see things clearly, at the time she was unable to identify what was happening.
For many people, the illusion of the beginning can cause the ‘red flags’ to become diffuse. According to a survey carried out in June of this year by the dating app Bumble among a thousand men and women between the ages of 18 and 50 in Spain, one in three (33%) Spaniards fails to identify the “red flags” in their appointments. and relationships. Ana Lombardía, psychologist and sexologist at Bumble, explains that “‘love bombing’ can be difficult to identify, since it can be confused with the initial crush, in which we want to be with our partner for a long time and the signs of love are almost constant ”.
How can we recognize ‘love bombing’? “Love bombing is the ‘love bombing’ that can occur in some cases at the beginning of a relationship. It is an overdose of messages and insistent, repeated and obsessive displays of excessive love, which can easily be confused with the effects of falling in love”, explains the psychologist Silvia Congost and adds: “Initially, you receive messages at all hours, long calls and plans for the future that go beyond what would be normal and coherent at that point in the relationship in which we still do not know each other well.
“Receiving messages throughout the day, gifts without coming to mind, wanting to be by your side 24 hours a day, uninterrupted compliments… are some of the signs of this practice of manipulation,” says Ana Lombardía and adds: “These signs of love they are exaggerated, out of context and very early. They can overwhelm the person and skew their perception, causing them to ignore warning signs. That constant contact, which may seem romantic, is actually an attempt not to leave time outside of the relationship to reflect on it.
For the relational psychologist and professor at the UOC Enric Soler, ‘love bombing’ “can be identified in its intensity and speed. The gestures of affection are going to be very exaggerated and disproportionate. When we see that someone is idealizing us too much and too quickly, we can already begin to suspect because after a great idealization comes a great fall.
Neus Vich Sendra was on vacation with a friend when she received a message from a boy on Instagram. “He was super nice and polite. I told him that he was traveling but when he got back we could meet up. We started talking all day, he was super interested in hearing from me. I loved the truth, ”he recalls.
When they finally met, everything moved too fast. “Within ten days, he introduced me to his parents and her friends,” she says, adding, “The first day, I came home with a smile. He treated me very well. We shook hands. He wanted the same thing as me, to have children and a little house. He told me super nice things. We started hanging out every day and I slept with him a couple of times.” Everything was going well -or too well- until one day he stopped talking to her. “One day we saw each other, we kissed and he never appeared again. You feel like you know someone and suddenly you don’t see them again, ”she points out.
Some time later, he told her that he “needed to slow down” and that talking so much had overwhelmed him. “This whole situation made me feel really bad, like I wasn’t enough. He immediately started hanging out with other girls and my self-esteem dropped a lot. He was eating my head thinking ‘What if he hadn’t said or done such a thing…?’. These things weigh heavily and it takes you a long time to realize that you are not to blame,” says Neus.
This bombardment of love is usually accompanied by what is known as ‘ghosting’, which is when a person cuts off all contact and communication suddenly and without giving explanations. It disappears, like a ghost. A practice that, according to the Bumble survey, four out of ten Spaniards have experienced and two out of ten admit to having done it.
“The problem and the main characteristic of ‘love bombing’ is that one day it goes from everything to nothing. Suddenly, that person stops showing the same level of interest, dedication and desire, causing many doubts and insecurities in those who receive this change”, indicates Silvia Congost.
“These exaggerated displays of love can be accompanied by sudden and unjustified withdrawals of attention,” agrees Ana Lombardía, adding: “Suddenly he stops responding to messages, he seems colder and more distant, he seems to be busy to meet up. All of this is for the purpose of manipulation. The illusion of love that they create can be tremendously attractive and difficult to reject, and sudden displays of disinterest serve to instill fear of losing that beautiful thing that we are experiencing and force us to ‘work’ to maintain the relationship.
But why are there people who have this type of behavior? “I think it was his way of making girls fall in love,” says Neus Vich Sendra. The psychologist Enric Soler indicates that this practice is more common than it may seem. “People with narcissistic tendencies tend to have a very low self-esteem and it is as if they went through life looking for others who serve as mirrors in which they can gauge their self-esteem. ‘Love bombing’ is one way to do it”, says the psychologist and explains that: “They manipulate the other person until they get them to drop their guard, trust and surrender. That surrender makes you feel powerful. It is as if he were saying to himself: ‘I already have this person hooked, therefore, I am worth a lot.
Once that other person has fulfilled his role as a “mirror” -indicates the expert-, he becomes disposable. “Sometimes they don’t even realize they’ve been used. They understand absolutely nothing. They don’t understand how, after things have gone so well, everything has been so perfect, that person disappears and gets rid of her as if she were a tissue”, Soler explains.
“Behind this type of behavior, without a doubt, there is someone who does not care about you and has no interest in you in the long term. They are people who do not have the capacity to empathize with the damage that they can generate with their actions. They only care about their own goals and they will use anyone who is in their way to achieve them, to be admired and applauded. They tend to choose insecure, helpful, accommodating, compassionate and kind personalities, because they are easier for them to handle”, says psychologist Silvia Congost.
In addition -adds the expert-: “The worst thing is that, after disappearing or changing, it will make you feel insignificant, as if it didn’t matter to you at all, as if you had disappointed it, creating a deep wound in your self-esteem”.
Enric Soler agrees: “Love bombing affects self-esteem because this manipulation greatly increases the emotional dependence of that person. Whoever receives so many compliments can see his self-esteem distorted when he is abandoned. After such an experience, she is going to feel more vulnerable, more confused and more exposed”.
Neus Vich Sendra started therapy after going through this experience. “This was the second time I was ghosted. The fact of having had such strange relationships, where first they make you feel good and then the second they disappear ”, she says. Her current partner also helped her heal. “She made me realize that I was not valued,” she explains.
“Toxic relationships are something we can all fall into given the right circumstances. The signs can be many and very varied, to list them all”, says the psychologist and sexologist Ana Lombardía and points out: “The important thing is that we pay attention to how that relationship makes us feel, that I can maintain my individual plot and that I can feel free , wanted and accepted. If any of that fails, I have to protect myself.”
An affective relationship -says Enric Soler- “must be something that is built over a slow fire. If we see that in ten days they already want to introduce us to the parents, this would have to set off all the alarms. Just like fast food is not healthy, fast love is not either”.
