What is the psycological term ‘Love Bombing’?
In: 526
Flattery used for manipulation.
It’s not *just* flattery: aka being kind and sweet and excessively loving to an individual, because you like them. And it’s not *just* being romantic.
People can try to use flattery or big gifts and have it not be received well, but that’s not the same as love-bombing.
Love-bombing is when excessive flattery/kind gestures are used as a tool to make a negative thing seem ‘justified’ or ‘not that big a deal’.
For instance, if someone was excessively doting and sweet and caring, giving you treats and compliments and so on for 2 weeks… and then you find out that they cheated on you 2 weeks ago, then their past behavior was probably love-bombing: trying to make you see them in a positive light, so you’d be more lenient or forgive other bad behavior.
It can also done when the person plans to be cruel in the future, so they use flattery to butter you up ahead of time with kindness, so you will trust them more and won’t be on-guard for the turnabout, AND so you will ‘owe’ them your gratitude and mercy/forgiveness.
A common example of love-bombing is “Huge romantic gestures early in a relationship, as a way to ‘lock in’ the other person so they feel like they *can’t* leave, because they feel they ‘owe’ you.’ <— It’s the same mentality as taking someone on a date at a very expensive restaurant, and then feeling like they owe you sex, because you paid this huge amount to take them out.
In love-bombing, instead of a straight ‘I paid money so you should owe me’ – it’s ‘I did these huge time-consuming and thoughtful gestures, so you should owe me.’
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