[IF ONLY ONE PERSON IS EMPOWERED BY THIS BLOG THEN IT WAS WORTH WRITING]
The last time I had dated was the year 1992. I was in my mid 20s when I met the man I would spend the next 24 years with, 20 of those married. Fast forward to 2015, dating had changed. Dating now is all orchestrated out in cyberspace on dating sites with endless possibilities for good and really bad outcomes. In hindsight, I was naive and starving for affection. Just as you shouldn’t go buy food at a grocery store when you’re starving, you shouldn’t be on a dating site desperate for love. Always learn to love yourself first as cliche as that sounds. Learn to know yourself, to value yourself, and to be comfortable on your own.
The buzz word is “lovebombing“. Dating sites are riddled with love bombers. Please note, “love bombers“ has no gender attached because woman, as well as men are versed in the art of extreme flattery to manipulate others while working towards getting their own selfish needs met with no regard to the emotional lasting damage this behavior causes others. Those who seemed the most convincing and sincere, often describing themselves as being victims in a relationship, turned out to be the most vile kind of human beings with definite narcissistic traits. They feed into your own needs and desires by creating this dreamy unrealistic ”fantasy” relationship.
Once you buy into the idea of being that “special someone“, phase two begins. Phase two is called “gaslighting“. The love bombed believer opens up and is now interested in moving the relationship to the next level. But wait! What relationship, says the love bomber. Questions remain permanently unanswered. Or suddenly the bomber who can’t get away to see YOU (the soulmate) is out fishing or on vacation without so much as a text message, after bombarding you with text messages daily for several weeks. And never ever, get tangled up with someone who is still in a relationship, no matter how much of a victim the love bomber portrays to be, even if the person is potentially dying of cancer and has never felt loved. You get the picture. If a situation gives you that sudden gut punch or you question your own sanity, you have been the victim of gaslighting. The time has come to run and never ever look back.
Not all flattery is lovebombing. Lovebombing is when your instincts tell you something is too good to be true because it usually is.
THE NUMBER ONE THING TO REMEMBER to distinguish a narcissistic love bomber from the real thing: actions speak louder than words
Believe what you see not what you hear.
No visor does become black villainy
so well as soft and tender flattery.
Shakespeare
He does me double wrong that wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.
Shakespeare
Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
Abraham Lincoln
I hate careless flattery, the kind that
exhausts you in your efforts to
believe it.
Wilson Mizner
Flattery in courtship is the highest
insolence, for whilst it pretends to bestow on you more than you deserve, it is watching an opportunity to take from you what you really have. Sarah Fielding
“The word ‘lovebombing’ originated from a cult which wanted to recruit people to exploit and prey on. It applies to narcissism because the parallels were uncanny to observers. Basically lovebombing is bombing and not love, which is a form of emotional oppression or suppression, a strategy of carpet bombing you into positive emotional submission through oppressing and suppressing your agency. A project to transform you into their newest putty toy. No one who values you as you would do that. It is a red flag when you are erased and suppressed, whether it happens positively or negatively. Either way, your personhood suffers.”
.......an honest evaluation! Personally, I am glad that I grew up in a different time period..... no love bombing, no gas-lighting no cyber space. I enjoyed genuine personal contacts, dancing and meeting real people...... the girl I met in a swimming pool park, back in 1963 stayed with me until 10 Dec 1998.