BENGALURU: Have you heard of Love Bombing? It is when a person appears in your life quite suddenly, claims you are The One they have been searching for all these days, and then proceeds to not just shower you with attention, affection and even gifts, but flood you with such things to the extent that you are quite literally shocked into paying full attention to them. It can seem quite unbelievable at first, and as it proceeds for days and weeks on end, it can start to feel really very special, and the disbelief you first felt can change into a grudging acceptance that might just turn into full-on capitulation. The kind of attention one gets when being love bombed can be quite something — everything one is, everything one does, and every word one utters is met with utter delight. It is a really heady feeling.
Thing is, love bombers are, more often than not, in it for themselves and not the object of their current fascination. At best, it is like a sudden downpour that might just be too much to take, but at its worst, it can be a masterful manipulative strategy to win over someone only to then proceed to dismantle the person’s self-esteem till they are nothing but an object in service of them. It can start with seemingly simple requests of the type, “You are everything for me, can you just pay a little attention to the clothes you are wearing? I don’t want everyone eyeing my special person!” It can then become quite angry, upset and controlling, wanting to know what you are doing every minute and changing your friends’ circle and support system by telling you they don’t like person A or B because, “They don’t treat you right,” or “They are not honourable in their intentions,” or even, “They hate me, and if you like me, you can’t like them.” At its worst, love bombing is only the start of a deeply manipulative and abusive relationship.
In an attention-starved culture like most Asian cultures are, people who are not raised to value themselves, their attractiveness and are not experienced in the inter-personal skills that it takes to form healthy relationships, love bombing can be hard to resist. A young person, who has been controlled and restricted by their family of origin, never meeting other people for fear of romantic entanglement that might hurt family pride, might get carried away by such intense wooing.
Till our society evolves to a space where such vulnerabilities can be rooted out through strong social skills development that helps young people have a grounded sense of self and develop the skills to negotiate relationships, any of us can be vulnerable. All we can do is to watch out for it, beware of sudden intense attention and ask the person to back off. If they can moderate themselves, maybe there’s something to it. If not, call out the love bombing and just get far away from such people.
Mahesh Natarajan