Romance and relationships are a big part of our worldly culture – the desire to have companionship through the rest of our lives is universal. Love is supposed to be a two-way street, but when mixing dangerous manipulation tactics, can we even call it that? With ideologies and ideas changing, how can we as a society protect ourselves from manipulation when it’s being fed into our love lives? Love bombing as a concept has become too normalized in romance, and will not only damage ourselves, but the concept of romantic relationships as a whole.
It’s a risk to trust just anyone’s word, for if someone feels personally attacked, they can lie and bend the truth into saying they are a victim, creating labels and allegations that can haunt someone else forever in the process. Jessica Bennett had started writing about Caleb, a manipulative womanizer who used love bombing to attract multiple girls into dating him, in a New York Times opinion essay If Everything Is ‘Trauma,’ Is Anything?. Bennett writes, “There are plenty of words to describe somebody like Caleb: deceitful, manipulative, inconsiderate, liar. There is in fact a word, one we can’t print here, created entirely for men like this. But in the souped-up language of today, none of those words seem like enough. ‘All pain is “harm.” All “harm” is “trauma.” All “trauma” comes from someone who is an “abuser,”’ said Natalie Wynn, a philosopher turned popular YouTube personality. ‘It’s as if people can’t articulate disagreement or hardships without using this language.’ And so, Caleb became a “predator.”’
Going off of Bennett’s essay on Caleb, love-bombing can be a harmful form of emotional abuse, but has been stereotyped into being the ideal romance. Love-bombing is showering someone with gifts, approval and lots of love only to rip it from under their feet. According to Respect Victoria, “because emotional and psychological abuse doesn’t leave physical scars, the abuser has the power to make it an environment of fear, control and submission.” However, people today are saying that they want that idea of romance, to be spoiled by someone and showered with lots of affection. It hides the true danger of love-bombing, and makes the dangerous manipulation tactic look like a novel-based rom-com plot. Instead of making it seem like the dream relationship, the dangers of love-bombing, as well as other dangerous manipulation tactics such as peer pressure, should be made more aware and not turned into the ideal love story. Romance is supposed to be healthy that both parties consent too, not a one sided dependency that borders on an unhealthy relationship.
While romance is supposed to be a committed take on companionship, it’s become significantly dangerous when adding the component of manipulation. What love-bombing is is not a stable relationship, but a relationship based on preying on insecurities and changing to be your partner’s ideal. We should want our partners to love us for who we are, and not have malicious intentions or desire to change us. Love-bombing shouldn’t be romanticized, and instead should be something that is warned about and something everyone is aware of. Then, instead of craving the relationship that can destroy us from within, we can help the people who crave our freedom and self-confidence.
Editors’ Note: The ideas expressed herein are the sole opinions of the writer, not of The Lance as a publication.