407 - Love Bombing: Is it Bullshit?
Origins of love bombing
The term “love bombing” was coined in the 1970s by the Unification Church of the United States and also used by some members of “The Family International,” a group that was criticized as an authoritarian cult that exploited children in a number of ways.
“Love bombing occurs when someone “bombs” you with extreme displays of attention and affection.”
Verywellmind.com
There are a few different definitions for love bombing, some more complex than others. Psychologist Dale Archer describes the phases of love bombing with the acronym IDD, or:
Intense idealization: Someone idealizes you very quickly, puts you on a pedestal, sweeps you off of your feet with flowers, big gestures, gifts, etc. It may feel like it’s too good to be true or happening way too quickly.
Devaluation: Partner may alternate between being very cruel and very kind. In public they shower you with affection, but in private they can exhibit abusive behaviors.
Discard: Eventually the partner may leave and move onto the next victim, only to repeat the process over again.
As far as research goes, there seems to only be one study done about love bombing, and many of the articles out there reference it. It was also done with a fairly small, non-diverse group of students, and it seems to be the case that although love bombing “has gained cultural prominence in recent years…little peer-reviewed research exists on the phenomenon specifically,” according to Psychology Today.
Love bombing and narcissism
Many, many people, including many online therapists, lump love bombing together with narcissism. However, the number of people with a diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is fairly low (anywhere from 0.05% to 6.2%), and so without taking away from the very real suffering that people go through, it’s important to remember that narcissism is extremely difficult to categorize, even for experts who study it.
It definitely is possible to have a healthy relationship with someone who love bombs you, or after a period of being love bombed, just as it’s entirely possible to have an abusive relationship with someone even if it starts out slowly and carefully. But it’s still a good idea to be able to recognize love bombing behavior and be cautious at the beginning of any relationship.
Some examples of love bombing might include:
Excessive compliments.
Buying expensive gifts or making grand gestures.
Trying to progress the relationship really quickly.
Lots of calling or texting throughout the day.
Proclamations of “you’re my soulmate” or “I could see us spending our lives together” after a very short period of time.
Conversely, some examples of more healthy courtship include:
Getting to know each other gradually.
Meaningful signs of affection to let each other know you care.
Progressing the relationship steadily and deliberately.
Checking in on each other and sending thoughtful messages to one another.
Future planning when the time feels right.
Being on the same page with one another about the progression of the relationship.
What if I’ve been love bombed?
A lot of articles we found mentioned that if you are particularly vulnerable, like a victim of past abuse or healing from a breakup, you may be more susceptible to being love bombed, but it can happen to anyone. If you’re being love bombed and it’s making you uncomfortable, consider the following:
Create space: Set some internal boundaries and stick to them. Take time away from the new person if you need to. Evaluate if the person is actually committed to honoring your boundaries and the time you need.
Take inventory of the relationship: Figure out what it is that the two of you want out of the relationship. If possible, do something together like the Relationship Anarchist Smorgasbord to determine what your relationship will and will not consist of.
Talk to an objective outsider: It can be difficult to heed the advice of loved ones (especially if it is another partner) so it might be best to talk to a therapist or get another opinion on the relationship.
Don’t dismiss red flags: If you feel like something weird is going on, trust that instinct (and the instincts of other people who are close to you).
As always, it’s ok to break up if the relationship doesn’t feel right. This goes for friends too. And with metamours! You don’t necessarily have to be good friends with them, you can instead choose to engage in a more parallel polyamory type of relationship.
Transcript
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Jase: On this episode of the Multiamory Podcast, we are talking about love bombing. Love bombing has become a hot topic in psychology and on social media and pop psychology. What exactly is love bombing? What does the research say about it and is this concept actually helpful? What does it ultimately mean for the future of the relationship if love bombing happens?
Today we're going to talk about what love bombing is, what it may feel like for the recipient, and some actionable steps to take if you feel like maybe you are being love bombed.
Emily: This is a really interesting concept that I only really heard about over the last few months for the first time. I listened to an episode of The Skinny Confidential and they had in a love bombing expert on, somebody who dealt with narcissists and who was a therapist, and really knew a lot about it and definitely made this whole thing sound really, really sinister and really, really bad. It got me thinking, "Huh? Is that the case in every circumstance when one gets love bombed?" Because I definitely feel like that has happened to me before. I feel as though I've probably done it in certain situations as well, but I don't necessarily feel the people who have done it to me or myself included, have been really sinister narcissistic people.
I just was interested to look at this a little bit further because now that I heard about it, it's come up so much around me in social media, and also people who I meet saying, "Yes, I've been love bombed and my ex is a narcissist," and things along those lines. I'm curious for the two of you how long has it been since you started hearing about this term and what is your relationship to this term?
Dedeker: Well, I wanted to start out with I guess casual definitions. We're going to get into formal definitions later, also I'm thinking about if I was put on the spot like I'm being put right now to just define love bombing, let's say. I think I started hearing about it on the internet probably maybe two or three years ago. It is, I think, a recent thing.
I don't think it's a recent phenomenon, but I think recently has been picking up steam. I guess just based on the information that I would gather by osmosis, I would define love bombing as when someone very early on in a relationship suddenly just showers you with a ton of affection and verbal praise, maybe even big gifts or big declarations about the relationship in this really intense, overwhelming way that maybe they don't actually sustain or perhaps maybe is part of a cycle of abuse where when you're finally ready to leave a relationship, then suddenly all the love bombing happens. I think that's how I would maybe define it just off the top of my head.
I think I've definitely been on the receiving end of that in both of those situations. Both in situations like more abusive relationships where that was regularly baked into the cycle as well as early on in a relationship where someone just got super, super intense really, really fast, inappropriately fast. It's definitely-- I really characterize it as leaving a very head-spinny feeling.
Jase: This is also a term that I've heard roundabout. It does seem it's getting mentioned a lot more recently, like you were saying, Emily, you've started hearing it more and more. It's interesting though because the context where I first heard about it, and so the way that it has stayed in my brain is more about that cycle of abuse type thing like Dedeker was talking about.
That part of the definition of love bomb is that it comes in this cycle of after being really nasty and putting someone down or trying to control someone, and then as soon as you get pushback, then it's the love bomb or just doing alternating cycles of that. That's the context I've heard about it. When people talk about love bombing like you were about just at the beginning of a relationship, just like getting so intense so quickly, for me at least, that's not part of how I would've defined love bombing.
To me, that's just not knowing how to handle your NRE or just getting a little too excited or just not having enough experience to be like, "Okay, yes, but I can also let this take its time," or something, whatever's going on. To me, those are two very distinct-
Emily: Types of love bombing or-
Jase: -different things.
Emily: -just maybe two different things, in general. Sure
Jase: Yes. I wouldn't call them the same thing. At least that would've been the way I would've described it coming in. I would've been like, "No, that's not love bombing."
Emily: I think a lot of the articles out there are discussing the initial love bomb as opposed to the recurrent love bomb. Although I think, yes, that is when it becomes more sinister or a cycle of abuse is especially when somebody is hurt very deeply, and then the love bomber comes back and showers you with affection again, only to maybe hurt you again at a later time. That definitely feels worse, in my opinion, than the initial love bomb, which I think can happen to so many of us just because we might be really excited about a new relationship or a new connection.
Let's maybe start getting into those more specific details and origins of this word. Verywellmind.com defined love bombing almost the same way that you did, Dedeker, but without the later stuff. Love bombing occurs when someone bombs you with an extreme display of attention and affection, and that is just one display, I guess. It doesn't really talk about that later stuff, although I think that it maybe could allude to that as well.
Jase: If I were this person's teacher, I would probably take off some points for them using the word bomb in their definition of love bomb.
Emily: Got it.
Jase: That's just not a good practice so I would take off some marks for that.
Emily: We'll take it up with the Verywell Mind people. It was coined in the 1970s by members of the Unification Church of the United States and used by members of the Family International, which I looked into this a little bit further. They are an organization that was criticized as an authoritarian cult that exploited children in a variety of ways, and it was pretty rough and bad.
Dedeker: Did you get any information about how they coined that or what context they used the term in? Was it the same exact context?
Emily: Yes. It was discussing love bombing as a way to reel victims in, in a way which was interesting.
Dedeker: By their definition were they like, "Oh, that's a bad thing," or were they like, "Oh, this is a good thing, this is a tactic .
Emily: No, it was a bad thing.
Jase: This came up then in a book called Cults in Our Midst, which was from 1996, which is the most 1996 title I can ever imagine for a book.
Emily: Cults in Our Midst.
Dedeker: Yes, seriously, it's like sprinklings of the Satanic panic.
Jase: Exactly, yes. Margaret Singer wrote this in '96, and in it, there's a quote here. "This process of fanning friendship and interest in the recruit was originally associated with one of the early youth cults."
Emily: Whatever that is. Yes.
Jase: It's so '90s.
Emily: The youth cults.
Jase: "The youths and their cults, but soon it was taken up by a number of groups as part of their program for luring people in. Love bombing is a coordinated effort, usually under the direction of leadership that involves long-term members, flooding recruits, and newer members with flattery, verbal seduction, affectionate, but usually non-sexual touch, and lots of attention to their every remark. Love bombing or the offer of instant companionship is a deceptive ploy accounting for many successful recruitment drives."
Emily: That just sounds like-- I don't know. Evangelizing in any way or --
Dedeker: Sure.
Emily: Yes. Sure. Maybe luring someone into a cult. That does happen definitely but--
Jase: I think we'll keep coming back to this point over and over again. This is where I get a little concerned with terms like love bombing when we try to use it in this very like, "They did this so therefore it was bad." Because it raises this question of, "In this case, she's presenting it like, oh, leadership plans this in this very strategic sinister way of you've got to do this thing."
When people do it in relationships, they're not sitting there with like, "Aha, this is my master plan for how I'm going to do that." Maybe one person out there in the world is, but usually, this is actually just coming from a place of insecurity, or from this is just how they think relationships are supposed to go, or not knowing how to handle their NRE or anything like that. There's a lot of different factors.
Then you look at this in terms of recruiting and it's like, "Sure," but so much of any invitations to join a community or something have some of these pieces of like, "Hey, join this place where you can belong and be more accepted by people. Join this thing that you can be proud of and finally make something of yourself."
I'm just trying to think of different slogans and things I've seen on ads, and I don't think those things are inherently bad or wrong to say, "Yes, this is what community is about." It's like, where's the line? I guess that's what worries me when people get too caught up in trying to define love bombing so that they can then say, "If it equals this, it equals bad."
Dedeker: It makes me think of-- I was raised in the Christian Church.
Emily: That's why I said the word evangelizing.
Dedeker: It also makes me think of the handful of times that I've gone back to church in the last, let's say, 10 years for various reasons. Non-genuine reasons, I'll just put it that way. For various reasons that going back to a church, I am always struck by, wow, there's so many people that are just like, "Hey, hi, how are you? Let me shake your hand. Where are you from? What's your name? Why don't you sit over here?"
It is a weird thing because again, I grew up in it and it's not like any leadership was giving these coordinated efforts of like, "Okay, this is what you're going to do. This is how you're going to reel them in." It was baked into the philosophy of that flavor of Christianity was like, "We want to be friendly, we want to be welcoming, we want to make sure people feel good and feel like this is a family."
I think that is a good question like where the line between this is what the behavior is and how much of it is, "Ooo, they were planning it all along," versus this is them trying to be like-- Thinking that they're trying to be nice and welcoming.
Jase: They are actually nice and welcoming. That's the thing. It's not even fake, it's not even disingenuous. I think about when I first joined my company, a lot of people reached out to be like, "Hey, welcome to the company. Let's set up a call. I want to talk to you, get to know you a little." Yes, that's a normal thing we do when people join a group, like join some kind of social group. I don't think that's inherently bad in any way.
Emily: I don't want to say that a cycle of abuse doesn't occur because even if somebody isn't sitting there and saying to themselves, "Oh yes, I'm definitely going to do this cycle over and over again of love bombing and then discarding," which we're about to talk about here, that does happen. People do cyclical things just because that's what they're into or how they choose to live their lives, I guess, in a lot of ways. We all have bad patterns that we go through in our lives. It may or may not be something that we really are trying to do or where we might be trying to break ourselves free of it.
I don't want to minimize the pain that people go through with all of this, and that's not what we're trying to do here. I think that it's good that we're at least looking a little bit more critically at what love bombing is and trying to say that if you do do it or if somebody has done it to you, it doesn't automatically mean that they're a shitty narcissistic person, and that's it. I do think that those two things sometimes get conflated with one another.
Dedeker: Specifically, let's talk about this pattern that I think we've teased a little bit. Psychologist Dale Archer, was the one who identified these different phases of love bombing, and he uses the acronym IDD, so intense idealization, devaluation, and discard. He also throws in a repeat, the idea that the cycle continues.
Intense idealization means the person idealizes you very quickly. They put you on a pedestal, totally sweep you off your feet with big romantic gestures or gifts. It may feel like, "Oh, it's too good to be true," or it may feel like, "Ooo, this is happening really, really quickly," at the beginning of a relationship. Then comes the devaluation, which is when there's a turn where the other person may alternate between being very kind and then being very cruel.
In public, they may be very affectionate, but then in private, maybe they're mean to you, maybe they're abusive to you, and then discard, which is eventually the partner leaves and moves on to the next person, possibly repeating that same process all over again. He does throw on a bonus of hoovering, so really it should be IDDH-
Emily: Yes.
Dedeker: -which is this idea that even after the discard phase, maybe even after they've left the relationship, the love bomber may still check in breadcrumb possibly, try to suck the person back into the cycle.
Emily: Have you two seen, sorry, The Holiday that Kate Winslet and that movie.
Jase: Yes, I just watched that recently.
Emily: Yes, so did I for the first time. There was a character that's Kate Winslet's ex that basically just keeps her around in order to, I guess, feel good about himself like that. He's a perfect example of this hoovering thing, that it's dangling a person a bit. Maybe they'll come back into your life eventually, but just keeping them there even though they may or may not ever return to your life. It seems like that.
Jase: I think that also in modern-day terminology, we have some other terms, like Dedeker mentioned, breadcrumbing is one that's used. I think also submarining would apply here.
Dedeker: Right. Yeah.
Emily: Like you'd come out a little bit, once in a while out of the water. What is it?.
Dedeker: No, I do not think they disappear. Maybe they ghost you or-
Emily: Oh, I see.
Dedeker: -they break up with you and just don't talk to you and then maybe pop back up again. Suddenly they're like, "Oh, hey. Actually, wow, I'm in town thinking of you." Maybe that could also come along with some love-bombing behaviors again, possibly. I don't know.
Emily: Then they disappear again. Got it.
Jase: Right It's just interesting that we now have these other terms because no one knows what a hoover is anymore.
Emily: Love it.
Jase: With all of this, let's talk more about some of the research. Now, this was really interesting. Emily was the one who did the research for this episode, and you were telling us, Em, that basically, it seems like there's only one study out there that all the articles reference.
Emily: That I could find, and I tried every way of Googling love-bombing studies and going through multiple pages, and this basically is it. Yet, so many articles out there are like, "This new study about love bombing says --
Dedeker: They all point back to this one study.
Emily: Yes. Please, tell us about this study, Jase, because it's an interesting one.
Jase: Emily and I spent some time together looking through this, trying to understand what's really going on here. This is a study that was done at the University of Arkansas and published in 2017 called Love Bombing: A Narcissistic Approach to Relationship Formation. This was authored by Strutzenberg, Wiersma-Mosley, Jozkowski, and Becnel.
Here's how the study went down. They gathered participants who were just fellow college students. The college students in exchange for participating in this study were either given some credit or a $50 gift card, various things like that.
Emily: They were in the running for a $50 gift card.
Dedeker: Oh, one of those.
Jase: Oh yes.
Emily: Yes. They threw their names into a hat for a $50 gift card.
Jase: Got it.
Emily: Also they did get extra credit or something, so that's cool.
Jase: 484 college students who were all students at the same university at the University of Arkansas. The participants ended up being predominantly White women. They conducted a study that was just them filling out a survey and they used a few different measures. They were looking at one thing was attachment. They used the adult attachment scale, which are those, one, strongly disagree to five, strongly agree. An 18-question thing to determine how securely attached, how anxiously attached, or how avoidantly attached were the people.
Then they used the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale to see their self-esteem. They used a narcissism measurement scale, which is the Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale. Then they used a love bombing measurement, which is one they came up with themselves for this study. They put together eight items to identify if this person does love bombing. They also came up with some questions to determine how much this person uses texting in their relationships.
Here's what we found from all of this, or here's what they found. First is that they found that love bombing behaviors are prevalent, but just a lot of the people were doing it, scored fairly highly on those items they came up with. They said, "By identifying items to describe love bombing, it was found that individuals who display love bombing behaviors are likely to act from an insecure attachment." They found a correlation between higher scores in insecure attachment and higher scores in doing love bombing. They're saying that perhaps this is something that they're doing to try to get this person to help support their own self-worth and their own feelings of value within society.
With that said, we want to talk a little bit about this study because there are some issues with it, besides the fact that no one's replicated it that we could find. There are some issues with it. I know, Emily, you had some things you wanted to point out here.
Emily: Like I said before, it seems to be basically the only study out there on love bombing, and they even acknowledged within the study that more studies need to be done on this to really measure it further, and especially the correlation between attachment styles and whether or not a person is a narcissist or whether or not a person is more or less likely to love bomb another. The study itself was done by students. This wasn't professors doing it, it was students and graduate students.
While there's nothing wrong with that, I found that to be a little bit interesting. It was essentially students gauging these things with other students roughly around their same ages. I don't know. I wondered if perhaps people who had been in a psychology field for a longer period of time, I would be interested to see what they'd found and what things they used to measure.
Jase: In their conclusions, they do make a lot of mentions and observations about millennials, and they do offer up in their conclusions a lot of what they think the reasons are for some of these things, based on both being millennials themselves as well as studying millennials. Yes, that would be interesting to see how that might change if the people conducting the study. If you had a larger age range for people in the study, how that might change things.
Emily: Definitely. I know that you were interested in talking about the love bombing items that they used specifically. I can read these off. These were the questions on the Likert scale, that they posed to the participants. These questions, they all created themselves. We found them to be a little interesting.
Dedeker: There's also only eight of them, only eight.
Emily: Eight, it's just not that many. It's not very much to ask a person. These were the questions. The first one, "When past relationships have ended, I've realized that I was more invested in the relationship than my partner was." Sure. Number two, "I desire praise/appreciation/affirmation to be communicated by my partner." Yes. Number three, "I feel as though the presence of my partner increases my social standing." Number four, "I feel more confident and secure when I am in a relationship." Number five, "I am insecure with the idea of being single."
Six, "I am only content in a relationship until I find another better option of a partner." Seven, "I view relationships as a means to feel better about myself." Eight, when I feel insecure, I like to turn to another person to assure me of my worth." What do you think about this?
Dedeker: It's really interesting to me that none of those questions-- And I know that whenever people are self-reporting, that that can skew things in a particular way. I realize that that's tricky when you're not being just a direct observer of behavior, but that none of those questions are really actually about behavior. None of it is like, "Early on in a relationship, I tend to tell someone that I love them," or "I'm willing to do a big romantic gesture one month in to a new relationship," or whatever. None of them are actually about the behaviors that we as --
Emily: It's feeling.
Dedeker: Yes. It is the feelings and some of these are tricky because they're very relatable, like "Wanting praise or appreciation or affirmation to be communicated by my partner." I don't know anyone who doesn't want that. The only one that feels like, "Okay, yes, this sounds maybe it's dodgy," is the one about, "I'm only content in a relationship until I find another better option of a partner." Then also the same time I'm like, "Well, that's basically what monogamous culture trains us to do." There's a certain amount where that's normal. That is really interesting.
It feels like what they're calling these love bombing items, to me feel much more biased towards, "Yes, I look to relationships for my own sense of self-worth and security."
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Yes. This is, I think, a really fun example of the way that bias can end up in research, right?
Emily: Yes.
Jase: My guess is to what happened here, is that they wanted to do a study about love bombing, and then they have that thing of, "Well, it's hard to get people to admit to this behavior or self-identify their behavior. Instead, we're going to take this concept we have of what love bombing is, and then what we think people who do love bombing feel like, and that's the questions we're going to ask." You get into this weird --
Dedeker: Putting your hypothesis into the --
Jase: Exactly. The hypothesis is baked into the questions in the way they structured them.
Emily: That to me, may have happened because these people are pretty young. They don't have a huge amount of life experience behind them. Maybe they do, but again, it's their own personal bias coming into it, then I think potentially if it had been a professor or a-
Dedeker: Maybe. People who are older or have their own life experience bring their own bias into --
Emily: Yes, so everyone brings their --
Dedeker: Everyone brings their own human biases. It's not like there's a way to hermetically seal off any research from bias.
Emily: I understand that. Yes.
Jase: Yes. right.
Emily: Speaking of bias, I will say they were also looking at millennials in this study because I think the correlation or the idea that millennials are narcissists, has been a big thing and a big factor in a lot of ideas recently. When I was looking all this up, it was like, are millennials more narcissistic than any other generation? A lot of people believe that, and they actually looked into a study on, are millennials more narcissistic.
They found that no, millennials are not more narcissistic than anyone else, but that they believe the discourse out there on the fact that millennials are more narcissistic. They're like, "Yes, we are, and that's okay," but apparently it makes millennials feel worse about themselves that they are just a more narcissistic generation. I do wonder if that fell into this a little bit as well.
Jase: I do want to point out that, one of the things they measured on this test was a scale of narcissism, right?
Emily: Yes.
Jase: Which was not one that they created, but one that they decided to use. As we've talked about in the past on this show, narcissism is a highly contentious thing to even diagnose or measure. That it's not --
Emily: We'll talk about that a little bit more after the break. Yes.
Jase: Right. There's not a lot of agreement on that. Anyway, they took that, and then as we mentioned, their questions about identifying if these people are love bombers were more based on their feelings. If you'll notice, a lot of those questions were tied to anxiety of some kind. It was that like, "I feel anxious about being alone. I feel like my social standing increases when I'm with my partner. I want to be praised and affirmed by my partner." A lot of stuff that's related to insecurities and anxieties.
Then the questions on that narcissism scale are also very much related to insecurities and anxieties. So, well, okay, yes, if you're writing very similar types of questions for those two things, of course, you're going to get a higher correlation between those two things. Again, I just think this is worth --
Emily: It's a clunky study, hmm.
Jase: It's worth mentioning it enough. I'm less concerned about the age of anyone involved, but just the fact that I can see some pretty clear bias that's been put in here right from the start, as well as just the fact that this is the only one and that everyone's using it, especially in pop psychology.
You get into this issue where people will look at a study. They'll come to some conclusion or even the people writing the study will write something in their conclusion that's more of a, "Well, we think that it's probably this," and then people run with that and then add another layer of conclusions on top of it and then another layer of conclusions. Then you get to this whole thing of like, "It is real, and it's a thing that narcissists do, and if someone loves bombs you, they're a narcissist, and you need to get out of--" It's a slippery slope. It's a telephone game, but worse.
Next, we're going to get into talking about narcissism and love bombing, more about how those can be connected to each other, and then what that actually means in practice as well as some things that you can do about it. First, we're going to take a quick break to talk about some ways you can support this show. If you enjoy getting this information, and you want to help us be able to continue putting this out there into the world for free, just take a moment, check out some of our sponsors. If any of them seem interesting to you, it does directly help support our show if you do or if you check out our Patreon.
Dedeker: As we've already been discussing a little bit, I think that as you look into this or do any research on this that you'll find that the term love bombing often tends to get matched up with speaking about narcissists in a relationship. Sometimes love bombing is talked about as a behavior in and of itself, but I feel many, many people, a lot of Instagram therapists-- I know a lot of my own friends, a lot of people online do lump in like love bombing and narcissistic behavior together.
Of course, you know the discourse being that the narcissist tends to have a pattern of love bombing and then discarding and moving onto their next victim. This is always so tricky because I never want to come across as a love-bombing apologist or a narcissist apologist or things like that, but it's really a gray area.
I think we're living in a time right now where social media encourages us to be very black and white, and so, good God, like how many support groups have I seen on Facebook for victims of narcissists or whatever. So many people go through a breakup and immediately they're like, "They were narcissists."
Again, it's not like we're saying that "Oh, these people are just making it up." or "Actually their ex was a totally wonderful person and they shouldn't be criticizing them in this way," but it is this weird thing of when we attach labels to these behaviors, we're not always seeing the full spectrum. We did touch on this back in our narcissist episode all the way back in 2017. You can go check that out, that's episode 148.
Emily: Yes. One of the takeaways that I found from researching this episode was that narcissism is actually fairly difficult to define even for those who are experts in it and who are researching it constantly, because in the DSM-5, the newest version of it, it is labeled as one of the 10 personality disorders. However, five of those personality disorders almost got the axe for the most recent version.
There was a big debate about whether or not to include a narcissistic personality disorder in the newest version of the DSM. Ultimately, it was apparently a three-year debate. It was very contentious, but ultimately it still is included in there. I think a lot of the issue was simply because it's just hard. There are so many factors out there and it's difficult to say, "Yes, this makes a person a narcissist definitively or not," and people still really struggle with that, with figuring that out and trying to put someone into that box in that category."
Additionally, statistically, there is a big wide range of how many narcissistic people are actually out there, or how many people have NPD. What I found was that it's anywhere from 0.05% of the population all the way up to 6.2%.
Jase: That's a pretty huge range.
Dedeker: Yes.
Emily: Yes, it is.
Jase: That's several orders of magnitude different. that's-
Emily: Absolutely.
Jase: -big.
Emily: It's very big. Yes, but some of the places that I looked said, 0.05%, so it's really, really tiny and some said 6.2% with, yes, men being more likely to be narcissists and women being less likely. I think with all of that, it's just simply to say that it's potentially unlikely that your shitty ex, as we said in that episode, actually has a narcissistic personality disorder, but that doesn't mean that they weren't a shitty ex. They probably maybe were. That doesn't mean that they'll be a shitty ex to the next person, but they might be, who knows.
It's always a thing to look out for and you're suffering is real and what you went through absolutely was awful.
Maybe we shouldn't just stick everybody into a box of "If you do X, that means Y will happen," or "If you are a love bomber, that means that you're a narcissist."
Jase: Yes. Something that I think is worth talking about just a little bit on this episode before we move on into some of the tools and ways to identify these things, is just that the distinction between talking about a behavior and then talking about something as a trait of a person. The example here is someone does love bombing, like Emily, you mentioned at the beginning of the episode where it's like "I feel like I've probably done this in a relationship before" of that's just like, "Oh my gosh, I just got so excited so fast."
Emily: Yes, I did that in my current relationship. I think I did it to you a little bit for sure when I was in a relationship with you. I definitely go hard at times in certain relationships, but yes. Dedeker, I wanted to give you gifts, too. That's just like a thing, that's like my love language, but yes, I don't know. It's a spectrum for sure.
Jase: Right, but I guess what I want to get at though is that if you wanted to take that example of the behaviors and maybe you would Emily, say, "You know what? I don't think that's the best healthiest behavior." I'm not to say that it is or isn't. It didn't cause a problem for us, but-
Emily: Sure.
Jase: -you're still in your current relationship. Certainly, it wasn't some awful there.
Emily: Here we are.
Jase: Even then, because I think I've probably-- Well, I know that I've had people be like, "Whoa, you wanted to get way too intense, too quickly from an emotional standpoint or whatever." I think I've seen tons of friends do that and that's just a thing that happens.
While it's okay to look at that and go, "Okay, that behavior's not great." When we cross into this world of this person did this thing, so therefore, they are a blank, love bomber, narcissist, abuser, whatever it is that once we take like, "Okay, they did a behavior, so now they are a thing," we get ourselves into a lot of trouble.
One, we are setting up a situation where people are less able to admit they've done those things because "Oh, if I admit that then I am this thing," which we all think is bad and evil and should be ostracized and shunned from society, so I can't ever admit that, which makes it harder than to change those behaviors moving forward or to get any closure or resolution for the person who was hurt by that.
As well as by doing this potentially then, encouraging our communities to not then offer education and support, even if it is in the form of tough love to these people because it's like, "No, they're irredeemable," they like to-
Emily: You're a narcissist and that equals-
Jase: - fit this label."
Emily: -the bad guy and we don't want bad guys around, so we throw you in the garbage.
Jase: Yes. We block you, we ban you. We do those things instead of looking at the behavior. That's not to say that all behaviors are forgivable, but that when we get into this "I'm going to lump you into this category of narcissist or abuser for a behavior" and not seeing like, "Yes, but then I'm lumping you in with these other people that have done something much worse."
Then maybe these other people who've done something less, so can also be really hurtful to victims of that as well. When it's like, "Okay, cool, so you're minimizing this actually really horrible experience that I had because now you want to get in on giving your partner this label." I know no one's approaching it that way, but it is something that I see pushing some people who have really suffered serious abuse to the side and not giving them the care that they need because we're applying these labels a little too liberally and too broadly just based on these behaviors.
Dedeker: Speaking of looking at behavior specifically, let's take a little inventory to maybe help people understand, is this behavior love bombing, or is it just affection, is it just love? because these things do fall on a spectrum. Of course, there's the possibility that maybe you did some of this love bombing behavior or you had it done to you and it still turned into a very healthy, long relationship.
Also, the opposite can happen. There can be a courtship process that is slow, that is deliberate, that is intentional and it turns into a really shitty, toxic, abusive relationship, so it's not always one plus one equals two in every single situation here. Still, it is always a good idea to be mindful, to be cautious at the beginning of a relationship, and be on the lookout for, I guess I would categorize this under some red flag behavior. We do have a list of some specific behaviors to look out for in comparison to maybe some healthier or like just better behaviors to be looking out for, some green flag behaviors to be looking out for at the beginning of our relationship.
Again, these lists are not exhaustive, but maybe they can give you a gist of what you might keep your eyes peeled for.
Emily: Here are some examples of love bombing. We've talked about a lot of them already, but things like really excessive compliments, buying expensive gifts, or making super grand gestures right away.
Jase: One thing to notice about that one is when it comes to things like expensive gifts or even grand gestures, I think that one's also relative to how much money does this person have?
Emily: Sure.
Jase: How often do they give gifts just in general? What kind of gifts do they give generally? It's not to say, "Ah, you gave me an expensive gift right away. Oh no, that's a red flag." If you can look at the rest of the context, I think that's important.
Emily: Yes, definitely. I'm trying to progress the relationship really quickly. We always say "Don't sign anything in the first year," and we mean it. Please don't, because some people may say like "Wow, you're my soulmate, you're the one," and which is also on this list.
Jase: Sign a lease.
Emily: Yes, let's sign a lease, let's get married immediately. Things like that. I do know people who've gotten married after three months, which is mind-blowing to me, but maybe you're one of those people and that's totally fine for you, but maybe that's something to look at if it feels a little strange.
Also, even lots of calling or texting throughout the day that feels excessive. That's something to potentially look out for. Also, any of these things that make you feel uncomfortable. I think there is a difference if you feel as though "Hey, this is reciprocal. This is a thing that I also feel that I'm also really excited about because the NRE is really strong here." If there are things and behaviors that are happening that make you feel uncomfortable, that's something to be aware of and to look at for sure.
I've seen and talked of later in the relationship, somebody-- This is more on the narcissist side but just being on the lookout for, is this person wanting me to stay away from other people in my life? Are they wanting to be the only source of comfort and source of support in my life, and don't want me to be around other friends or partners or family or things like that?
Jase: I think something to look at there is that there are a lot of different excuses people can use for that, about whether it's the gender of your friend or the fact that this person is an ex or some other trait about them or something. There's lots of ways that people can justify asking you or trying to limit even just by getting upset a lot anytime you hang out with this person without explicitly telling you not to. It can look a lot of different ways. Unfortunately, in some cases such as the gender of your friends, our society can't even say "Yes, that's natural and normal. They shouldn't want you to be friends with that person."
That's definitely a big one to watch out for just in general. It doesn't have to mean that they're a narcissist but just if that behavior is going on that behavior is not good and something that needs to change or you need to get out of that relationship.
Emily: Most of these behaviors we've talked about in the context of romantic relationships. I do just want to point out that the two really big egregious love bombing times that happened in my life happened with friends. For example, someone very quickly said, "I want you to be the godparent to my child." Another person said, "I want you to be in our will," after a really short period of time. Also, when they came to the restaurant that I worked at gave me an enormous tip every single time. While it felt really nice and flattering and like "This person has money, they can do that." I think that relationship I no longer have, and so therefore I see it as a potential red flag, both of those things that it was just this huge proclamation and going over the top.
Eventually, that relationship ended after a period of time and some abusive behaviors as well. Both of those things I found to be red flags that I think are just things to look out for because friends can also do this. I don't know if that's happened to the two of you ever with non-romantic relationships.
Jase: It's funny, actually, I think that I have had that happen with a friendship-type relationship. There is one case I'm thinking of where he came on very strong with how intense he was about this friendship. I criticized him about something and he then just disappeared and never spoke to me again. It was in that case --
Emily: It's similar to what happened with me.
Jase: Right. That was one. I was going to say there was the other one was someone who very quickly was just really talking about what good friends we are and really wanting to do a lot of stuff to help me and calling me his best friend very quickly. I was a little bit like "All right. I'm not going to reciprocate that or feel I need to--" I don't know. Sure. I guess that's cool but it mostly just felt a little bit weird.
In that case, it wasn't something that led to that friendship ending, it was just, okay. Then eventually we did end up getting a little bit closer. Then I was like "Yes, we are close friends," but it was that just he got there a lot faster and I was like "I need some time to get there."
Not necessarily saying "Oh, if someone does this, this is just bad and this can't ever work out." Again, it's about the behavior. It's like "Okay, let's chill a little bit. I'm not quite sure I'm there with you and I'm not going to be pressured into trying to go there with you." Let's just take it at the pace of this lower person, right?
Emily: Sure.
Jase: That can work out. It doesn't always but that was something I wanted to share at least about the friend part.
Dedeker: I think my experience with maybe things getting bummy with a non-romantic partner was-- Yes, it happened to me once with an ex's partner. Not even really a metamour but it was an ex of mine who's been a friend for a very long time. His partner at the time spent a long time really feeling very threatened by me, really disliking me, causing a lot of tension and drama in their relationship.
Then one day, it was this sudden 180 where she reached out to me and it was like all of this, super excessive compliments and reaching out a ton. It was this weird disorienting, very uncomfortable experience where again, I think I did a good job of not trying to be mean or push back or whatever, trying to take this person's bid. Ultimately, I wanted to be connected to this person and for it to feel good but also trying to not feel pressured to be like "I have to match this level of intensity."
Emily: To be their best friend now.
Dedeker: Yes, now I have to step in and be their best friend. Sure enough, it's not the 180 back to hating me but it definitely didn't maintain that same exact intensity, I think especially when I didn't match it. Again, I don't think of that person as evil narcissistic person, they were planning that all along. I'm just like "There are some shit going on with you. You had your own baggage and trauma and attachment stuff and all stuff that probably produced that effect for you," right?
Emily: Totally.
Dedeker: In contrast here are some examples of stuff that's maybe closer to the spectrum of maybe healthier behaviors, healthier courtship, or wooing behaviors. It can include things like getting to know each other gradually, giving signs of affection that are meaningful, not just arbitrary.
I do think maybe this can be a part of it is that this person doesn't even know you and already they're like "You're so amazing. I can't imagine my life without you. You're my soulmate." I'm like "You've only known me for 48 hours" or whatever.
Emily: Caught them.
Dedeker: Actual meaningful signs of affection. Checking in with each other and sending thoughtful messages to each other, I think this is in contrast to just this person texting you or calling you constantly-
Emily: Constant and overload. Yes.
Dedeker: Yes. Maybe talking about the future when the time feels right. When it feels like "Okay, maybe we've reached a stage where we can start dreaming about this together or creating a story together about how we're going to fit into each other's lives in the future." Also, making an intentional effort to get on the same page about the progression of the relationship.
Now, that doesn't mean that from day one you're going to be matched in exactly what the pace of your relationship is going to be. I do think there is this constant discussing and communicating, negotiating process because it is a co-created relationship. It's not just one person who jumps in to set the pace and drag the other person along.
Jase: To wrap up this episode let's talk a little bit about what you can do in this case. We've established these are some behaviors that might not be the healthiest for establishing a new relationship. Here's the ones that might be better.
What if you are in this situation where you're listening to this episode maybe and going "Em, yes, gosh. That is going on," or maybe you are someone who is a little more susceptible to this perhaps because you're healing from a difficult breakup or some past trauma or something like that. It's "Wow, someone does finally really recognize me and love me." That is why this exists. It does feel good and it's very possible the person is doing it because they do want you to feel good even if the result isn't the healthiest.
What can we do about it if we start noticing this happening? The first thing is to create space and some boundaries for yourself. What we mean by boundaries here is just having time to yourself, not instantly giving all of your time to this other person. That's another situation I can think of in my life where there've been a few relationships where very quickly, the other person just wants to be around in all of my free time, to fill up all the little gaps in my calendar. I've historically had a really hard time saying, no, to that, but that's something that I have gradually had to learn. I really need that space, not only just because I like having my own time, but also because I know that builds in a little bit of a buffer to help keep us from rushing down that love bombing route.
Another one is to take an inventory of the relationship. This is good if you're questioning this. Figure out what it is that the two of you want and that doesn't just mean talking together, but also evaluating for yourself. "What do you want? How might that be changing over time?" Things like the Relationship Anarchy Smorgasbord is a good way to get a sense of looking at these specific things rather than just these general overtures of, "You're my soulmate. This is so amazing, you complete me." That you can get specific on "what is it that I want in this relationship? What do I want to get out of this right now," and then continue to evaluate that as you go.
Another one is to seek out someone who's a professional. If you are concerned about this, talking to a therapist or a counselor to just help you evaluate that. If you can't do that, then just someone who's outside of that relationship. Someone who doesn't have a stake in it. Potentially a family member or a friend and just talk about what's going on and why you might be feeling a little bit weird about it or a little worried to help give you a sense. I would even extend that to say maybe talk to a few different people because depending on their experience, they might go, "Gosh, I wish I had that," or "That sounds totally normal," maybe because they're in the middle of doing that to someone, too. We can easily fall into these cultural traps.
Then just actually pay attention to your feelings. Don't dismiss those red flags when they come up. I will say they don't necessarily have to mean I see one, and instantly I'm out. Maybe that's just some avoidant attachment showing up, but pay attention to them, acknowledge them, take them seriously, and think about that as you move forward. As always, it's okay to break up if the relationship doesn't feel right and that goes for friends, too.
Also with your metamours, you don't necessarily have to be their best friend. Ideally, you're going to have a healthy nice polite, at least relationship with your metamours but you don't have to feel like, "I need to be this person's best friend," or "As soon as I connect with them, I've really got to make this connection because that's the only way I can be a good polyamorous person is if I'm best friends with my metamours." Also, just be aware of some of those social pressures to either stay in relationships, stay in friendships, or to get close to metamours and that it's okay if you don't want to do that.
Emily: Wow. Well, thanks, everyone. Hope we've learned something today. I'm really interested to hear what people think of this episode, and just to discover more about love bombing from each of you if any of you out there have actually had this happen to you. That is going to be part of our question of the week. What are your thoughts on love bombing and also is it something that you've ever experienced? This is going to be on our Instagram stories this week.