When you’re eager to find a partner, it can be exciting to be the focus of someone you find attractive. Beware, though, because narcissists can be skilled at putting on the mask that their target will find most attractive. Healthy whirlwind romances do happen, but if you’re feeling like you’re in the middle of a tornado of attention and it’s more unsettling than not, it’s time to step back and have a conversation. If they’re unable to change their behavior to better match your needs, it’s unlikely that the person is a match for you.
Stop. Take a step back. Why do you think that?
If you've just met somebody who is saying you're "soul mates" and declaring their undying love for you after a few weeks, you might have just become the victim of something called "love bombing."When someone tells you just how special you are, it can be intoxicating, at first. However, when a person uses such comments to keep your focus trained on him or her, or to keep bringing you back in if you’ve started to back off, it could be a case of manipulation.
Love bombing involves being showered with affection, gifts, and promises for the future with someone making you believe you may have discovered love at first sight.The person is loving, caring, and affectionate, and they seem to just get you. Things progress quickly, and you start to wonder whether this is what you've been missing.
However, it doesn't last, and as soon as you show a hint of caring about anything other than your new partner, they get furious with you and label you as selfish. Their mask slips, and you see someone mean, belittling, and unreasonable underneath. They can't comprehend that you have anything else going on in your life, and they completely turn on you.
Love bombing is a form of conditioning. It's a tactic manipulative people use and is, in fact, a form of abuse. If you are dating someone with dark triad personality traits — narcissism, or psychopathy — it might be a way they were grooming you.
Love bombing is the reinforcement, where the abuser showers the victim with love if the victim acts how they want.If the victim doesn't, then the devaluation stage happens, where they withdraw all their kindness and instead punish the victim with whatever they feel is appropriate — shouting, giving them the silent treatment, or even physically abusing them.
Narcissists in particular are known for their skills at manipulation, as much as their penchant for self-love. They may use flattery and attention as tools to build themselves up as the perfect partner, the better to gain your trust, affection — and, ultimately, adoration. Narcissists often learn through experience that once partners see through their facades, the relationship may self-destruct. Once they have convinced you of how good the two of you are together, a narcissist will try to shape your role in the relationship into a member of their "supporting cast." For this and other reasons, narcissists typically struggle to maintain equal, mutually satisfying relationships.
Narcissists move quickly to avoid detection, so the more someone tries to flatter you into submission, the more diligently you need to explore their motives.
There’s saying that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. From time immemorial, this saying has rung true: When someone is building you up into more than you know that anyone could actually be — or gifting you in ways that are beginning to feel too extravagant, or co-opting your time because they want to spend so much of theirs with you while surreptitiously manipulating you to have little time left over for friends or family — these are signs that the relationship isn’t quite as balanced as it should be.
When a relationship moves too fast — or one partner tries to push it too forcefully — it’s essential that you call your partner on it, and let him or her know how you feel. If he or she is willing to listen, and dial it back a notch, there may be reason to give them, and the relationship, more time to develop. If a partner won’t listen to your protestations and just tries to excuse away the smothering behavior, that’s a sign that there’s only likely to be less freedom and more manipulation in the future if you stay together.
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