Toxic Cooking Show
Misogyny, $800 first dates, simps, and high-value women: Social media has been busy cooking up and feeding us an addictive but toxic slurry of trends over the past few years. Here at The Toxic Cooking Show we're two friends dedicated to breaking down these trends, terms, and taunts into their simplest ingredients to understand where they came from and how they affect our lives. Join us each week as we ponder and discuss charged topics like personal responsibility and "not all men" before placing them on our magical Scale O' ToxicityAny comments or topics you want to hear about write to us at toxic@awesomelifeskills.com
Toxic Cooking Show
The Lowdown on Lovebombing
Unlock the secrets to identifying and navigating love bombing, a manipulative tactic prevalent in modern relationships, with Lindsay McClain and licensed clinical social worker Christopher Patchet, LCSW. Gain insights into how excessive attention and affection can mask an attempt to control, and learn to spot the red flags like premature declarations of love and empty promises of a future. By understanding these patterns, you’ll be better equipped to protect yourself from emotional manipulation and maintain your individuality in relationships.
We journey through the unsettling cycle of love bombing, where initial adoration turns into withdrawal and devaluation, creating a toxic dependency. While often seen in romantic relationships, this tactic can also rear its head in friendships, serving to isolate the target from their support network. Lindsay and Christopher draw parallels to classic abuse patterns, emphasizing the importance of recognizing these signs to prevent emotional entrapment. The conversation also touches on how popular media often misrepresents love bombing, skewing public perception and understanding.
Finally, the episode critiques misconceptions perpetuated by media outlets and debunks misleading statistics. Lindsay and Christopher stress the importance of education, helping listeners distinguish between genuine affection and manipulation. They advocate for setting boundaries and understanding the serious nature of love bombing, comparing its subtle danger to ingesting antifreeze—seemingly harmless but potentially fatal if overlooked. Equip yourself with the knowledge to spot and challenge this behavior, ensuring not only your safety but also aiding in recovery for those already affected.
Hi and welcome to the Toxic Cooking Show, where we break down toxic people into their simplest ingredients. I'm your host for this week, lindsay McLean, and with me is my fantastic co-host.
Speaker 2:Christopher Patchett, LCSW.
Speaker 1:You and I both spend an excessive amount of time, unfortunately, on the internet, partially due to choice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Partially, you know, due to the podcast and work and all that type of shit. But yeah, most of it is due to choice, let's be honest. So I'm sure you have come across the phrase love bombing before.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have.
Speaker 1:Do you know what it means? Because you, of all people, might actually know.
Speaker 2:I'm curious if you're gonna get both parts I would imagine it is just when I think of love bombing, I think of somebody who is doing it first off very quickly and then secondly, like just endless like compliments, and oh my god, I feel this way about you and oh my god, you're such a great person. And oh my god, I feel this way about you and oh my god, you're such a great person and oh my god, I'm really falling for you, and it's like um dude, we've been talking for like two minutes so you were mostly correct in that you have the internet definition of what love bombing is.
Speaker 1:So I see this pop up a lot when people are complaining about someone. So in this context, I see it most often with women talking about men that they've met through online dating, and you always see the three things pop up at once it's like he's a love bombing, gaslighting, narcissist. It's like the new version of you're a liberal, nazi, fascist, communist, like all these things squished in together and it's like, okay, some of those you can't be together. Did we know that? No, because we didn't study our history. However, love bombing, gaslighting, narcissist those actually can go together, but I see people just kind of like throw it out on everything. So, according to web md, we actually did not have to go to urban dictionary for this one we're going to uh high, uh, high sources here I know, and the answer was not cancer, for once.
Speaker 1:According to web md, love bombing is the emotional manipulation that involves giving someone excessive compliments, attention or affection to eventually control them. This is not the entire definition, though, again, which we'll we'll get into in a little bit, but is the first part that you see. So it's emotional abuse, its it's most simple form. You do often see it in the early stages of a relationship, like right when you meet somebody. It is also often attributed to people who have high levels of the trait narcissism, have low empathy and or engage in domestic abuse. It's also often attributed to sex traffickers, gang members and cults.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm now curious because I never thought you put love bombing in with abusive behaviors.
Speaker 1:Uh-huh, We'll get there. So again, the internet is the internet. The internet likes to give us only 100% factual information all the time of course.
Speaker 1:Best joke of the day I know. So the first part of love bombing because there are two parts this is the part that you see all over the internet. That is exactly what you described at the beginning. It's what you think of like if you just heard the word and you didn't know what it meant. There are kind of four things that you'll see like four big categories that someone who is love bombing you will do in this first stage, and that is that they may often kind of see you as their soulmate from day one. They're going to say things like my soulmate, my other half, all of this very early in the relationship. They may say I love you within a few weeks of meeting you.
Speaker 1:I learned a new term while researching this, which is future faking. That is exactly what it sounds like. It is a manipulation strategy where you promise your potential partner kind of everything that they might want, like you're going to talk about very early on in the relationship what are the type of house you're going to live in, type of vacation you're going to go on, how many kids you're going to have, all of that type of thing, where you're just like this is the first date, but you're telling them all these like really nice things that they want to hear. Then, when you get into a relationship with them, none of that ever happens. That's apparently a thing.
Speaker 1:So you have that, that soulmate. Everything's perfect. I see a future with you. That future is bright, it's great, it's amazing, because it's with you and I love you and I may have only known you for an hour, but you're the one. You're my other half. Personally, I think the people who refer to their partner as my other half, I have like a special place in hell just for them. I despise that phrase, even when it's not used in like a love bombing context, just to refer to somebody as, oh, my other half what about my better half?
Speaker 1:I don't. I don't like it. It's why are you putting this person like? Why does this person make up half of you? Like you are giving them? You're making them like you've now been squished into half of yourself, or less, apparently. So, your better, you now only take up 40% of you and they take up 60. Does that feel right? No, gross, be your own person and my other half, other half, better half, both of them Straight to hell. That, you may typically see, is another one that you pointed out the over the top compliments, just this constant stream of compliments, and really excessive ones. Like I feel like you were created just for me. My life would be nothing without you. That's a lot to say to somebody, even if you're in a long-term relationship with them. You know, within reason, I could, you know, sometimes you may say that and but imagine somebody saying this to you like within a week of meeting you, even within a couple months of meeting you, my life would be nothing without you.
Speaker 1:Oh, red flag okay, okay another one they may do is gifts, like gift, gift giving, and not just you know. Oh, here's something I thought of you. I know you really liked it, but these may be like big ticket things, so like plane tickets, hotel stays, clothing, jewelry, especially like expensive stuff. Paying for your living expenses may be something that happens Like. Again, it's not just like a little. You mentioned you like plants and I bought you this little three dollar plant, you know, or something like that it's. I paid your mortgage this month I could use it I know right, but but,
Speaker 1:this may actually get turned around and thrown against you later. It may get turned into this sort of you know, I paid for this, so you owe me X type thing. And the fourth big thing that a love bomber will do is have this need for constant communication, so always texting, always calling, just always needing to be in contact with you or have you right there with them at all times. Like there's this you can't ever be apart from them, no matter what it's like. I need to know where you are. And it may get kind of phrased as oh, I'm just, I'm worried, like I just want to make sure that you're doing okay, I want to make sure everything's fine, but as a way to, of course, keep track of you, yay okay, I can see, uh, where this is getting dangerous now yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So the idea of all of these is to overwhelm the target and make them feel like there's actually this real connection there, because if you meet somebody and they're instantly just like wow, I mean I love you, like this is amazing, and they're telling you all these things that seem to fit with exactly what you wanted and and they want to talk to you, they want to be there for you, they're spending all this money on you, spending all this time, you may start to feel like there really is a connection, because why would they do this otherwise? Right? Meanwhile, they're, you know, carefully cutting you off from your family and friends because they're constantly in your life and constantly in contact with you. And then we get to the fun part, which is, after a period of all this, like lovey-dovey crap, which is often called idealization, we get into devaluation time, baby.
Speaker 1:So devaluation is the second part of love bombing and is the part that everyone forgets about, but is the really bad part, because this is where the person will suddenly get very, very angry. If you do anything, anything that is not exactly how they want it to be, they may start to insult you, they're going to withdraw as part of their anger and like withhold communication and withhold everything from you. They're going to make sure you know that you fucked up. You may have physical abuse as part of this and then they're going to cycle back to being super over the top. I love you, baby, we're and you will just kind of cycle between these two phases, with the idealization phase coming always again after the devaluation phase to sort of make up for it and make me like whoa, okay, that was really weird, like you just blew up at me. Things were like crazy, but it's fine now. Right, like everything's fine, everything's back to normal.
Speaker 2:You're talking all of the, the you know future with me, stuff again, but don't worry, they will go back to devaluation at some point so this sounds like the cycle of abuse where you do have the, the honeymoon phase is it sounds like the cycle of abuse times 100?
Speaker 2:on meth, yes yeah, the honeymoon phase, followed up with an incident, and then followed up with the I'm so sorry, um, and it sounds like in this case where it would be like why did you just leave me like that blah, blah, blah, and it's just like, oh, my god, I'm so sorry, like you know, like it's just, I felt hurt when you did blah, blah, blah exactly yeah, you know, all of a sudden, at one point it's going to be you know they're texting constantly and suddenly, randomly, you don't respond fast enough and they're going to absolutely blow up at you and things going to be really, really nasty.
Speaker 1:But then they're going to turn it back on, as you said, in this honeymoon phase again, where it's just like everything's perfect, I love you, we're going to get married.
Speaker 1:That comes up. I mean, I keep saying it, but that's one of these things that you will see with love bombing is that they very quickly just turn the relationship up to 11. And in addition to being like oh, I love you, you they're going to push to move in with you, they're going to push to get married, just everything is like we're doing a speed run here until you fuck up and then they get really nasty. So obviously, with love bombing, this is a romantic relationship type thing, although it can actually be done in friendships too. I couldn't find a lot of information about that, but I did find several like fairly reputable sources that were like yeah, within a friendship you can actually have somebody who does the same thing, a platonic friendship where they just start off really, really strong, like we are best friends, and then at some point, as a punishment, they switch and like there's nothing, and then they'll come back to it.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I can definitely see that I can. I'm trying to think if I, if I've ever seen that you know, either through one of my clients or from myself. But yeah, I guess it's not as common.
Speaker 1:I don't think so, cause I think that's the type of thing with friendships. It's a little bit harder to do that idealization, I would imagine, because with the relationships again it's the I love you, you're perfect for me, and that's a little bit more normal hefty air quotes going on there than trying to start a friendship and the person's like oh my God, you're my best friend ever. You're like, oh okay, I think people may notice it a little bit faster if it happens in friendships and take a step back and be like I don't know who you are, as opposed to a relationship where, like, you're kind of you know, hoping that eventually the person does say these things to you. That's the goal anyway, and maybe just it's one of those that between like friends, they're less likely to do it because they don't get anything out of it. I don't know. There was not a lot of info about that, unfortunately, other than just that little drop.
Speaker 2:that's like friends too, yay well, I I've definitely have seen it in relationships big time yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But keep in mind again you have to have both parts, and this is what the internet forgets. The internet would like you to believe that if somebody shows a lot of interest in you at the beginning of a relationship, they're a love bomber. Do they want to see you twice in a week after you've just met? They're a love bomber. He wants to give you a gift. It's a love bomber, oh my God, and bomber he wants to give you a gift.
Speaker 1:It's a love bomber, oh my God, people get like really, it's one of those ones that just gets kind of thrown around for everything and so when you look up love bombing, unfortunately you are again only getting that first little bit of they're going to be excessive and so it feels like it may not be that bad right If it's just. It's just, you know. Oh, this is somebody who wants to talk to me all the time and, you know, wants to do everything with me and maybe says I love you a little too soon.
Speaker 2:that's not that serious right like that's annoying, but okay kind of hesitant to say this, because this is actually literally my next episode and this is kind of the. The danger of that is that if, if somebody is being caught out for love bombing when they truly aren't like, okay, yes, they might be speeding into a relationship, you know, but which is not good within itself. But you know they're not a narcissist, they're not all these other things. But if you are somebody who knows kind of what love bombing is yeah, that love bombing equals narcissism then anytime that somebody gets called out for being a love bomber is now in this other person's view of being a narcissist yeah, yeah it.
Speaker 1:It cheapens the whole problem, because this is a real problem. Um, I mean, if you imagine that there are people who are running around out there just like cranking the love up and then all of a sudden, just completely 180 really nasty emotional and physical abuse, and then they'll go back to putting like they're loving you, like that fucks you up, I would absolutely fuck you up, and that's not something to joke around about and that's not, absolutely not the same thing. As you know somebody who's just maybe, you know, a little awkward and maybe a little too into it, or something like that, and so they say I love you before you were expecting it, or they're just, they're really excited to talk to you and to get to know you, because that is what you're ideally trying to do at the beginning. When you're meeting people to date, you know you're going to talk a little bit more, you're going to want to spend a little more time with them, then you might a little bit further down the road, and so you got to be aware. Yeah, and unfortunately, it's not just social media that is promoting these falsehoods.
Speaker 1:I had a little looky look on Google and I noticed something interesting that when I Googled love bombing. Of course you do have a lot of information that comes up about it. It's a phrase that's been around for a term that's been around for a while now. That's been around for a term that's been around for a while now, and you have all sorts of articles great ones, you know, psychology today, other reputable websites that have it, and then, of course, you have all of the like. I don't know what I would call them, you know, like Cosmo, Teen Vogue, like that type of magazine.
Speaker 2:Answer these 10 questions to see if you're love-bombed.
Speaker 1:Actually, cosmo mostly got the definition right, which was shocking, but I did notice that between the quote-unquote women-focused magazines and the men-focused magazines, the men's ones got it wrong. And this is just. You know, when you Google something and you see that little blurb that pops up which is, let's be honest, that's what most people are only reading, they're not going to click further into the website and read every single one of these to see what it says. If you're just. Oh my God, somebody mentioned love bombing. Am I being love bombed? You go on Google, you scroll for a couple pages and you make your conclusions from that. It's not good, don't do that, but it's what we do. Men's Health has an article titled quote love bombing is ruining dating, and the explanation for what love bombing is that you can see, according to men's health, is, I quote love bombing is the act of showering new partners with compliments, affection and talks of the future, only to end things abruptly. You don't end things. Things don't end.
Speaker 2:Things go from showering new partners with compliments to showering new partners with blows, and then we go back to the compliments and then we go back to hitting them and then we go back to the compliments, and then we go back to hitting them and and again I I think that this, oh, you are really hanging up on my next show. I'm sorry, but but again I think that this is where using words like you know, like because you know other words, such as simp, gets overly used, and no guy wants to be called a simp yeah so like, instead of focusing on what love bombing actually is, anything to steer away from being the simp, anything to steer away from.
Speaker 2:You know like, uh, if you're love bombing and you know like, okay, you know you're, you're kind of getting the internet aspect of it and you want to avoid that at all costs, because if you're doing this, then you're doing this and you've fucked up on both definitions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because now somebody who sees that I don't actually know what that's telling me. Love bombing is ruining dating. Okay, love bombing is the act of showering new partners with compliments, affection, talks of the future, only to end things. So somebody who gets really excited at the beginning and then leaves, that's ruining dating. That's not what's happening. Men's health.
Speaker 2:They weren't the only ones in fairness, vogue.
Speaker 1:Vogue had an article called what is Love Bombing, and it was explained by quote love bombing comes from someone who has a serious void in himself. They have poor impulse control and no filter. I don't know who proofread that. I want to start off with this, off with this in himself, so we're automatically going for men. I could not find any statistics and I'll talk about this in a second about whether it's more men against women, women against men. You'd see on the internet, people using this as a men are the love bombers. Women are getting love bomb. That seems to be the most common way. There's nothing to really back that up, though, but I'm. But then they go on. They say they Either we use gender neutral and everyone's they them, which is okay, that is grammatically correct or you need to stick with who has a serious void in himself. He also has poor impulse control and no filter. You don't get to use both. But that's besides the point. They misunderstood what love bombing is, and so now again somebody's looking at it like oh, vogue I know, vogue, that's not what it means.
Speaker 1:Who let this article be published? Poor impulse control? But yeah, cosmo mostly got it right. Madame Figaro, teen Vogue, the Knot, refinery29, they all. More or less they got that first part. Some of them poked at that second very key part that you have to have the devaluation. If it is just the first part, it's not love bombing we gotta go high, then we gotta go low. So in my quest for statistics I did find again, again, something just exemplifies like all of this.
Speaker 2:So you used to listen to the radio back in the day before you know we had great things like spotify and such right I I've tried listening to the radio since, and especially out here in uh west virginia, 99 of the radio stations are gospel or country yeah, of course they are.
Speaker 1:So I found a website that ran a study on the thousand americans representative sample gender, age relationship about love bombing. And I was like whoa, and I'm looking at the name of this website and it's the Shane Company. And I was like the Shane Company and something in the back of my mind was triggered. And it is indeed the Shane Company, as in this is Tom Shane with the Shane Company. Now you have a friend in the diamond business.
Speaker 2:I don't know that one.
Speaker 1:What you never heard those radio ads. This triggered something in my memory when I saw that this was them. There are well-known jewelers and they used to. I think they probably still do run ads, and the guy who owns the company's name is Tom Shane and he has the most monotonous voice you have ever heard and he would talk about how they went to India and pick the best diamonds and sapphires for you and your loved ones, rings.
Speaker 2:I mean you also got to remember that in my time of radio listening I was in Philly or LA.
Speaker 1:They may not be up there. I just remember in Atlanta, like every time you listen to the radio you would get a fucking chain company advertisement always there. At one point he poked fun at himself for being so monotonous and briefly there was like a little bit of intonation and then he just went straight back to the monotonous voice. Voice man, you're missing out. They did a study and I was like why? Why is a jeweler doing a study on love bombing?
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm kind of putting it together, let's hear it.
Speaker 1:Well, I don't know if you want to put it together, because I have questions about these statistics. I don't know if you want to put it together, because I have questions about these statistics. Never once do we clarify what love bombing means. Like what were these people asked? Did they understand what love bombing was? Because are you ready for this? According to them, 70% of Americans have been love bombed and I just I have trouble believing that using the actual definition of love bombing here I wouldn't put it past.
Speaker 2:I mean, there are a lot of statistics that I'm shocked to hear about. Yeah, so I wouldn't put it pat, but I am curious what, how they define love bombing.
Speaker 1:I am too. Again, that was my first big question, because then you see other parts of it that say, according to their study, 70% of people had a partner say I love you within the first month of seeing each other. And I was like that is not what we do. And, yes, that is part of the first part of love. Bombing is to shower the person and just instantly crank it up to 11 and be like, yes, you are my soulmate, that I love.
Speaker 2:But this one goes to 11. Sorry.
Speaker 1:It does. They also found that 40% of people were asked by someone to move in together after only a few months, which again is kind of in that weird like are you pushing things too quickly? Is there something else going on here? I don't think just pointing at me like well, 70 of people have had a partner say I love you within the first month. Therefore, that's why 70 of americans have been love bombed. Yeah, again, remember that love bombing is the intense adoration and intense hatred you gotta have. I think if we were seeing that that 70 of people had experienced it, I think we would know what love bombing actually was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you know that type of definition. I can definitely I can say that I've been love bombed, where a girl like, within first date or two, I'm really starting to have feelings for you and I'm like all right later, yeah, starting to have feeling for you and I'm like all right later, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then if you want to say that you know that's the definition of love bombing, well, okay, I guess I was love bomb, but no, no yeah, completely no, because they also found that 50 of dating app users say they've been love bombed and gas lit in a relationship by the same person and you as the author of our gas lighting episode. Yeah, yeah, this was the one like statistics thing I found and I was like I wish I hadn't. I wish we could just delete this from the internet.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of things that need to be deleted off the internet.
Speaker 1:This is true, yeah.
Speaker 1:And the last little thing with love bombing getting kind of diluted on the internet and pop culture and in our minds, is that this type of behavior, the first part of it again, we see this a lot in media, and not just we see it, but we see it being rewarded.
Speaker 1:So you see, you know some TV show or some movie or whatever, there's the main character and there's somebody who's like super obsessed with them and main character isn't interested in this person, but this person goes like out of their way and they just like follow them everywhere and do crazy shit to prove their love and just absolutely, you know, trash their boundaries to prove their love and after a little while main character realizes that they do actually love them and then they get married and skip off into the sunset.
Speaker 1:So all you see in media is that this type of behavior like if somebody doesn't like you, just shove it down their throat and they're going to fall in love with you. It's okay. It's okay to act like this because the person will love you in the end, and I feel like that may be sometimes why you see people kind of jump into it and just really quickly be like oh yeah, I love you. Like we should move in together, because you see it in media, and in media it works well. Right, therefore, because movies are real life, just like the Internet is real life.
Speaker 2:Oh, let's say yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, with all of this in mind, where do you see us going from here with love bombing, like, is there something that can be done other than educate people, because, I mean, that's always number one?
Speaker 2:I. I think that, yeah, I mean this, is this actually gonna have to come down to just education? The love bomber is doing it for a reason, you know. It's not like being able to call a guy out on and say like, hey, I think that you're love bombing and they're gonna be like I know, because I want to fucking have control of this girl, you know. So it's not like you can call people out on it being able to educate the other half this way they don't fall into that love bombing yeah, I, I think you're right.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, it really is just education, because we do seem to see some correlation between people who may qualify as narcissists and people who do love bombing. It's like, well, at that point it's not a oopsies, I didn't realize. Let me try and do better. You probably know what you're doing and you are probably doing it on purpose. Again, see the fact that this is kind of linked to to gangs, to sex trafficking, to all of that.
Speaker 1:Like, these people know what is going on, they know the impact it has and they are choosing to continue to do that. So, yeah, there's not much you can say to them to make them be like oh damn man, you're right, I shouldn't do this anymore. It's more just learning where to draw that line between. This is somebody who bring it up to them and be like I feel like you're moving really quickly. They can back off and be like I'm sorry, I didn't mean to come across that way. They will respect your boundaries because they actually care, and if the person doesn't respect your boundaries, then they don't care. I was like who the thunk it? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, definitely being able to educate, because, yeah, you know, there is going to be the difference between the person who is the overly affectionate, which, okay, that's something we can work with. Yeah, you know like, okay, you're going a little bit too fast, like, oh, my, my bad. You know, like I, you know whatever. But yeah, being able to have like a clear definition and this way being able to, because, just as you said, you know, like this is a part of the traits that that you know somebody is going to be using.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and it's. It also comes down to understanding before you start running around and being like this person's a love bomber, like you got to stay away from them. Part of the education is figuring out ahead of time Like why is it actually love bombing? I just can't tell you how many times I've seen the three narcissist gaslighting love bombing, just like all crammed into one to describe somebody Like this man. I met him on a dating website and they just they throw those three words at the person and there's never any explanation for what happened or anything. It's like I think you met him twice. So I don't know if you can say in that short amount of time that this person was a love bomber. So maybe don't. Let's just accuse everyone of everything on the internet.
Speaker 2:I love the internet.
Speaker 1:I love it so much. So on our scale of toxicity, where would you place both love bombing itself and the fact that this is one of those terms that gets really misunderstood and that is part of what you're talking about next week but I want to talk about in relation to love bombing here. Would you say that these are green potatoes, so make you kind of sick, but you can just peel that part off and eat the potato and you'll be fine. Are these a death cap mushroom 50, 50 chance of death or coma? Or is this antifreeze, a delicious but deadly last snack, especially mixed in with lime jello?
Speaker 2:Okay. So as far as love, I think both of them are actually hitting the antifreeze on this, on both aspects. Because, again, if you're looking at the definition itself and you're just kind of coming up with bullshit definitions, yeah, you know, like now you know 70% of the people are fucking love bomb, or even more.
Speaker 2:You know, like I said, I literally could say, going by a very internetty definition of love bomb, I could say that I got love bomb oh yeah, based on the internet's definition, I've been love bombed absolutely and then and then, on top of that, like you know, like if you're, if you are being cautious, if you are trying to keep yourself safe and everything, and and you see this type of behavior and it's like, oh my god, like you know, like this can be absolutely like narcissist. So yeah, you know, if you're, if you're trying to stay safe, you know, it's like saying the definition of a fire is somewhere hot yeah, it's like yeah but no, I like it I like it.
Speaker 1:I would agree with you, though, that these are both antifreeze, just because of how, how nasty actual love bombing can be. Again, this leads to physical abuse, and the cycle can continue for years, if they get you kind of trapped into it, of these really great periods, these really terrible periods, and then you just you keep coming back so you're like, but it used to be so good and it will be so good again, like we have these wonderful moments when everything's perfect and lovely and you'll just get sucked into it, and by the time you get out, therapy is kind of your only option. Get out, therapy is kind of your only option. And then you have people who are running around on the internet just saying everything is love bombing, which is not helpful to anyone in A, actually identifying love bombing. B, to the people who have, like, gone through it and would like actually like to talk about it and teach you about it. And C, to the people who are just like it and teach you about it and see, to the people who are just like oh, I met this person and I'm not sure. So where I see this the most, for instance, is there are groups that exist out there, without going into details, for you know, are we dating the same person? They're for guys, they're for girls, different cities, all of that.
Speaker 1:And people will post, you know it's like, oh, I met, you know, this person on on Hinge, on whatever. You know, the popular ones are Bumble, tinder. There's so many of them. Okay, cupid, you post the photos and you may say you know, has anyone met this person before? Do you have anything? Is there anything I should know? Do you have any red flags, anything? And people can be like, oh yeah, you know I had a date with him, like it was fine or whatever, but not my thing. Or people can be like, oh yeah, I actually dated that person. They're horrific. The other way that people use these is posting on them to say, watch out for this person. They're, you know, here's my experience. And sometimes people will back that up with like actual screenshots and you're like, oh yeah, that looks awful. Most of the time it's just kind of a random. You know, oh, don't date Bob, 37 in Paris. You know he's a love bombing, narcissistic, egotistical, whatever. Narcissist again, because he's triple narcissist.
Speaker 1:And he gaslit me and there's just nothing that backs it up. And I worry that people may sometimes see that and be like everything is love bombing. And so I went on a date and the person was like, wow, I've really enjoyed this, I had a great time with you, like, yeah, I liked you. They're gonna be like it's love bombing, oh my God, and just instantly run away from it, and no one benefits from that. So, yeah, if you have ever experienced real love bombing not internet love bombing making a difference here you can write to us and let us know about your experience at toxic, at awesome life skillscom. You can also let us know on social media where you should be following us anyway. We have Facebook, we have Twitter, slash X, we have threads. We have Instagram, we have TikTok. We're on all of the important ones. Sorry to Snapchat, it's not happening?
Speaker 2:We don't have Reddit.
Speaker 1:We could have a Reddit. Actually, I do have a Reddit.
Speaker 2:But not for Toxic Cooking Show. Cooking show, yeah, for us what I? I haven't put anything on it yet I don't.
Speaker 1:I really still don't get reddit, so reddit is a cesspool of sin, but that's a story for another time. So, yeah, you can. You can find us on reddit too, apparently, and until next week. This has been the Toxic Cooking Show. We'll see you then. Bye.
Speaker 2:Bye.
