The Love Bomber Trope: Rom-Com Dream to Total Nightmare

have you ever been in a relationship that's felt like an emotional roller coaster at the beginning you're being showered with praise affection and gifts from Good Morning texts to Lavish drinks and dinners and then suddenly to quote 21st century philosopher Katy Perry they're hot and they're cold they're yes and they're [Music] no so what happened did you do something wrong how did your love story Dream become a nightmare well what you may have experienced is something called love bombing and if we take a a closer look we might start to notice that the TV and movie characters who we thought were so lovable and Charming are actually doing this too from self-identified nice guys like how I met your mother's Ted Mosby to full on bad guys like Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl and Joe Goldberg from you but what is love bombing what are the signs how does it tie into narcissism and why is this Trope in so many TV shows and movies if you're on social media at all you've almost assuredly heard about love bombing in some capacity in recent years but what does does it really mean as the name implies love bombing is all about showering or often smothering someone with intense amounts of attention and affection in a short span of time in the hopes of getting them to fall in love with you those two oh that's easy it's us in 30 years love bombers are great at reading people so they can manipulate them and pretend to be their perfect dream person to the victim the love bomber at first comes across as exactly what they've been waiting for someone who always seems to say and do the right things and this makes them want to Comm but once this dissipates and the victim tries to express that they get gas lit into thinking nothing's wrong and if it is it's something they did the abuser isn't falling in love with them but a controllable idealized version of them and when that victim slips up and shows any part of their Humanity we get into the conflict phase and this doesn't just happen in relationships between two people it can even happen in groups as we often see in Cults at first appearing loving to pull people into their ranks and then becoming hostile if anyone dares to step out of line a relationship with a love bomber feels like fast food the beginning is blissful and addictive and by the end you're just feeling sick because love bombing is a cycle that begins with amazing shows of love and care and ends with Misery the cycle of abuse has this honeymoon stage where everything is good or in intense situations like in relationships with a narcissist this is what we call the love bombing stage after this stage the perpetrator might begin to show their more controlling side and the mistreated spouse might finally consider leaving but the manip will then work to rope them back in with more Grand displays of affection beginning the cycle all over again the love bombing stage is so intense that it causes this Rush of hormones into our bodies that make us feel like the person's actually going to change this time and that we're actually going to get what we've finally been looking for love bombing can tie into narcissism narcissists want their victims to get attached to them so they can exploit and control them and love bombing is an easy way to do that it is actually threatening to them to know that you're not head over heels for them because they cannot control you as easily it's important to note that not all grand gestures are love bombing when people are infatuated with each other they often genuinely want to pick up on each other's Hobbies take them to special places and spend a ton of time together but when this is done with the explicit goal of controlling another person and not to genuinely love them see their partner as a full human being and be seen by them as a human being that's where it becomes love bombing we don't love love bombers but we do love this video sponsor Factor eating better everyday is easy with Factor's delicious ready to 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portrayed as romantic but looking back we start to realize that they're anything but and in more recent years movies and shows have started really digging into this Trope to show how toxic and dangerous these kinds of relationships can be let's take a look at some of film and TV's most well-known love bombers across the scope to unpack what media has really been trying to show us with this Trope let's take Chuck Bass a textbook narcissist as an example as one of the richest high school boys on the Upper East Side he obvious ly knows how to give lavish presence to the object of his inconsistent affection Blair Waldorf and Dole out the cute if cheesy compliments on occasion something this beautiful deserves to be seen on someone worthy of its beauty but underneath this exterior lies Shady Behavior remember that time he sold Blair for a hotel and narcissism if we keep going we both end up dead and I like myself too much to let that happen Chuck wants Blair but only to feel like he's in control of such a powerful young woman and to keep her from finding happiness with anyone else once Chuck and Blair started to get a band following the writers tried to give him a secret good sensitive side essentially putting forth the idea that he's treated Blair the way he did because he loved her which no it's just a k I hate to lose you're free to go CH why did you just do [Music] that because I love her it's exactly this kind of framing the fact that they're treating you horribly is actually prove that they love you somehow that has led to this type of toxic Behavior being normalized by so much of society for so long even if he claims to love her he's still mistreating her stringing her along and not letting her move on all for his own ego and while his abusive father's death makes him see this more clearly I've been pushing myself to prove him wrong and I'm pushing you away it doesn't absolve him of any of his actions it makes for a trag story of people in the wrong emotional places at the wrong times that's why it makes for such good television but it's also tacitly saying that Blair deserves the treatment she's getting from him even though she can be one of the meanest girls in high school no one deserves being picked up and put down like a broken doll Gossip Girl was a show that was vilified by parents at the time because it showed teenagers getting up to some pretty bad behavior which the creative team flipped into a very effective marketing strategy but what it may have been silently teaching teenage girls is much more nefarious that in order to have the highs of a relationship the extravagant necklaces and dates and compliments they must endure and in fact even deserve the lows Joe from you might not have Chuck bass's funds but he takes love bombing to an extreme in a different way becoming basically the murderous version of Gossip Girl social ladder climbing Lonely Boy Dan Humphrey at the beginning Joe seems like a sweet book seller assault of the earth guy who's just unlucky in love his constant voiceovers paint him as someone very intensely detailed oriented based on your Vibe student your blouse is loose you're not here to be ogled but those bracelets they jangle and sure Joe comes on a little strong but he does things that seem like a big deal for a boyfriend in New York City including gasp go to IKEA with Beck though even then he begins to let slip that he's not really the nice guy he pretends to be bedroom isn't big enough to f a king you're right it's too how do you know that it's New York at first the viewer just like Beck might see him in this romantic light and maybe even justify some of his more concerning earlier actions like stalking the next thing our little friend the internet gave me was your address breaking into her home when we live together your place won't be a pig style I'll clean for us and murdering her Ur while boyfriends and manipulative friends all under the guys of protection Joe continuously monologues about how he's not like other guys justifying his actions to himself and to the audience I'm not a bad person she was going to ruin you but you're safe now thanks to me but as these bad Deeds are ratcheting up Beck finds all the artifacts that Joe has stolen from her life including dirty underwear and they break up later Joe finds out Beck had an affair with her therapist while she was with Joe and turns on her though Beck never asked Joe to intervene in her life and doesn't even know the full extent of what he did to her he acts put upon and plays the victim a Telltale sign of Love bombing I've done nothing but do on you support you I know you paint me out to be this monster this someone someone who could hurt people who could do terrible things but who is the monster here Joe loves the idea of Beck a strong beautiful woman who is A Soulful writer and an artist but he only loves her if he can control her control everything about the environment they live in and if she swears total fty to him given all of this it's easy to understand why actor pen baggley seems concerned that some fans of the show are taking away the wrong message and think they're in love with Joe have I mentioned that Joe is a murderer and he should not be trusted have I mentioned that the ultr rich villain and the psychopath serial killer certainly make for good examples of the scariest parts of the love bombing Trope but there are other characters that are much more like people we'd encounter in our everyday lives that help showcase how this type of behavior has been normalized in the real world Ted Mosby from How I Met Your Mother at first just seems like a Hess guy who is looking for love in all the wrong places it's like okay I'm ready where is she but after endless elevator meet cutes and standing outside in the rain every time leading to Ted proclaiming that this woman is the one and he must have her we can start to see that Ted is actually nearly just as delusional and selfish as Joe Goldberg only in a more societally acceptable and less murdery way Ted wants to have a sweeping romance so badly that any woman who he can project onto will do even if she disagrees she can't say it's not meant to be it is meant to be and you know why cuz I mean it to be he even uses some Joe goldbergan tactics like stealing and deploying information so a woman will like him Summer Breeze is my guilty pleasure song it's been stuck in my head ever since I heard it this weekend at brunch I love brunch and later even stalks a lady and now a very single and available Maggie wils is on her way to this very spot I sent a cab with a female driver so she'd have no other interaction with a man until she got to me of course How I Met Your Mother is a comedy so all of his weird and creepy behavior is played for Laughs just like you Ted is narrating all the episodes so we're trained to think his perspective is correct even normal plus he has his adorable friends all around him confirming this narrative about himself a guy called Ted Mosby guy who's uncynical and sincere I believe that deep down you're still that guy I am still that guy there's no no better example than his treatment of Robin who is spoiler alert not the titular mother but is Ted's soulmate or so only he thinks he decides it's love at first sight but Robin isn't feeling it he's just looking for something a little bit more serious than I am I mean the most I can handle right now is something casual he convinces Robin to come to a 72-hour party only to eventually admit he's thrown it just for her I didn't throw this party to set you up with Carlos or the one before that when he finally wears Robin down and she does agree to go out with him but runs late he casts Robin aside and takes a girl he just met to the wedding instead and even when they do start dating Ted creates more and more diluted over-the-top romantic gestures with two high stakes that ultimately push Robin away I need an answer if you want me to say yes right now I I can't do that well if it's not yes then it's a no only to then claim he loves her just to stroke his own ego how long have you been hung up on Robin 8 years and you're still killing yourself to fetch dumb little trinkets for her regardless of if she actually Returns His affections or more importantly to him returns them to Ted's Satisfaction Just tell me do you love me no after all this repeated jerking around romantic gesture to rejection and back over and over again it becomes hard to swallow that this Central couple of How I Met Your Mother was ever supposed to come across as romantic at all so if love bombing is so terrible often ruining the lives of the victims why does this Trope seem to pop up again and again on screen well the intense and ccal nature of Love bombing lends itself naturally to television in particular the beginning of a love bombing relationship sure feels like a movie a woman getting swept off her feet by a man's words and actions and the rest of the Beats of this kind of relationship also follow the structure of a hero's journey basically where a hero gets into a situation that changes them like a new relationship messes them up like a fight in a relationship and brings them to a low point and then after learning something about themselves and resolving the conflict like stopping a victim from leaving by love bombing them again returns home which happens to look pretty similar to therapist Michelin mali's diagram of a love bombing relationship so for a lengthy show like Gossip Girl that thrives on endless drama it's easy to bring Blair and Chuck together via a grand gesture have them break up and then like magnets fall back together again so the cycle can continue what this could unconsciously do for people who watch these shows is make them think that if they're not having these kinds of extreme highs and lows in a relationship that their current one is too boring or that person isn't the one when in actuality their relationship might just be healthy so it's great that media is starting to really showcase how incredibly toxic this kind of behavior is with shows like you though it seems even murder isn't enough to scare everyone away but on the whole through both these kinds of obviously negative portrayals and more open honest convers ations about real life love bombing happening on social media more and more people are waking up to the reality about these relationships and hopefully this will help people escape them before they get trapped too deep in the cycle you're him you are the bad thing you are the thing that you should have killed that's the take click here to watch a video we think you'll love or here to check out a whole playlist of awesome content don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications and make sure to subscribe to our patreon for exclusive new videos

Channel: The Take

Views: 74,664

Keywords: the take, video essay, video essays, explained, Love Bombing, love bombing signs, love bombing narcissist, love bombers, HIMYM, How I Met Your Mother, Ted Mosby, You Netflix, Joe Goldberg, Gossip Girl, Chuck Bass, 50 Shades of Grey, Christian Grey, Friends, Ross Geller, nice guy trope, love bombing trope, love bomber trope, love bombing explained, love bombing on screen, movie love bombers, tv love bombers, bad boyfriends in movies, bad boyfriends in tv, nice guy, trope

Id: 086XBiXqt1s

Length: 15min 3sec (903 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 06 2024