A Jewish Matchmaker Distinguishes between Love and Love-bombing…

Too often, I see singles who are swept away by early words of love and commitment after only a brief correspondence or a short dating period. It is amazing how our common sense can be short-circuited by intense wooing and early declarations of affection, but the words and the actions feel so good to us that we want to believe it’s all true. If you’re a romantic-at-heart, believe in a soulmate or love-at-first-sight, then you are more likely to have been the victim of a love-bomber at some point in your dating life.

First let me stress that if you’ve never even MET a person and he/she is declaring feelings of love for you and wants to commit via emails, messages, and phone calls, GET THE FRICK OUT. Period. As much as you want to believe that you are sooooo wonderful, kind, thoughtful, intelligent, and generally awesome that someone could actually fall head-over-heels with you without ever having met you – it just simply cannot be true. No healthy person is ready to love, commit, and build a future with a virtual stranger.

The same holds after dating someone for a few weeks. And if this is happening after the first or second date, you don’t even have to question the possibility. Just walk away. Again, what they are declaring is not genuine or lasting. Genuine love develops over time, after the “newness” and “best behavior” period has long worn off. You need to see each other at your WORST, not just your best. You need to disagree, work through disagreements, challenge each other, establish boundaries, overcome stressors, etc… BEFORE you can genuinely say you love another person, you need to KNOW the person.

These behaviors are RED FLAGS. Your ego may be swept away by thinking that someone has finally seen how unique and brilliant you are and loves you for it, but the truth is, the person barely knows you, even after a few months. It is not genuine love that is at work here, and often, it is a disordered individual who is trying to “love-bomb” you into a relationship too quickly because he/she knows that the more time the relationship has to develop, the more will be revealed about his/her personality and the more likely you will see through their disguise. Most disordered individuals have to exert a lot of energy to keep up the facade for you, and it doesn’t take much for that facade to slip. They want to get you hooked quickly, so that you will be blindsided when the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde (or Dr. Jekyll/Ms. Hyde) behavior is revealed.

Sadly, the more “needy” YOU are, the more YOU hate to be alone, and the more desperate YOU are to find affection and love, the more likely you are to be swept away by this type of behavior. This is just one of the many reasons why it is so important to be spend time getting to know and love yourself before you seek love from someone else. When you love yourself, you are happy regardless of whether you are receiving “validation” from someone else, and your natural intuition will spot a disordered suitor early on.

f you’re still not sure how to spot a love-bomber, look for signs such as early declarations of love and desire to live together, marry and/or have children, excessive calling or texting, phrases such as “I’ve never met anyone like you”, “You are perfect for me”, “No one understands me like you do”, “I can’t believe I found someone as wonderful as you”, etc., spoken very early in the relationship, and a sense of urgency at moving the relationship forward.

In short, if you are being idealized, over-valued, and put on a pedestal very early in the relationship, you are likely being love-bombed.

Most of us want to feel “special”, to make someone else feel special, and to find that relationship that feels like a fit for our soul, but if you meet someone who seems too “perfect”, declares feelings of love for you, and wants to commit to a lifetime with you early in the relationship – take a step-back and remove your rose-colored glasses. If it is genuine love, slowing it down will not kill it, rather, it will foster stronger and deeper growth.

Real love has no need to hurry…

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