Have you ever been in a relationship that’s felt like an emotional rollercoaster? 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 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 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?
LOVE BOMBING: A NARCISSISTIC TRAP
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 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. 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 commit. But once this dissipates and the victim tries to express that, they get gaslit 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. After this stage, the perpetrator might begin to show their more controlling side, and the mistreated spouse might finally consider leaving. But the manipulator will then work to rope them back in with more grand displays of affection, beginning the cycle all over again. 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’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.
NOT SO ROMANTIC AFTER ALL
Film and television are filled with examples of relationships that were, at the time, 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 just 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 this 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 obviously knows how to give lavish presents 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 worn by someone worthy of its beauty.” Gossip Girl
But underneath this exterior lies shady behavior (remember that time he sold Blair for a hotel?) and narcissism. 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 fan following, the writers tried to give him a secret good, sensitive side – essentially putting forth the idea that he treated Blair the way he did because he loved her… which… no.
“It’s just a game. I hate to lose. You’re free to go.” “Chuck, why did you just do that?” “Because I love her.” Gossip Girl
It’s exactly this kind of framing – the fact they’re treating you horribly is actually proof 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, it doesn’t absolve him of any of his actions. It makes for a tragic 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’ funds, but he takes love bombing to an extreme in a different way – becoming basically the murderous version of Gossip Girl’s social ladder climbing Lonely Boy Dan Humphrey. At the beginning, Joe seems like a sweet bookseller, a salt of the earth guy who’s just unlucky in love. His constant voiceovers paint him as someone very intensely… detail oriented.
“Based on your vibe, a student. Your blouse is loose, you’re not here to be ogled, but those bracelets, they jangle.” You
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…
“Your bedroom isn’t big enough to fit a king.” “You’re right, it’s too– how do you know that?” “... It’s New York.” You
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, breaking into her home, and murdering her erstwhile boyfriends and manipulative friends, all under the guise 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. I just want you to live your best life. It’s brave what I do for you.” You
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 tell tale sign of love bombing.
“I’ve done nothing but dote on you, support you… You paint me out to be this monster, someone who could hurt people, who could do terrible things. But who is the monster here?” You
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 fealty to him. Given all of this, it’s easy to understand why actor Penn Badgley 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 shouldn’t be trusted? Have I mentioned that?” - Penn Badgley
The ultra-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 hapless guy who is looking for love in all the wrong places. 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 to be. It is meant to be, and you know why? Cause I mean it to be.” How I Met Your Mother
He even uses some Joe Goldbergian tactics like stealing and deploying information so a woman will like him. And later, even stalks a lady. Of course, How I Met Your Mother is a comedy, so all of his weird and creepy behavior is played for laughs. And 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 adorkable friends all around him, confirming this narrative about himself.
“A guy called Ted Mosby. A guy who’s uncynical and sincere… I believe that deep down, you’re still that guy.” “I still am.” How I Met Your Mother
There’s 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 convinces Robin to come to a 72-hour party, only to eventually admit he’s thrown it just for her. 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 deluded, over the top romantic gestures with too 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.” How I Met Your Mother
Only to then claim he loves her just to stroke his own ego regardless of if she actually returns his affections – or, more importantly to him, returns them to Ted’s satisfaction. 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 every supposed to come across as romantic at all.
WHY ARE THERE SO MANY STORIES ABOUT LOVE BOMBING?
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 cyclical 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 big 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 Micheline Maalouf’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 show’s 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 conversations 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. You’re him. You are the bad thing. You are the thing that you should have killed.” You