The lovebombing accusation is what gets me. Sorry for being lonely and easily getting infatuated on the rare occasion I get to date someone 😭
I man no disrespect but you gotta reign it in. I totally get where you’re coming from but getting lovebombed is a red flag for good reason.
You alluded to one reason why in your comment…if the infatuation isn’t mutual, it feels like the person is just excited to be in a relationship. They’re in love with being in love, not with me.
And unless you’re a narcissist, it just feels weird to put on a pedestal. Getting fawned over 24/7 is too much. People just want a partner that is a normal person most of the time.
It also has the connotation of codependence. And with that, it’s likely this person is going to have a mental breakdown if we break up in a year.
Lovebombing usually means baggage. It’s understandable that people don’t want to start a relationship with someone carrying a ton of baggage.
Yeah I associate it with uncontrolled BPD and it fucking terrifies me at this point because of the experiences that caused that association. Being put on a pedestal sucks, your successes become expected and your failures become catastrophic. But also you can feel trapped for fear of hurting someone who you do like who’s in a bad place. And from there enforcing boundaries can start to feel like hurting them.
With my wife we still make points to express that we’d be ok and manage if the other left. Our finances are built with that in mind even. Knowing I can leave makes me always aware of how I don’t want to, and it makes us safe and secure in the fact that we know the other doesn’t want to.
I mean, thank you for your advice, but I’ve been dating for quite a while now so I already learned I have to tone it down. It just feels frustrating having to pretend I’m less interested than I actually am, when I’m usually a person that hates being dishonest
But the reasons to be put off by lovebombing are justified. You’re a stranger juggling knives and frustrated that they’re backing away lol
I mean they keep acknowledging that it kinda just seems you’re telling them that they have no choice but to pretend they’re someone different than who they are
Yes, I am well aware. I just know that lovebombing can also be seen, like in this greentext, as a deliberate manipulation tactic (and often probably is). My original comment was just meant to show the other side, that it isn’t always a manipulation attempt.
Psychology can be the worst coercion tactic since you can hardly criticise it.
Like seriously, how do you even respond to “You need to love yourself!” when it’s used as an attack. When you highlight that it’s controlling behaviour to psychologise, you can always receive the response that your critical remark, phrased as deflection, is a sign of distrust in psychology or distrust in general and that that is a sign that your pathology runs even deeper, which makes the original attack even more correct.
Leave psychology to those who have actually read the books and the modicum of social skills needed to empathise.
“I do tend to overexplain and I’m sorry, please shut me down if I do, but please believe me when I tell you that I overexplain everyone and it has nothing to do with your perceived gender, I just have the *tism.” - this is my usually response because it’s true.
I got accused of mansplaining because I was helping someone on a tech support call (they were taking the call to support a user, and I was assisting them) and I started with the basic information they’d need to understand the problem and how to fix it. After the call she turned around to the guy next to her and complained about it and he was just like, “oh, no, he’s like that with everyone”.
My philosophy was based on the fact that our managers hired people for people skills over technical background because they assumed the tech stuff could be trained and that if someone was asking me for help there was a gap in their knowledge somewhere and I had no way to know where it was other than to begin at the beginning and work through it. Most people appreciated it. But some were full of themselves and got pissed about it, those types typically didn’t last very long on that job.
banger
Maybe I’m ignorant, but love bombing sounds pretty nice.
Yeah, that’s the problem. Once I married a woman I had known for six months, because that whole time she was crazy about me. I was the center of her world. It felt great - I wasn’t used to getting a lot of attention from women, and here was one literally begging me to marry her. I went for it. But for whatever reason (maybe God thought it was funny) there are people out there who flip between over-the-top loving someone and over-the-top hating him, for no external reason. My ex-wife kept the crazy under control before we got engaged, but after that about a couple of times a week she would flip out. I ended up divorcing her after six months of marriage - the last straw was when on my birthday she flipped out because I wanted to celebrate with my family and not just with her. (She was extremely jealous - not just about other women but about my family and even my dog.)
Normal social interactions don’t prepare you to deal with a person like that. Even long after the divorce, I would still wonder if maybe I was the one who had been doing something wrong - after all, she was usually so sweet and loving!
My friend’s going through something similar now and not saying something earlier is one of my biggest regrets.
We were both single when they started dating and I didn’t want to seem jealous by pointing it out. Now they’ve got two kids and are getting divorced because she found someone new to lovebomb.
I consider myself very, very lucky that my ex-wife and I did not have any children.
I think it’s only called that when it’s being used to manipulate you, paradigm case being an abuser who swears they didn’t mean to they love you so much they weren’t thinking straight please say you love me
Love-bombing a love-bomber can get epic, but then there’s the fallout when the one drops the act and is terrified by the possibilities that: you weren’t acting, you were just matching their energy and can meet them down in the trenches before they can actually drag you down, and/or you knew what they were up to and refuse to be made to have a problem with it(see “weren’t acting”).
Now you’re stuck with a bait-and-switcher who cannot grasp that you might not be pulling the same trick they just failed to land.
If this sounds like a lot of drama and a massive pain, it is, and that’s why its not recommended over disengaging once you’ve realized what’s happening.
Sometimes I wish I could take psychopathy for a test drive, just to see what it’s like to be emotionally invulnerable for a day. This is the kind of thing I’d want to do.
Psychopathy? Autism? BPD?
I stay medicated and too busy doing right by my family to dwell on it, but I have enough emotional depth that I sometimes wonder if I didn’t just decide to try to think and act like an unhinged psychopath one day(WAY before I met my wife…) in the hopes of avoiding abuse & despair. I’ll tell you this much: Whatever the case, that last part definitely didn’t work-out.
I know enough about psychopathy specifically to know it would be interesting to try for a few hours, but longer than that it might ruin my life. My sense of empathy often gives me grief, but it serves a purpose.
Same. Some days, my sense of “this is not right, people should not do this, I should not do this” is preventing me from doing really stupid things.
Besides, what if you did something ethically bad and get away with it, and then the empathy comes back? Wouldn’t you just hate yourself that you scammed an old lady of her retirement money and destroyed some poor kid’s future for minor personal gain on the way home?
tell her to calm down, she is being hysterical
Probably that time of the month
And then suggest the Edwardian era cure for hysterical women: orgasm.
Respond with a strong assertive wave of the hand and a firm “silence women”
“Men are speaking” emphasised with a pat on the bottom.
It’s best to explain why what’s your doing is not mansplaining. That always works.
The real answer is to leave. I don’t think I’ve ever had a meaningful or productive conversation where any of these were used.
Though I can see stonewalling being used in earnest.
Stonewalling is probably the best only one on that list where a response would actually make anything better.
It’s best to explain why what’s your doing is not mansplaining. That always works.
If somebody accuses you of mansplaining, there is nothing you can do. that makes this so toxic as an argument. It’s basically saying “Whatever you are saying or want to say is worthless because of your gender”. I know that mansplaining is in theory a specific kind of disrespectful explaining, but in too many cases it’s used to deflect valid arguments. If someone is acting like that, the only way is to not interact further.
Yeah that top part was a joke.
It would be like asking a woman if it’s her time of the month or if she’s PMSing. It’s aggressively devalidating and at that point there’s nothing to say.
yep. the terms in the op are all thought terminating rhetoric and simply attacks.
find a non hysterical woman who can use better logic to explain why she is upset with you
that said if it was just one of these things you may be doing it
lord help you if it really is all 4 and you can’t tell
who am I kidding, tell the bitch to get back in the kitchen
If you don’t hear it often? Sans gaslighting, “maybe you need it then”.
Always rethink your position and switch PoV for the other side for a bit mentally. But if you get back to where you are, feel free to feel attacked lol. Mostly due to phrasing. This is accusation, and accusations aren’t thrown out of good will.
With gaslighting, just wave your hand, say whatever and change topic. Either you got too emotional and focused on needing to win, or the other person is willing to throw anything at you because they feel attacked and already full on with defence. No moving there either way. Just drop it and move on.
Reflect upon how you are acting. Empathize with the other person’s POV. Then discuss rationally from a point of mutual benefit.
Lol, no.
Name checks out
Hey, they don’t have any for me either.
It depends if the accusations come in good or bad faith.
Well it’s either you or her. Get better at communicating or tell her to figure out her shit.
Or both. It could be both. Really, its usually both.
Usually by doing all of those things even more, as far as I can tell. Bonus points if you posted yourself on LinkedIn wearing a “this is what a feminist looks like” t-shirt.
it’s very important to begin your response with the word
Axxxxually…
yo, did the fucking misogyny of 4chan get exported with this post or why are u all acting like chuds rn??
yo, did the fucking sense of humour of reddit get exported with this comment or why are u all acting like the comedy police rn??
“I am only misogynistic for the JOKE bro, geez”
Lmao, imaging only now discovering how jokes work.
Right, just like the_donald was totally only le funny jokes. And not a beacon for real fashs to meet at.
You’re comparing one of the largest right-wing political movements in reddit history to a greentext post on lemmy. You can downvote me as much as you like but for your own mental health, please go outside.
Outrage over pointing out analogies gotta be one of my favourite online cop outs lmao
That’s a comparison, not an analogy. You need to work on your grasp of nouns, champ.
There’s like 2 misogynistic comments in a sea of genuine advice and they’re both pretty obviously sarcasm
It’s supposed to be tongue-in-cheek.
You new to greentext or what?
Anon you’re an asshole and you know this since kindergarten. Stop gaslighting
The funny thing is when people say “you’re gaslighting me”, but actually you’re the one being gaslit.
Really the problem with things like this is just when they’re used in bad faith to gain rhetorical advantage. It’s fine to say something to the effect of:
“I believe you’re gaslighting me. Here’s what I remember happening, and here’s some supporting evidence. What you’re saying is that it didn’t happen that way. If your intention is not to intentionally try to mislead me about how things occurred, can you explain?”
But just saying “You’re gaslighting me” when really what’s happened is that the way things actually happened is inconvenient to their argument - that’s the issue. It all comes down to their motivation
Real gaslighters LOVE the opportunity to further twist facts, or maybe its compulsion. Its better to either disengage entirely or focus on one or two key points their bullshit cannot change
You have to disengage once you know they’re actually doing it. Same with any manipulative behavior. But if you’re really not sure, I’ve had luck pressing them on why what they’ve said doesn’t make logical sense. If they can’t support it, I can dismiss it and disengage.
Therapyspeak is a weaponized toolkit for typically BPD/sociopaths/narcissists to manipulate the situation into them always being right, and the only person whose thoughts and feelings and intentions matter.
It is extremely unforunate that this is the case… but it is the case.
Here’s a maybe relatable shit test:
Are you having conversations with a person that resemble diatribes/debates from SexPestiny or Thor/PirateSoftware?
They conceed a point, and then immediately minimize it, flip to another rheotrical/emotional attack angle where they are the victim or you are the perpetrator, never actually allowing anything approaching a consensus as to the actual facts of the matter, all stated together?
Yep, that’s a sociopathic narcissist that put a bunch of skill points into therapyspeak/debate rhetoric.
They’re grandiose, and slippery; they’ll do anything to avoid someone else being able to nail down the actual factual foundations of their argument or perspective.
They do this because they must maintain narrative control/framing, everything is a battle of image and reputation, not the actual things that those originate from… thats both their strategy and just part of how their brains work.
They’re essentially incapable of realizing or fully processing that they’ve made a substantial error, and they’re also basically just not capable of separating ‘how they felt about something’ from ‘something’; at best this is enormously difficult for them, as they have very poor ability to regulate their emotions.
Welp, you’ve nailed why I find it so ironic/hillarious when I’m told, at length and in excessive/invented detail, that I haven’t internalized/accepted my own failures enough.
Mind you, it almost never involves (even meta-physical)injury or inconvenience to anyone else, so there’s a lot of lip-flapping from people who can explain everything they have a problem with except for how what’s being complained-about is any of their business or problem.
My new life motto, upon hitting roughly 30:
Suffer no fools.
Be humble, but show no mercy to a hypocrite.
I’ve been abused by enough narcissists that yeah, I’ve got some rough edges to me, but frankly, I’m fine with that; a whole lot of people just fucking suck, and its a reasonably effective autorepellant for people who are too full of themselves to take a joke or criticism.
Honestly, I’m the opposite. Fools are the only company I’m fit for, but “smart” fools if I can find them, if that makes sense. I try to avoid feeling like the “smart” one, although that avoidance hasn’t required any effort for me among my friends for literal decades by this point.
My ex-boss was like this. I felt so much better after he was gone, that is how I realized what a massive piece of shit he really was. My job and life were suddenly much easier, my mental health got much better, and I could think a bit clearer.
We’ve unfortunately built a society, in the US at least, that literally rewards and promotes sociopathy with money.
These people lie and tell you we live in a meritocracy, which itself is gaslighting.
Sociopaths ‘overperform’ in most kinds of careers, because they’re so manipulative.
Ok, so a lot of us agree on these basic facts, that there is this things wrong with the world, and we need a community that is an anti-venom to it.
Also, hi! You are kind of my favorite Lemmy person for some reason.
I feel like a lot of people on lemmy, a lot of reddit refugees… well basically they seem like 10 year younger versions of me, or something similar.
Thus… well fuck, psychoanalyzing myself a bit: I’m basically trying to be the dad or I guess just any kind of actual postitive mentor I wish I’d had, when I say things like this.
‘Its dangerous to go alone, read this!’
But yeah, laughter can help, and is a good part of any kind of discussion of the insane bullshit in this world… it doesn’t have to be just always jokes all the time, as s coping mechanism… it can be sanity-affirming for a blunt autist such as myself to just wholly explain the nonsense.
That being said: I’m not infallible. Ideally, don’t believe a thing I say, verify it.
I’ve never really understood gaslighting.
Yes I know the original definition.
Yes I know the phrase is overused to describe behaviour it really doesn’t apply to.
I just cant imagine someone actually planning to manipulate someone in this way.
Gaslighting includes the intention to mislead, leading to another person doubting their own reality. It’s a real thing some people do. When you’re experiencing it, you’re forced into cognitive dissonance as the reality you experience doesn’t line up with what another person claims.
That’s what gives nuance to the concept. Not all lies are gaslighting. Misremembering isn’t gaslighting. It requires a denial of reality that leads to another person second-guessing their own experiences. Gaslighting rarely occurs as a one-off event, it’s part of a recurring campaign that slowly changes how a victim perceives their own reality.
It’s okay to have difficulty imagining it. In fact I’d say you’ve been fortunate not to be exposed to it. Just be aware of it in case you ever find yourself in a relationship where it applies.
My partner’s mother gaslights a lot. Think about scenario: She does something wrong, she backs off from situation for a few days to allow memories to wane a bit, then grabs the weakest link and starts bending the truth to paint herself in a bit better light at worst, and at best, shift whole fault on another person. She focuses on small, easily misremembered parts of story, and if you call her bullshit, she will accuse you of either not remembering or twisting it against her.
And she did that to my partner for their whole childhood and now my partner fights depression and lack of feeling of self worth. Also reacts to “I remember it differently” with aggression, which bites me in the ass but at least shields her from her mother.
I grew up with another gaslighter, my granny, who reframed and twisted everything to be my mothers fault and if she tried to defend then it was her remembering wrong, “not seeing such simple stuff” or being against granny. She did so with malice and ruined my mothers mental health. Same with her (granny’s) husband, who literally hanged himself.
Both cases were narcissistic but I can see someone using it out of other reasons.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of people think of gaslighting as if it were intentional, but when I have encountered gaslighting, it has usually come from people who have a different view of events and are unwilling to accept that their viewpoint isn’t the absolute truth of the situation.
They will argue from the viewpoint of “the way I remember things is the way things happened”.
Then when you say that they are gaslighting you, they will say that they are not.
In their mind, they’re just telling the truth of events as they remember them, no malice intended.
So my father did it, and I don’t think it was intentional, the big thing was that his perspective was to be treated as objective fact in discussions in which he was a part. You could say something like “I’m cold” and he’d respond with “it’s not cold” in a frustrated tone. The long and short of it in how it fucked me up is that I struggle to trust my own subjective reality and feel the need to get permission to feel things. That can be a real problem when it comes time to form and maintain boundaries for example.
