Love-Bombing and Gaslighting: How Mediocre Men Trick You Into Liking Them

Every guy in their 20s acts like you're the love of their life until they're bored of you - then they suddenly need to "find themself".

Every girl in their 20s has to create a version of the guy in their head just to convince themself they even like him - then when he leaves they come to the conclusion that he was just "scared of how strong his feelings were".

She cries in the shower over her made-up version of him, while he drinks a shower beer and never thinks of her again.

The love-bombing to gaslighting pipeline is a popular form of psychological warfare among the narcissistic, balding, ping pong ball chasing demographic that unfortunately makes up the majority of the dating pool. We can't avoid it, unless we avoid men altogether which honestly doesn't sound like the worst idea. But having a fling, a crush, a sneaky link, a "situationship", or even just a consistent dick appointment makes life much, much more exciting.

There's something so fun about a walk of shame. Hair knotted the fuck up, taking in the crisp morning air, giving a defeated nod to someone's landscaper, face timing the girls to organize the Sunday morning debrief where you'll vividly describe his dick. Hell, sometimes I put myself in situations I know are going to break my heart just so I can relate to song lyrics more. You don't have to like the guy, it just makes the plot more interesting.

Most 20-something men have the emotional intelligence of a spoon and the conversational ability of a brick wall. So we have to be delusional or we'd never sleep on navy blue sheets again! That's why love-bombing works. It plays into our delusions, and makes us think they like us way more than we like them. We feel safe because we feel as if we have the upper hand.

The first stage of love-bombing is what I like to call the "you're not like other girls" stage. This consists of him telling you how chill you are, complaining about how crazy his ex was (most likely he's currently texting her begging for her to come back), showing you his camera roll of all his high school buddies that would "love you", telling you "I can't talk to anyone else like I can talk to you", etc. etc. This stage tends to last for about two weeks.

The second stage of love-bombing is the distant stage. He slows his response time, leaves you on delivered for a couple hours at a time. He's dry over text with one or two word answers. For fucked up societal programming reasons we tend to lean towards boys who don't like us, so this is when we start to catch feelings. This drives us to utter the phrase that kills every situationship: "what are we?"

"What are we?" sends us into stage three: gaslighting. He completely back tracks on everything he said in stage one. He "needs space to find himself", he "needs to focus on school". He may even be fucked up enough to bring up "family trauma" that makes him too toxic for you and "you deserve better". All forms of the classic "It's not you it's me" trope.

Time to play Phoebe Bridgers and cry in the shower over a boy you never liked in the first place.

Oh, and the next time you see him? He'll act like you've never met - even though he's seen you naked. How I love being a woman!