你遭遇过“爱情轰炸”吗?

What Is ‘Love Bombing’?
你遭遇过“爱情轰炸”吗?

Imagine you’re at a restaurant one night, and after dinner you decide to order not one but two slices of cheesecake for dessert. Many would say that’s unhealthy — or at least indulgent — but everyone deserves a treat once in a while. Right?

想象一下,一天晚上,你在餐馆里,晚饭后决定点两块芝士蛋糕当甜点,而不是一块。很多人会说这不健康——至少是有点放纵——但每个人都应该偶尔享受一下。对吧?

If you keep ordering two slices of cake for dessert every night for months, however, your health may suffer.

然而,如果你连续几个月每晚都点两块蛋糕当甜点,你的健康可能会受到影响。

 


This is one analogy that Chitra Raghavan, a professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, used to explain how romantic behaviors can transform into a manipulative dating practice known as “love bombing”: lavishing a new romantic partner with grand gestures and constant contact in order to gain an upper hand in the relationship.

约翰杰伊刑事司法学院的心理学教授奇特拉·拉加万用这个蛋糕的比喻来解释浪漫行为如何转变为一种被称为“爱情轰炸”的操纵性约会做法:对新的恋人展开猛烈追求、不断进行接触,以便在关系中取得优势。

“One partner, typically male but not exclusively, showers the other person with attention, affection, compliments, flattery, and essentially creates this context where she feels like she’s met her soul mate and it’s effortless,” Dr. Raghavan said in a phone interview. “The reality is, the person who is doing the love bombing is creating or manipulating the environment to look like he’s the perfect or she’s the perfect mate.”

“伴侣中的一方,通常是男性——但也不完全是——向另一方倾注关注、爱慕、赞美和奉承,这基本上会让另一方觉得自己遇到了灵魂伴侣,而且得来全不费功夫,”拉加万在接受电话采访时说。“事实上,那是实施‘爱情轰炸’的人在创造或操纵环境,让自己看起来像是完美的伴侣。”

Sound familiar? Here are some signs and patterns to keep in mind in order to avoid getting love bombed — and advice for what to do if you think it may be happening to you.

听起来是不是很熟悉?为了避免遭遇“爱情轰炸”,以下是一些需要记住的征兆和规律,以及如果遭遇这种情况时该应该怎么办。

Excessive Attention and Flattery

过度关注和奉承


One of the complicated things about dating, Dr. Raghavan said, is that everything that happens in healthy relationships can also happen in unhealthy relationships. Showing excessive attention is one example.

拉加万说,约会的复杂之处在于,健康关系中发生的一切也可能发生在不健康的关系中。表现出过度关注就是一个例子。

“If someone pays you attention and is generally present during the first date, that generally signals interest,” said Dr. Raghavan, who also specializes in domestic violence and sex trafficking. “But then there’s also someone that pays you interest in such a way that you’re consumed by it.”

“如果一个人在第一次约会时就关注你,而且经常出现在你身边,这通常表明他对你有兴趣,”同时专门研究家庭暴力和性交易的拉加万说。“但也有人对你感兴趣的方式会令你筋疲力尽。”

She added that it can be hard to recognize the mismatch of familiarity (remember, this is someone you’ve only just met) and affection in the moment, especially when a person is uttering words you’ve longed to hear: “you are my soul mate,” “I never met anyone I feel so close to” or “everything about you is what I wanted.”

她还说,在那个阶段,很难认识到,双方还不熟悉的情况下(记住,这是你刚刚认识的人)产生这样强烈的感情是不合适的,尤其是一个人说的都是你渴望听到的话:“你是我的灵魂伴侣,”“我从未遇到过让我感到如此亲近的人,”“你就是我想要的一切。”

“It’s very exaggerated, histrionic, but could also be seen as deeply seductive and romantic, depending on what happens in between, what happens after,” Dr. Raghavan said.

“这非常夸张、做作,但也可以被看做非常诱人和浪漫,这取决于在这期间发生了什么,以及之后发生了什么,”拉加万说。

Isolation From Friends and Family

远离朋友和家人


It may seem sweet that your new mate wants to spend all of their time with you. But more often, it’s a red flag: The person may be a narcissist trying to isolate you from the other connections in your life as a way of exerting control.

你的新伴侣想把所有的时间都花在你身上,这似乎很甜蜜。但更常见的情况是,这是一个危险信号:这个人可能是一个自恋者,试图把你同生活中的其他人隔开,作为一种施加控制的方式。

Amy Brunell, a psychology professor at the Ohio State University whose research is focused on narcissism in social and romantic relationships, said that while there isn’t a ton of research on intimate partner abuse and narcissism, there is a connection. Controlling a person’s social life from the get-go may leave the person with nowhere to turn when a relationship sours.

俄亥俄州立大学心理学教授艾米·布鲁内尔的研究重点是社交和恋爱关系中的自恋现象。她说,虽然关于虐待亲密伴侣和自恋之间关系的研究并不多,但二者之间确实存在联系。从一开始就控制一个人的社交生活,这可能会让被控制者在关系恶化时无处可去。

“It does plant the seeds for intimate partner violence because typically a person will finally have enough and want to get out of it, and then it’s really hard,” Dr. Brunell said in a phone interview.

“它确实为亲密关系暴力埋下了种子,因为通常情况下,一个人最终会忍无可忍,想要摆脱这段关系,到时就真的很难了,”布鲁内尔在电话采访中说。

Over-the-Top Gifts

过多的礼物


Dr. Raghavan said that showering new partners with presents is a common way for love bombers to exert influence, and even if they don’t have money, they may act as if they do.

拉加万说,给新伴侣送礼物是搞“爱情轰炸”的人施加影响的一种常见方式,即使没有钱,他们也可能表现得好像很有钱一样。

“It’s part of the idea of excess and overwhelming the person so that they’re swept off their feet,” she said, adding that the “constant attention, flattery, seduction, gifts” make it hard “to process that you’re overwhelmed. And when you’re overwhelmed, you don’t see danger.”

“这是一种放纵的感觉,会压倒对方,让对方飘飘然,”她说。她还说:“持续的关注、奉承、诱惑和礼物”会让你难以“处理自己被对方压倒的问题。而当你被压倒时,你就看不到危险”。

Narcissists tend to be materialistic themselves, Dr. Brunell said, so they may also give gifts to boost their value and self-esteem.

布鲁内尔说,自恋者本身往往是物质主义者,所以他们也可能会通过送礼来提升自己的价值和自尊。

“It kind of reminds me a little bit of the Christian Grey stuff in that series, the chronic high-end gift giving,” she said, referring to the titular character in “Fifty Shades of Grey.” Because such characters abound in romantic media, she added, their behavior “becomes our equivalent idea of romance.”

“这多少让我想到电影里的克里斯蒂安·格雷,他经常赠送高端礼物,”她说,她指的是《五十度灰》(Fifty Shades of Grey)里的主角。她补充说,因为这样的角色在浪漫作品中比比皆是,他们的行为“被我们和浪漫划上了等号”。

Paul Eastwick, a psychology professor at the University of California, Davis, whose research examines how people initiate and commit to romantic relationships, noted that not all grand gestures should be red flags.

加州大学戴维斯分校心理学教授保罗·伊斯特维克的研究调查了人们如何开始和承诺一段恋情。他指出,并不是所有的夸张姿态都是危险信号。

“Generally speaking, the way we give affection to other people, the way we show them that we care about them, the way we try to support them, all of those things tend to robustly predict good outcomes,” Dr. Eastwick said in a phone interview. Love bombing, he said, likely represents a “small subset” of that behavior.

“一般来说,我们向他人表达情感,我们向他们表示关心,我们试图支持他们,所有这些都倾向于强烈地预测着良好的结果,”伊斯特维克在电话采访中说。他说,“爱情轰炸”可能只是这种行为的“一个小子集”。

Post-Love Bombed

经历“爱情轰炸”之后


In healthy adult romantic relationships, support, desire and affection tend to be reciprocal, Dr. Eastwick said. But in cases of love bombing, attention flows in a single direction: One person tries to become the other’s whole world.

伊斯特维克说,在健康的成人恋爱关系中,支持、欲望和爱往往是相互的。但在“爱情轰炸”的情况下,注意力只流向一个方向:一个人试图成为另一个人的整个世界。

Dr. Raghavan said that people who have been love bombed often feel as though they’ve lost their sense of self, which can take a long time to rebuild.

拉加万说,那些经历了“爱情轰炸”的人通常会觉得失去了自我,这可能需要很长时间来重建。

“You lose the sense of who you are because little things are being managed for you and these little things can be anything from how you dress to how you present yourself,” Dr. Raghavan said. “But it can also be the kind of jokes you’re allowed to tell in public or the kind of woman that he wants you to be.”

“你会失去自我,因为对方把一些小事都为你安排好了,可以是任何事情,从你的着装到你如何表现自己,”拉加万说。“但也可以是那种他允许你在公共场合讲的笑话,或者是他希望你成为的那种女人。”

These experts said that victims should give themselves patience and forgiveness, and could also benefit from therapy. They should try to reconnect with the activities and people who mattered to them before the love bomber entered their life, the experts advised.

这些专家说,受害者应该对自己耐心,原谅自己,也可以从心理治疗中受益。专家建议,他们应该试着去重新接触那些“爱情炸弹”到来之前对自己很重要的人和事。

“That needs to happen, the acceptance of the tragic events and embracing the positiveness of the future,” Dr. Raghavan said.

“这是必须要做的,接受悲惨的事件,积极乐观地面对未来,”拉加万说。

来源:英语点津

参与评论