Prince Charming does not exist and we should even rather be wary of him. In two lines, Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham) outlines the main principles of love bombing [le bombardement d’amour] in the last season of Ted Lasso. “It’s when you’re bombarded with gifts, trips and grand gestures of love,” she tells Keeley (Juno Temple) who is starting a romantic relationship with a very wealthy investor. If the series worn by Jason Sudeikis only skims over the concept of love bombing with humour, the british series Mine the night, you the day (The Flatshare in VO) on Paramount+ studies more seriously the mechanisms of influence with a character that she willingly turns to ridicule. What is really hiding behind this portmanteau word? And why should you be wary of a man who showers you with gifts and showers you with declarations of love?
With his character Justin (Bart Edwards) trying to win back Tiffany (Jessica Brown Findlay), Mine the night, you the day unravels the threads of this well-known strategy of manipulators. Privatization of a room in a gourmet restaurant, sending hundreds of roses, marriage proposal in the middle of a ceremony where Tiffany is to be rewarded for a press article. He also snatched his “yes” from him in front of a room populated by journalists. Through this outpouring of love, Justin tries to control Tiffany and isolate her from those close to her – he has unknowingly kept access to her phone and deletes his friends’ messages.
The narcissistic pervert “hits” very quickly and very hard
We find the same three methods used by perpetrators of domestic violence and by cult gurus: affiliation, conditioning and coercion. ” THE love bombing is a technique of the phase of conversion of the victim to the cult of the manipulator and of affiliation to him in an almost unfailing relationship of loyalty”, explains Annie Ferrand, psychologist specializing in the treatment of psychotrauma. The narcissistic pervert “hits” very quickly and very hard, with great declarations of love so that the trap closes quickly on the victim.
“The most classic technique is that of ‘us against others’. It is found in sectarian cults and in domestic violence with a narcissistic pervert. The aggressor gives the victim the illusion that he is on his side, there is an us against the whole world which is established. It is a technique for isolating the victim, ”she continues. And it’s very clear in the series. Justin explains that he wants to protect Tiffany from his roommate, points out his naivety, lets her think that she has been abandoned by her relatives, that he is the only one who understands her. He presents himself as her only support while belittling her, casually, through small derogatory remarks that punctuate her dripping declarations of love.
The debt trap
Gifts are part of the same affiliate strategy. It is the symbolic and material part of the love bombing. “It aims to rot the other, in the almost literal sense of the term, to corrupt him. Associations helping marital victims see this technique as a way of ensuring the impunity of the aggressor by involving the victim in the commission of the offences. And one of the ways to involve him is to give him secondary benefits to be trapped, continues Annie Ferrand. It is part of a trap which consists in putting the other in debt”. The victim sees in these gifts, the proof of the love of the manipulator. He doesn’t mean any harm to her since he loves her.
In this phase of seduction, the narcissistic pervert is not stingy with “deadening clichés” (thought-terminating clichés, in English), clichés that have the ability to turn off the critical spirit. “We two are for life”, “you and me, we are the only ones to understand each other”. These ready-made sentences make it possible to resolve the cognitive dissonance experienced by the victim, they reconcile the contradiction between the amorous words of the aggressor and his violence. For once, fiction quickly makes the link between outbursts of affection and a well-established system of predation. We are very far from what we are used to seeing in romantic comedies which tend to value chivalrous gallantry. Mine the night, you the day shatters the idea of Prince Charming, showing him under monstrous features, and offers a female character who frees herself from the grip.
Moral of the story, it’s better not to get too carried away in front of a man who pulls out all the stops. “It’s like when you are offered a great smartphone for two euros, knowing that you never get anything for free in a capitalist system, we don’t get carried away. It’s just a precautionary principle,” concludes Annie Ferrand. A woman is more likely to come across a narcissistic pervert than the providential man*. If a prince offers you to ride his white horse, the most wise is to run away.
In 2019, on average, the number of women aged 18 to 75 who, over the course of a year, are victims of physical and / or sexual violence committed by their spouse or ex-spouse, is estimated at 213,000 women, according to the government website Let’s stop the violence. “This is a minimum estimate. As the survey only questions people living in ordinary households, it does not allow us to record the violence suffered by people living in communities (homes, shelters, prisons, etc.) or without a fixed address. In addition, only people living in metropolitan France are questioned. Finally, this figure does not cover all violence within the couple since it does not take into account verbal, psychological, economic or administrative violence, ”explains the site.