'Floodlighting' is the new poisonous dating trend

Overwriting. Trauma dumping. Floodlights. Everything is the same – at least for me. But apparently some of these behaviors could be driven by harmful intentions.

In the media we constantly hear new keywords that characterize “toxic” patterns that often indicate that we are humans. Whether consciously or not, these actions can be manipulative in nature.

Video from Vice

In particular, “floodlights” is a current example of this that gains online in traction.

According to Brené Brown, author of The power of vulnerability: authenticity, connections and courage, courage, Floodlight occurs when we share too much information about ourselves and our lives to protect ourselves from real vulnerability.

“Overwriting? No vulnerability,” she said. “I call it floodlights.”

Is floodlights dangerous?

A dating app, however, shared the darker side of this behavior.

“Floodlighting in dating is about using vulnerability as a highly intensive spotlight,” said Jessica Alderson, co-founder of the dating app in such a synchronized manner Gloss. “It is about sharing a lot of personal details at once – to test the water, to accelerate the intimacy or to check whether the other person can” cope with “these parts of them.”

On the one hand, I consider this more as a kind of calm -enthusiastic compulsion than an intentionally manipulative tactic. On the other hand, I can see how some people use it to force or accelerate intimacy with another person.

According to Alderson, some signs of Floodlighting are a quick and early disclosure of detailed personal information, an unbalanced exchange of this information, a quick and intensive emotional connection and a precise analysis of reactions to common information.

For example, assume that you meet someone from a dating app and get a few days after the connection. At this point, they talk about their childhood and share details about the divorce of their parents and other trauma. They then take off how this affects them. For example, she has love and loyalty, causes uncertainties in dating etc. You read the other person's reactions exactly to determine whether you can handle you, test your limits and how much you are willing to accept.

For some people, this may appear like a first date together. With the urgency that many have for the overwriting of personal data and trauma dump about others – something that many of us joke. But as a rule, this will happen with the floodlights with sick, often unconscious intentions.

If you do this, you may want to examine the reasons and reach the root of this weakness problem.