Have you ever stopped liking something and reminsced on how fickle you must’ve been to ever admire something so insubstantial ?

I used to be a massive fan of the Magcon boys…. yeah if you don’t know who they are then I salute you. Back when Vine was thriving, Magcon were the IT Boys, Vines answer to One Direction. Magcon was formed of 12 members; Cameron Dallas, Nash Grier, Hayes Grier, Carter Reynolds, Matthew Espinosa, Taylor Caniff, Jacob Whitesides, Jack Johnson, Jack Gilinsky, Aaron Carpenter, Mahogany Lox and Shawn Mendes. The group honestly was…. unnecessarily big together with useless outside of content creation. They were formed in 2013 when entrepreneur Bart Bordelon, conjured up an idea to bring all these individual Vine creators, together to form a group that makes vines together. It created a large fandom that was truly unprecedented because you truly couldn’t make this up. Girls would be invading malls that the boys posted themselves at, girls were writing questionable fanfiction, it was all so insane. Young girls would beg their parents for tickets to see the Macgon boys live… mind you these “live” performances consisted of these boys lip-syncing to songs and being big fools on a stage. It truly was a fever dream when I think about the way we all blindly supported this group. Did I mention that these boys were all kids ? 15-19-year-olds, with what probably felt like the whole world in their palms.

They made several mistakes and misjudgments, yet we still blindly continued supporting them because we didn’t obtain the critical thinking required in order to decipher the subconscious misogynistic comments the boys had made. I’m referring to a viral video the Magcon boys had made which touched on things “What Guys Look For In Girls ”. They degraded, mocked as well and belittled young women for body hair along with many other problematic statments, which impacted how young impressionable girls felt about themselves. So where am I going with this? Well the many girls who blindly forgave the boys for ignorant statements, are parallel to how many women continue to excuse men for the way they behave. Now I’m an adult I can’t even see the appeal, or understand why I was so enchanted by the Magcon Boys ?…..

Lacking critical thinking can leave you vulnerable, as you are left weak in not knowing your opponent’s tricks. The opponent in question are men, and not knowing how to decipher the deeper meaning behind the statements or actions they make, which can inevitability create larger issues. The worst thing about this is that even when their tactics are presented to you, you still find a way to empathise or place yourself in the shoes of this man in order to rationalise, instead of leaving them to their own devices. And this is when it begins, the delusion begins to formulate little bubbles within your mind with set intentions to grow and fester, ultimately clouding your judgement from here on out.

Think about it as if when you first start speaking to a man your mind is a lifecycle of Beer. ‘Welcome to How To Make Blissful Beer With Mary’. When you first meet him, you’re in the preparation stage of creating beer. You’re gathering the tools and ingredients needed to establish a connection. This is when the best version of yourself is presented, because yes that’s exactly what’s happening here. In these beginning stages nothing is set in stone, but you’re already forcing your narrative of what this said man is like, bearing in mind this said man can barely respond to your messages. Next, we move on to the sanitation of the brew, which consists of sieving and cleaning the brew but I call this the point of no return. The stage after sanitising the brew is fermentation, and we know that’s a process which is invasive, crucial and undisturbed. So If you have any right mind you’ll leave during the sanitation stage as this consists of weeding out anything that comes in contact with your beer that could impact the quality of your “Blissful Beer”. Once in the fermentation stage, you seal your beer and wait for the yeast to kick in and takeover. Our special substitute for yeast is :

˚₊‧꒰ა❤︎໒꒱ ‧₊ ‘LoveBombing’ ˚₊‧꒰ა❤︎໒꒱ ‧₊ As the lovebombing takes form you are left vulnerable, as all those previous steps before have all led up to this point. This makes it extremely hard for you to realise, that everything you know of this man isn’t necessarily accurate and you may have simply forgotten to sift out the qualities you projected onto this man during the sanitisation process…… But anyways your Blissful Beer is ready ! You should pour it into glass bottles- but wait let’s remember most beer bottles are dim, and murky with a distasteful brownish/green tint to them, which is going to make it extremely hard for you to see the colour of this BlissfulBeer right? But at this point, it doesn’t matter because even if you poured this beer into a clear glass you’d still find a way to create an excuse for this poor quality of Beer…. Enjoy.

Do you see where this could have all been prevented?

Lovebombing is a strategy used by men in order to manipulatively obtain a woman. You might be reading this unsure of what lovebombing looks like or what it really is outside of sounding like a gen-z buzzword. Lovebombing can present in different ways depending on the party engaging in the tactic but it usually begins in a very passionate and tumultuous way. Expressing fondness or “obsession” very quickly despite a lacking foundation. The love bomber will typically present as the most perfect person, it might even seem too good to be true initially as they’ll be doing all the right things. They may express attraction/intention very quickly, as a way of drawing you in and keeping you around. They may be extremely overzealous with gift giving, lavish dates, consistent flowers or gestures, just to pull back one day ensuring you’re kept in a loop of working to get their false image back.

Women typically are disadvantaged, in the sense that we truly see beauty any & everywhere and this isn’t to say men aren’t also like this or if you identify as non-binary. This applies to anyone who wants to see the good in things that have quite frankly never once presented as good. We see this thousands of times in history, for example, Ted Bundy had a plethora of female fans supporting him at his trials …. yet who was he targeting…. exactly women. Wanting to see the best in someone can be a detriment to one’s self because all you are doing is placing your qualities onto the subject. For instance, you tend to hear women say “he understands me” but once you begin asking the right questions the evidence to support this statement is extremely minimal, if not insignificant as these examples are coming from an inaccurate narrator.

All women have undergone this harsh lesson of realising the man they invested time getting to know, is nothing as he initially presented. And this is due to lovebombing. The start is always sweet, light, playful and enticing, it keeps you around wanting to know more and at times a space is created in which you depend on this said person, as they’ve created a dynamic in which you are constantly chasing approval/attention. This said person is strategically always reminding you that they like you, and they see you for who you are just to be detached after providing you with this short-lived affection. They make sure they don’t become detached for too long in case you find your self-worth. They execute being detached in a way that creates an itch within you, an itch that could only be cured by hearing the manipulative rhetoric of “seeing you for who you are”. Once they realise you’re too deep in the mask completely falls. When the mask slips you don’t even truly realise, until the messages become more minimal; you are in contact less, fewer gifts, and compliments creating a space that feels one-sided and passive.

Love-bombing will create a woman who will now will stoop incredibly low to get that man she initially spoke to back, she says “He was so funny and understanding with me at the start but now he’s cold and barely asks me if I’m okay”. You ask her what she’s doing to tackle this and it’s usually

“I try calling him more and making an effort but he doesn’t seem to care” or something along the lines of this. She has been love-bombed substantially and is too far in to realise those qualities he presented are all just qualities she carries herself and saw in him. She maybe isn’t as sure of herself to realise she doesn’t need him. Women don’t need a man who shapeshifts to get her attention? They need somebody real, with flaws and attributes which align with them. Real connections are ones that grow and develop over time. Continuing to project your reality of yourself, onto a man who is simply acting like he’s for you is exhausting not to mention isolating. It creates a pattern of constantly seeking out men just like the one from before with hopes of him sticking to the script, just so you feel those same emotions again.

Women need to remember that all the traits you seek within a man you already harbour, and that is why it’s so easy for you to be swindled because you aren’t living as who you should be or want to be. When you know who you are, good & bad qualities included it makes it much harder for someone to entice you by emulating things you already carry. We usually want to be surrounded by those who are similar to us, or those we feel drawn to. You see the bold friendly girl in the club and think “ I wish I was her”, when all that’s happening here is she’s much more outward with her qualities that you are capable of developing in a way that’s true to you. Once you understand this you’ll understand why, what’s similar isn’t always best for you especially when pertaining to relationships. But if you do want someone who favours you then, these individuals need to be vetted out. You can do this by assessing how intense one is being right at the start of a budding relationship.

Choosing yourself is the best form of protection from lovebombing, simply because once you understand as a woman you hold a significant amount of autonomy towards things progressing, you’ll realise sometimes it’s okay for you not to experience a person, especially if your intuition keeps trying to tell you to be cautious. Despite how much you may think you see good qualities within a person you truly don’t ever know a person’s true intentions.

If you find yourself thinking what is this girl even talking about ?…. Then I’ll elaborate, let’s say you wish you were more disciplined. You know you’re not so why would you project that project onto a man? But the thing is you do, that’s his selling point. You tell all your friends “Yeah he might do these weird things but he’s disciplined he’ll make me a better person”. You distinctly pinpointing that characteristic means you’re self-aware to an extent. Discipline is something YOU struggle with so of course this says more about you than it does the man. It always circles back to yourself, If you reached your idea of discipline would you still be making excuses for this man who’s showing you red flags, that you ignore on the grounds of his favourable trait being that he’s “disciplined”?

Also, remember to give your friends the same grace that you give men when they’re not being who you need them to be. Your friends usually have your best interests at heart which is why falling out over minuscule things but allowing that mediocre “disciplined” man to take several days to acknowledge you is incredibly disappointing, because if you get hurt this same doting disciplined man will be nowhere to be found…

Finding solace within a sisterhood/community can also be your security to express yourself, along with being received in a nurturing way. Your tribe will never want to trick you or use your characteristics as a way of having the upper hand. Accepting that it’s not because you are the perfect victim for love-bombing because of your empathy, but understanding that you just didn’t have the tools needed to articulate what was happening. Manipulation isn’t supposed to be easy to spot, but as humans, we should learn from our experiences with a sense of empathy towards ourselves.