Is There Such A Thing As A Love Narcissist?

I’ve been thinking a lot about love and dating and all of its complexities, and it got me thinking about the attention it can garner and whether you can get hooked on the “love bombing”, but not actually be seeking a genuine connection. See what I mean in this week’s post.

Is there such a thing as being addicted to the attention one can receive when dating? I don’t mean you shouldn’t be enjoying the dating process and the idea of getting to know different people and sometimes ones in which you wouldn’t normally come into contact with- expanding your horizons as such. But I wonder if there’s a way you could get addicted to the short-term attention, especially if you don’t really have much intention of meeting all of these men- they simply provide a way to pass the time and maybe just inflate your ego.

Words are just words unless you keep them.

This isn’t in any way a judgement or even an attack on the people who do this, I am merely sharing some of the thoughts in my head and thinking out loud. I can imagine it’s pretty exciting (it was for me) to have people be enamored by you and to enjoy having messages to reply to and that thrill in the early days of talking to someone new. Especially as at this moment, is usually when you’re being showered with compliments and attention and the excitement of this “newness” is a rush of endorphins to the body. I wonder if the high number of people who ghost are essentially simply hopping from person to person, in order to maintain the rush of blood to the head feeling. I wonder the reason most people have a “ghosting” story is because we have all gotten so very used to short-term, somewhat meaningless interactions and that feeling of having notifications to check. This isn’t a justification for ghosting, because I have shared on here, how frustrating I personally found it, but maybe it’s not something malicious, but really just a hit and run per se. Like the quote below states, people are addicted to anything which will allow them to escape their reality and for many of us, this is our phones. Accessing people has become so easy and so instant, it’s hard not to crave that instant hit when you get a bite on the line you threw out. In some ways, this is why we’re all on social media, no?

People are not addicted to alcohol or drugs; they are addicted to escaping reality.

Pinterest

As this is my blog and I can only speak to my personal experience, what I’ve noticed for myself that I was enjoying chatting to some people, despite the fact that I knew I 1) wasn’t attracted to them 2) was simply enjoying the talking stage 3) didn’t have any real desire to physically meet them, especially as I wasn’t interested in dating them, why go through all of that effort? Then I thought about how disappointing it is to be on these apps and not have the option to simply socialise and share stories, without the romantic implications, because men and women can be friends without strings- I firmly believe this. It’s never happened to me, but it doesn’t change my belief. Needless to say, I very much enjoyed the flattery and the attention, but I began to feel pressure after a few weeks like I was wasting someone’s time, so I retreated and chose to use my time towards something much more fulfilling (reading, working on my leathers and the blog), I eventually got fed up of the meaningless connections, because at the end of the day- it really is meaningless unless you actually like the person. But it aided to make me think about the fact that I may well not be alone in this experience. I felt like it was feeding into my ego, but not in a good way- because none of these interactions were based off of real, genuine connections. I felt more alone or empty after them and, in the end, it was unsustainable because, well- it gave you nothing.

In conclusion, as connected as we feel we are with our social media and our phones, it does nothing to support or promote real, conducive connections which will end up being long lasting. Mostly because we’re used to short bursts of adrenaline and attention, we don’t like the comfort of silence or the stillness of being alone. So instead, some seek short bursts of fake interactions because we feel it’s better than being alone.