Someone Should Invent a Love Bombing That Never Ends

The dopamanic honeymoon phase of a hyperfixation

Where to start our story? The truth is our journeys to each other started long before we met. Honestly, if you’ve read “The Body Keeps the Score,” our journeys to being the people we are to each other started before our first breaths. I’ll be careful to share my own experiences with trauma and only share his when I’ve gotten his express permission, but suffice it to say, we are both extremely traumatized people.

I’ll set the scene for where I was when I met him. At the start of 2024, I had recently turned 40, gone through two pretty intense long-term friend breakups. Friendships that I thought would last the test of time. People that I thought no amount of distance or time would end our connection. I knew that friendships have an ebb and flow, but I trusted these connections completely. And, like so many times before, I was left disappointed. I was absolutely not looking for new friends. I was closing ranks. Working on the many friendships I currently had, but for the first time in a long time, feeling very alone, but not lonely. One of the friends I lost was someone I had considered my safe space. I thought we’d do life together, maybe on different continents, but together. I had decided that for the time being, my heart was closed. I didn’t want to have a favorite, and bestie, I was exhausted from dealing with the profound sadness that comes from the end of friendships. At some point, I’m sure I’ll write about both of these relationships, but this piece is about me and him.

Face beat, serving cunt- I arrived at a drag show in Taipei, in May of 2024. My friends were late, so I went in alone, got myself a drink, and made it to the floor. I ran into people I knew, got compliments on my beat from other queers. I was feeling good. Standing next to me was this very tall, very beautiful gay man. I was looking at his tattoos- stunning. There was a railing between us that I was kind of standing on to see the performances. At one point, our eyes met. “Gurl, that mug,” he said. I smiled, “Thanks, and honestly- same!” We maintained eye contact. “Also, I’ve been admiring your tattoos,” I said as I ran my fingers over his arm. “Aw, thanks,” or something like it, he replied. And it was instant. Chemistry, at least for the night, this man was my friend. We carried on throughout the show like we’d come together. Gagging over the same queens, smacking each other on the arm, and screaming in excitement. After the show, I got his IG and told him I’d let him know where I was going for afters. He told me that he’d come and join, and he did. Something that I wouldn’t know for months was actually a miracle in and of itself.

He messaged me the next morning, and the chemistry remained. Later he told me that the moment he knew he wanted to get to know me was that first night at the afters. I was asked about my missing finger, and I described the horrific incident like I was telling a favorite joke. Lacing the gory story with humor and levity. He heard this exchange and recognized me as a sister in trauma. I can and do have deep connections with all types of people, but the people that I connect with the fastest are other trauma survivors. We speak a common language. Our humor is as black as the void that pulses ever present in our chests. We live a life of duality. Everything we crave, we also fear: love, connection, attachment, affection. The cherry on top is finding a neurodivergent with trauma. To the duality of trauma, add a heightened dislike for inauthentic connection, and aversion to boredom, which manifests in things like loathing small talk. This means we figure out very quickly if a new person can keep us entertained; the vibe.

This is an important distinction between people. There are people who like to dip their feet in when meeting a new person. Talk about the weather and other things of no such consequence. The kind of people who ask things like “Where are you from?” as a conversation starter. And then there are people who cannonball themselves into the deep ends of conversation, by oversharing their own trauma (a special love language of the traumatized). I, of course, am one of the latter. But wait, there’s more! I am also… clinically unwell. Even as a child, before any official diagnosis in terms of my mental health, I was intense in the extreme. Common themes in my life are that I’m too much. Too loud, too dramatic, too sexual, too unserious, and yet also too serious. A sentiment that, as with all things, I battle with. Part of me wishes I were more palatable, more easily digestible. But the part that always wins, for better or worse, is the part that says, “I will not make myself easy to swallow for those with a weak stomach. They can fucking choke. If I’m too much, go find less!”

I’ve been on a self-healing journey for about 15 years. It’s been hard and non-linear. Unlearning a self-loathing so deeply ingrained in me that at the beginning of my journey, the term “self-love” made my stomach churn. To the woman now who has worked to have a mostly only kind inner dialogue and sense of self-worth and confidence in who she is as a human.

But I digress (warning, this will absolutely happen again.) He caught my vibe. In fact, he caught it fast and strong. Remember when I said before that I wasn’t looking for new friends? Well, he was, and he had chosen me. He messaged me daily. It sent off alarm bells. As I’ve alluded to, I'm quite a polarizing person. Very few people who meet me have lukewarm feelings for me. It’s very much love or hate. And with the love comes obsession. I tend to attract people who very quickly become hyper-focused on me, and as someone with attachment issues, this gives me the ick. I’m much more comfortable when I’m the pursuer. When I’m convincing someone of my worth, but I mostly don’t do that anymore. As I’ve grown and healed, what feels safest to me is slow, steady connections that build strength over time. I myself have a tendency to obsess. I mitigate this tendency by using moderation with people, to save both them and myself. I caught COVID the night I met Him. Four days later, I was home sick from work. As usual, he had messaged me first thing. At first, I would leave him on delivered, sensing that he wanted to TALK. I would wait a few hours before replying, not wanting to engage in a back-and-forth.

Digressing again:

I am someone who needs a considerable amount of alone time. I’m a teacher and I expend all my energy being on for my students, and masking around adults. After work, I am usually too emotionally exhausted to socialize or even reply to texts. The most I can do is pebble my favorite people with memes and reels. I don’t even like going out on Friday nights, I’m too depleted. Usually, my rule is I can go out Saturday evening or Sunday brunch. The rest of the time is just mine. I often even turn off all notifications. I like to have at least one weekend a month completely to myself, but its quite common for me to go weeks without accepting social invitations but a fucking phone call? HA! Yeah right. I have a few people who live far away that I will occasionally do phone calls with, and when I do, we talk for hours. But in general, my preference is meeting up with my friends very occasionally. I had a few friends that I would occasionally talk to on the phone, on a Sunday afternoon when I didn’t have another social outing planned. I’m setting the stage because the friendship that was about to engulf my senses with an inferno of feelings was directly in contrast to the life I had carefully curated for myself. A life that I thought I was very happy with.

So where were we? I was home with COVID. I see he’s messaged me and I bite. I respond in haste. He asks if he can call me. CALL? After four days? But I said sure. And girl, it was effortless. It was fun, god it was so fun. The pace of our communication after that escalated at an alarming rate. He didn’t live in my city, so we remained in contact with our phones. Messaging throughout the day, all day. Talking on the phone for hours a few times a week. By the end of June, we were talking on the phone about 3 hours a day. Sometimes more, rarely less. This did not include texts, memes, reels, or voice notes. We talked about everything. We shared similar hyperfixations: drag, sex, humanity, trauma, and to top it off, our intellect and humor matched up perfectly, each finding the other HILARIOUS.

We talked about our connection.

Do you feel this?

Yes.

Is this crazy?

Yes.

This isn’t normal, right?

No.

I told him it felt like a rollercoaster, terrifying and exciting all in one. He told me he was leaving Taiwan soon. I told him he was healing and breaking my heart at the same time. I cannot overstate how intensely and incessantly we discussed our friendship, our feelings, our attachment styles; nothing was off limits. We both just comprehended how the world had perceived the other- we were TOO MUCH. But we weren’t too much for each other, finally, we had met someone who could keep up. We talked about how natural our connection felt and how “ourselves” we felt. We decided to try something brand new. No masking, no faking, just our whole selves all the time. Little did we know what that actually meant, it was so easy when we hadn’t started triggering each other, when we were in the dopamanic honeymoon phase of a hyperfixation.

I think it was 2 or 3 weeks in when he admitted that, “we are each other's hyperfixation.” I was shopping before work, if we weren’t at work or with other people, we were on the phone with each other. Earbuds in at all times. I laughed and again asked, “This is crazy, right? This is fucking intense.” “This friendship feels like cocaine,” he laughed. At this point, our phone calls took on a quality that I had never experienced before. They were constant, rambling. I was doing things I had never done before, I’d answer his calls first thing in the morning ( I do not like communicating, even texting, when I wake up). Talking through eating, brushing teeth, using the bathroom, even showering.

The first time he ate on the phone, I couldn’t believe it. Usually, the sound of people eating enrages me. I told him that I couldn’t believe this wasn’t bothering me. Through wet mouthfuls of his morning pineapple, he laughed and said, “We are at peace with each other.” I could hear the shrug in his voice. I didn’t know at the time how much statements like this meant coming from him. If we weren’t on the phone, we would leave each other long rambling voicenotes, something that I had previously exchanged relatively infrequently with most friends. One day, he told me that I was the first thing he thought of when he woke up, he casually dropped that we had become a part of each other's daily life. What was happening? This felt like falling in love. But I had never experienced a love this pure. He didn’t want my body or sex, just me, exactly as I was, and it was mutual.

Surprise. The lovebombing ended:

I wrote this on August 31st, 2024. The next weekend, he broke my heart for the first, but not the last time. I’m writing this closing paragraph on the 28th of April, 2025. When I first wrote this, I read it to him, and he was blown away by my words and writing. I couldn’t remember the last time I sat down and wrote a piece just for myself. I was so scared to share it. I thought he would either LOVE it or be terrified. Like I said, the next weekend he broke my heart. And I just couldn’t finish this piece, I had intended it to be a starting point for many more writings about our incredible friendship. Our catastrophic rupture did not match the story I had planned. And then things would get better and then worse. But I started writing again because of him. And I’ve continued to write. I will forever be grateful for the spark of inspiration our connection gave me. Much of my recent writing is about “us” and also me analyzing the lessons I’ve learned about myself through and from “us” and him. I’ve had the horrifying privilege of watching myself crash out, but for the first time, I’ve decided to learn and reflect whilst being triggered. This is not the first time the universe has sent me this lesson, and this time I’m ready to learn. This foray into writing is absolutely the most vulnerable I have ever publicly been. I am sharing sides of me that only a very few people have ever seen or experienced. Welcome to the lab where with I’ve decided to dissect and examine myself. Get ready for lots of metaphorical gore.