Episode 30: Floodlighting

In this episode of The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast, Cristina dives into the topic of 'floodlighting' in dating, which refers to oversharing or trauma dumping early in a relationship. Cristina shares her own experiences and insights, discusses the intentions behind floodlighting, and explores its potential impact on relationships. She also references a Vice article and Brene Brown's take on vulnerability. Cristina invites listeners to reflect on their own dating experiences with floodlighting and introduces future topics for the podcast.

00:00 Introduction to Episode 30: Floodlighting
00:42 What is Floodlighting?
02:32 Personal Experiences with Floodlighting
04:16 Intentions Behind Floodlighting
06:28 Reflecting on Past Relationships
09:08 Understanding Vulnerability and Manipulation
12:30 Exploring Dating Terminology
14:26 Conclusion and Upcoming Topics

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Transcript

Cristina: 0:00

You are listening to The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast, Episode 30: Floodlighting. Hi, I'm Cristina. After 10 years of dating, I was tired of attracting the wrong type of guys and thinking I had to lose weight to find love. I finally figured out how to date and I found the love I thought I would never find. Each week, I'll teach you dating advice, share dating stories and help you ditch the dating drama. My goal is to help you have fun and create the life you love. If you're ready to take your dating to another level, then listen up and let's go. Hello everyone. Welcome to episode 30 of The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast. Today we are going to talk about floodlighting. So floodlighting and dating is like oversharing or trauma dumping. So it's this new trend. I literally read about it today. Maybe I'm late to the party, I don't know, but I happened to read an article today and I thought it was important to talk about. And it was from vice. So this is my source is a Vice article. There was a few other ones when I was researching lightly, but this one had just enough information to talk about for a podcast. So anyhow, I was reading this article about floodlighting. It's basically, like I said, oversharing or trauma dumping on somebody when you're just barely getting to know them. And I see it as two different lights. If you just happen to be like an oversharer and this is just who you are and you're a person who wants people to know about you and it's just a story of who I am and it's honest and direct and like you're coming from a healthy place when you're sharing. Okay, maybe you're a person that likes to TMI a little bit, but if you're coming from like a healthy place, it's one thing versus if you are doing it to be"toxic." and the word toxic is a whole nother thing for me that I need to make a decision about but right now I'm just not a fan of it. It, annoys me. I feel like there's a whole toxic culture thing that everything is toxic just because you don't like it or whatever, right? It's a whole thing. That's a whole nother podcast. So today we're gonna focus on the floodlighting, right? So again, the example, you go on a first date, you're getting to know somebody, you're chatting it up, and then you decide to tell them all about what your childhood was like and your relationship with your parents, and whether it be good or bad, and you are talking about it all in detail with somebody, and then you share how it impacts you today, right? So let's say your parents got divorced and you had to live with one or the other, and they use you to fight against their own problems, and then that impacts you today because now you have trust issues or you have dating insecurities, you're doubting love, you're doubting loyalty, you're questioning your ability to be in a relationship. Like, those could all be logical thoughts and outcomes or impacts of what would happen when you are a child who had two parents in two different households or whatever. My parents are still married, so I can't exactly, say it from a personal experience, but from the experience I see from my friends and family and stuff like that, I can see it from a different light. But I can see how the way that you grow up can be different in a divorced family versus a not divorced family. And it doesn't mean that it's good or bad, it's life. It's what it is. I can see that if somebody's in this circumstance and talking about their life previously and how it impacts them today. So anyhow, floodlighting. The reason that it could be dangerous or toxic or whatever is all about your intentions, about why you're talking and oversharing and trauma dumping. Are you doing it just because you just innocently are talking about your life and this is who you are and you just wanna share it with somebody or are you doing it for a reason? Are you slowly like looking at this other person's reactions to see if they can handle you, or you're testing their boundaries and seeing,"if I can tell them all about me and they're okay with it, then, I must not be that fucked up in their eyes, and they'll be able to handle me." Or if you are doing it maliciously or manipulatively, To get to know them quickly,'cause everybody's gonna learn about all these things when you're in a relationship eventually. And that takes time, right? But if you're like going all in and go to this person and tell'em all of your traumas and all of your overshares and personal issues that you had in life or whatever, and you're trying to get to know them that way,'cause you wanna know on a deeper level who they are and you're rushing things. Then that can be again, toxic or that could be manipulative or something because you are pushing someone to have feelings for you or feel sorry for you, or maybe you're seeking a safety or security or a protector. And so you talk about all this stuff and listen and see if they're gonna be that protector or do something for you. But you need to be accountable for your ass instead of having somebody else. You should not be looking for a partner to have accountability for your own shit. That's your own shit that you need to deal with. And, it's great to have a supportive partner, but they shouldn't be the ones responsible for helping you not be fucked up. And same thing for you, you might want to have that role of protecting your partner and like you might think that is what you need to do to be a good partner. I just had an epiphany as I was saying that out loud because I would say that maybe I'm guilty of that. When I was with Luke many years ago, he had a traumatic experience in his family. I did have thoughts when that was happening"man, I gotta leave this guy'cause he is gonna be fucked up from this," right? And,"I don't want this for me." And then I was like,"that's shitty of me to think that like this is the time he's gonna need somebody and he's gonna need support and love and I'm in a relationship with him and that's what I should be doing as a partner." When again, there's a balance for all of that. And in the end, I ended up feeling like I was responsible for his happiness and that I had to get him out of it and help him out. But no, he's gotta be responsible for his own happiness. I could support and be there for somebody, but not fix. And there's a big difference. So again, I might have been guilty, not necessarily of floodlighting, but the result of flood lighting. Like being that person, trying to save this other person. So I'm sure that there's a different terminology and not floodlighting,'cause he didn't purposely floodlight me. Maybe I was floodlighting myself. I don't know. It was a circumstance, it was traumatic. I was there to experience it and I expected to have a role in it or whatever. And it's a long story. Again, that's another podcast, but it was a somewhat epiphany that I just had about how I was acting in relationships. So anyhow, I also have been on the other side of that, where I was legit, the translation, being floodlight. And again, I didn't know that until right now with reading this article today. Ryan was very vocal about telling me all of his trauma and telling me about his past and all the bad things about him. And it was for that reason of whether that person can handle him or not. So he's telling me all this stuff about him. So if I stick around, it's okay, he thinks that, I'm thinking his stuff isn't that bad. I can handle it. He's just a person. And so yeah, he was a little bit doing it not to get me to overshare, but he was doing it to see if I was able to handle it, which, that's like a vulnerability thing, right? He's not exactly being vulnerable in an honest, open way. I was explaining at the beginning, if this is just who you are and you just wanna share that information and it's very innocent and you just feel like you need to let it out and talk to somebody about that, then that's, one thing. But when you're doing it for a reaction or to see if they're gonna be compatible for you. That starts in that fine line of being manipulative. So I hope this makes some kind of sense for you. The Vice article mentions Brene Brown and she has a quote in her"Power of Vulnerability" book that is talking about flood lighting and she says,"floodlighting occurs when we share too much information about ourselves in our lives in an attempt to protect ourselves from real vulnerability." And she doesn't call it, actual vulnerability. She calls it floodlighting. You're protecting yourself, so you're trying to see if that person can tolerate you." So you're not honestly being vulnerable, like straight from the heart. You're doing it for an exchange of a reaction or whatever. So that's where it can be, a little on the not so healthy side. So think about yourself. Are you a floodlight? Have you been flood lit? How has that come up in dates or short term relationships? My relationship with Luke was very long, but that happened very quickly as we started our relationship. Again, I had the immediate thought,"we need to break up." And then the second thought of"no, this is what I'm supposed to do in a relationship. This is my role." And I really went with it. It was something that I did not have control of. How has that come up in your dating life? I would like to know. I'm interested in it. Again, being flood lit by Ryan, I know that he did it to see if I could tolerate him or if I could handle him.'cause he is told me this before. It's not like an assumption, do I see it as toxic or do I see it as manipulative? In our circumstance? I don't think so. I don't think that his heart was really in the place of,"oh, could she handle me?" I think his mind process, and this is again my thought that he was like,"I've had a very busy kind of fucked up life. I got a lot to unpack and I wanna make this happen. I wanna tell you about me." And I think it was like coming from a more direct place, right?"I'm gonna tell you about me and you're gonna like me, or you're not gonna like me, and this is who I am. And I'm just gonna tell you." So yes, I think that the intention was more from the heart than it was to be,"looking for a reaction." Anyhow, I guess that's something that I should ask him about because now I'm interested, so I'll probably do that. Maybe I could do a podcast with him about it. But just, take a look at that. Tell me what you think about flood lighting. I'm curious because all this terminology with dating and stuff, it just trends. Ghosting, I think probably the first one that came around when, back in the day when I was dating a lot. But there's just so many things like love bombing and bread crumbing and all this stuff. So all of these words are appearing, and it might be interesting and useful to get to know some of these vocabulary words. If not, then you can explain it how it, it was in its original way. You don't need a term for it,'cause it, it happens. But anyways, I'm interested in seeing what you guys think about it. Is it a real thing? Is it silly? Is it serious? Have you been affected by it? Have you overshared? That's like what I really wanna know, because I think that would be the red flag one for me. What if somebody over shares to get somebody else to overshare. If you go on a date and this guy keeps oversharing with you With the goal of you oversharing, but he's really trying to get information from you to use you for something else, not necessarily a relationship. That's where obviously this is a red flag. The toxic behavior to me, like if they're trying to find your weaknesses'cause they're a narcissist. Or if they're trying to get personal information to you to get something else from it, to gain something personally from it. Maybe they're credit card thieves or something and they're gonna get your mom's maiden name and the street you used to live on and then they're gonna go open up a bunch of credit cards in your name or something. You just don't know. So that's what I'm curious about. Like to me, that's like a real definition of floodlighting in my personal definition of it. Not just somebody who's oh, okay, here's my life. What do you think? But. I guess everybody has their own, feelings about that, right? So anyhow, I am so interested to know if you've been flood lit or if you're a floodlighter, and what results has come about for you from that floodlighting? I have so many other vocabulary words that I wanna talk about or things like a 3, 3, 3 rule and the 7, 7, 7 rule and all these different rules and stuff like that. So that's what I've been looking up to talk about the next couple weeks.