It can feel like there are simply too many dating trend terms out there — gaslighting, love bombing, and now, a new one: floodlighting. Then again, they can help us to understand and describe dangerous and harmful behaviour in our relationships. One of the best places to see these common dating behaviours play out? Reality dating shows, of course!
In this season of Love Is Blind US, some have accused Madison of floodlighting her potential partner Alex — in other words, she was accused of trying to push for deep intimacy too fast and too soon — and possibly for the wrong reasons.
Madison responded to criticism of her time on the show, saying, “I know who I am. I know why I did what I did, and I don’t think there was any gameplay involved in any of my choices.”
But what does floodlighting actually mean? We spoke to Jessica and Louella Alderson, co-founders of the dating app So Synced, to dig a little deeper.
What is floodlighting?
Imagine floodlighting as literally putting your relationship under the spotlight — even when the relationship might not be ready for such harsh, uncompromising attention.
“Floodlighting in dating is about using vulnerability as a high-intensity spotlight,” says Jessica. “It involves sharing a lot of personal details all at once — to test the waters, speed up intimacy, or see if the other person can ‘handle’ these parts of you.”
Did Madison really floodlight Alex in Love Is Blind?
According to Louella, who specialises in TV and relationships, it’s complicated. For one thing, Love Is Blind isn’t exactly the real world, so dating is bound to look a little different — and perhaps, techniques like floodlighting even make a little more sense.
“There can be a fine line between sharing personal details and floodlighting. On Love Is Blind, couples only have a short period of time to get to know each other before making a decision on marriage, so it’s natural for them to open up quickly and deeply,” she says.
“You could argue that Madison opened up to Alex to truly figure out if they shared a connection and to see if they were compatible on a deeper level,” she goes on. “They talked about things that other couples didn’t, so they could have built a stronger connection than those who didn’t open up as much.”
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Is floodlighting really that harmful?
Jessica explains that while floodlighting isn’t always completely terrible, it can be more harmful than we might think.