After harm
Does sudden kindness appear after a boundary, complaint, or attempt to leave?
Understand 06
Not every kind message is safe contact.
Baiting, hoovering, and love bombing are plain-language terms for emotional re-entry patterns: provocation, sudden warmth after harm, gifts with subtext, or contact designed to trigger a response.
Check
Look at timing and effect
After silence
Does contact escalate when you stop replying, or shift to another route when one route is blocked?
After accountability
Does the focus move from the behaviour to your reaction, guilt, loyalty, reputation, or fear of consequences?
Tool
Use neutral wording
01Record the conduct without needing the label.
Instead of trying to prove a term, record the behaviour: sudden gift, apology, provocation, contact after no contact, public/private inconsistency, or repeated attempts to pull attention back.