Avoid This Red Flag
Trauma Dumping: A Red Flag in Disguise
Trauma dumping is often overlooked, yet it’s a significant red flag in the dating scene. But what exactly is trauma dumping? It’s a tactic used by pick-up artists (PUAs) to quickly establish a connection with women. They achieve this by sharing a traumatic story early on—either during initial conversations or on the first date.
Men do this to trigger women’s empathy. By eliciting sympathy, it subconsciously lowers her guard. His (real or imagined) tragic backstory is then weaponized as an excuse for inconsistent phone calls/texting, mood swings, and hot and cold behavior.
A red piller’s goal is to get women in bed as quickly as possible with the minimal amount of financial or emotional investment. If he succeeds in making a woman feel sorry for him, he is halfway to his goal.
The fabricated stories have a sad ending or one in which they are unjustly victimized. A client recently told us about a man who cried on their first date about his son that died of cancer. While she listened patiently to the story of the days and nights spent at his dying son’s bedside, she took our advice and did not assume that her feelings of empathy meant that she had any real connection with this suitor. Lo and behold, his personality shifted when she did not agree to a sleepover by date 3. He became angry and lashed out that she wouldn’t “give a dog a bone” – unwittingly showing him his true colors when he didn’t get what he wanted. My client realized she had nothing in common with this chap and promptly said goodbye and blocked him.
A less extreme, but more common tactic, is to unload a sob story about women using him for his money. He may come up with tales of financial abuse, crying on your shoulder about an ex-girlfriend who maxxed out his credit cards without his knowledge or being used for expensive dinner dates at gourmet restaurants. He hopes to manipulate you into accepting spur of the moment 50/50 dates at sports bars and walks in the park to prove that you aren’t materialistic.
It’s essential to remember that if a man overshares at the beginning, there is usually an ulterior motive. Intimate details are meant to be shared with trusted friends and family, not someone recently met from a dating app.