Mating
The Dangers of 'Floodlighting'
Here's what's behind this new dating trend.
Posted May 19, 2025 Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano
Key points
- "Floodlighting" is sharing overly intimate and often highly emotional details too early in dating.
- Someone can floodlight you to force a connection or test whether you will accept their flaws.
- Floodlighting can also be a way of getting you to reveal personal information or use you as a therapist.
- Floodlighting can create a false sense of intimacy and start off a relationship in the wrong direction.
There's the minimum amount of sharing that's needed on a first date, such as your name and what you plan to order in the restaurant. There's the reasonable amount of sharing such as your background and interests. There's potentially the TMI sharing, such as the details of your last bathroom trip. And then there's floodlighting.
What Is Floodlighting?
You may have seen the term "floodlighting" burgeon on TikTok or some other social media platform recently. Brené Brown, an author, podcaster, and research professor at the University of Houston, used the term in her book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Well, people have been posting on social media about their floodlighting experiences on dates or in other interactions with their not-yet-significant-enough others.
"Floodlighting" refers to the sharing of very personal, intimate, and often highly emotional details about oneself way too early in dating or a relationship, long before the two of you have mutually established enough trust and connection. For example, on a first date after you ask, "What do you want," the floodlighting response may be, "I want to be free of all the trauma and anguish that I have experienced throughout my life, so let me tell you about them in great detail," when all you really meant was, "What do you want to order from the menu?" It's especially floodlighting when there's some kind of intention behind such oversharing; the person didn't just accidentally let out deep personal details.
Why Does Someone Floodlight?
What might the intention be? Here are some possibilities:
- To force a closer connection: Floodlighting can bypass the time it takes to naturally develop a deeper connection. You could leave the first date thinking, "Wow, that person was willing to share all that. We must have a magical connection."
- To test whether you would accept the person's flaws: The floodlighter's thoughts may be, I'm going to dump all these things about me on my date and see if my date runs away and I don't want to waste my time if the other person can't handle me. This possibility is especially likely if the person has an anxious attachment style.
- To get you to share personal details: The floodlighter may be thinking, I go and then you go and trying to extract deeper things about you to determine whether you are worthy. For example, floodlighting may be testing how emotionally available you are. A darker motive may be to gain personal information about you that can then be used against you down the line.
- To use you as a therapist: Fees for therapy can add up. So, why not unload on someone you just met on Tinder?
The motivation behind floodlighting could be any combination of the above. Still, while there may be intent behind floodlighting, the floodlighter may not always be aware of it or even the floodlighting itself. It could be such an ingrained behavior that floodlighting can simply come naturally, even when it is manipulative.
The key issue is what's behind the premature release of info. In any dating or relationship situation, assuming that you aren't using a teleprompter, there's always the chance of revealing some very personal information in the moment. Heck, maybe the two of you do indeed have a special natural connection that fosters deeper conversation. Such instances wouldn't necessarily be considered floodlighting.
The Dangers of Floodlighting
But if it is indeed floodlighting, there are dangers, no matter which party s doing the spilling. One is that it can create a false sense of intimacy, leading to great disappointment down the road, as in hey-I-thought-you-knew-me-better disappointment. Recall the end of the movie Speed when Keanu Reeves said, "I have to warn you, I've heard relationships based on intense experiences never work,", and Sandra Bullock responded, "OK. We'll have to base it on sex then." Well, Reeves didn't even appear in the sequel, Speed 2. Ultimately, the strongest relationships are the ones that grow naturally over time without being forced in any way.
Another danger of being floodlit is that you end up releasing sensitive information prematurely or doing something else rather rashly. Yeah, maybe it wasn't a great idea to tell that person all your bank account passwords on that first Tinder date. And perhaps running off to Las Vegas to get married after the second date won't bode well for the future.
A third danger is that the supposed honesty and openness in floodlighting can actually beget the opposite: create a precedent for false pretenses and even manipulation. For example, when the floodlighter later wants something, he or she may say, "But we're so close. I told you all that stuff about me." Or if the two of you disagree at some point, rather than hash it out in a constructive manner, the floodlighter may simply push the button of "let me tell you about my childhood trauma again."
Fourth, floodlighting could distract you from really getting to know the floodlighter. Floodlighting can be like a press release, pre-emptively releasing selective details while withholding more important personal information. For example, sure the floodlighter gave all the great sex to his or her previous partners and got treated badly in return. But what did the floodlighter do to merit such treatment?
Floodlighting can create the wrong relationship dynamic in so many different ways. Do you really want to serve as a therapist for someone when you can't bill that person? Do you really want your conversations to always be about deep, dark secrets and trauma? What happens if the rapid acceleration in intimacy early on inevitably slows down later in the relationship? How quickly will the floodligher bail because "things are just not the same?"
It is better to shine a light on any floodlighting that may be happening. Check yourself for any tendencies either to deliver floodlighting or to be susceptible to it. In either case, remember the lyrics of "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)": "Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last."
