What It Means When Someone Calls You a Vulture

“Vulture” alone gives some idea. And like the patient and resourceful carrion feeder circling over the dead or dying, the relationship vultures in human form also hover over their victims waiting for the right moment to swoop in and take full advantage of their vulnerable state.

A relationship vulture is specifically someone who zeroes in to exploit the weakened emotional state of someone, especially after a breakup. What he/she does is patiently bide their time on the outer edges waiting for the impending death of their prey’s romantic relationship, and then swoops in for the “leftovers”.

Now, of course, relationships on the rebound do happen without the vulture element because people do throw themselves headlong into new relationships immediately after a breakup without taking any time to resolve their feelings. So it is not always that in such relationships that one party is a vile, scheming opportunist.

It is also good to point out that merely being “at the right place at the right time” does not necessarily make one a vulture because vulturing is really about deliberately taking advantage of someone who is vulnerable. Therefore, vulturing is more about the intent than it is about timing.

“Now, of course, relationships on the rebound do happen without the vulture element…”

How do they find prey?

Vultures are usually “friends” or at least acquaintances and in the old days it was this proximity to their victims that allowed them to know of their victim’s romantic failures. However, now with social media and people’s tendency to over-share their relationship statuses, the opportunities for vultures to scan failing romantic relationships and plan their approaches are more abundant.

“Therefore vulturing is more about the intent than it is about timing.”

Another type of vulture

A relationship vulture has also been described as someone who suddenly becomes interested in their partner the moment they see that the relationship is about to end, or someone who starts showing interest in their crush the moment they notice that someone else is showing interest.

They can display this newfound interest in many ways. They do this, for instance, by becoming acquaintances that suddenly want to hang out, engaging in love-bombing, liking all your social media posts, or making moves via mutual friends, etc.

Although they act like they now want a meaningful relationship the truth is they don’t, and they tend to disappear when they see a relationship start to show signs of life again. They can also show up again when it begins to die thereby trapping their victim in a vicious, toxic cycle.

Conclusion

Vultures are crafty devils. They know they can’t really show their true colors to their victims and so they take special care to hide their vile nature. How else are they going to get close enough to sink their claws into their prey? They may appear gallant but in reality, they are just interested in the “scraps”. The vulture is just a creature that swoops in, takes what it needs, and moves on.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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