This won't hand you a verdict on someone it's never met. It helps you see the pattern across time, focuses on the moment that actually tells you something — what happens when you say no — and keeps your safety ahead of your certainty.
Fast, overwhelming affection is genuinely how some people fall in love. It's also the opening phase of coercive control. From inside it, at the time, the two feel remarkably similar — which is precisely the difficulty.
One grand gesture proves nothing either way. What tells you something is the pattern — and specifically what happens the times you say no, need a quieter week, or want to see a friend on your own.
No single conversation caused it. But your world is smaller than it was a few months ago, and that shift is more informative than almost anything else you could look at.
Hotlines exist for exactly this call. You do not need bruises, a name for it, or certainty — 'something feels off and I want to talk it through' is a completely normal reason to ring.