Posted by Walnut on July 28, 2008, at 17:58:56
Last year, someone posted on neediness. I felt that the responses were great: especially those that concluded that the best way to deal with a relationship terminated because of someone's presumed neediness was to find out how much of your neediness is changeable, and how much of your neediness in that relationship just means you are better suited for someone else.
But could it be that people use the term "needy" as an inflated insult? i tapped on a new boyfriend's shoulder while i was asleep in the night. I did not know I was doing this. (i have recently lost my father, and perhaps I was naturally poking for affection). I felt embarrassed to have woken him up so many times, and eventually went to sleep on the couch. In the morning he referred to me as "needy", as well as passive-aggressive" (for what, i am not clear)-- i somehow interfered with his plans for himself that day. I apologized but felt unduly insulted. Was it because I wanted to go for coffee with him before I left for a few weeks, and he wanted to sleep until 10 before writing his magnum opus? Was it because I was not as hip and aloof as he would have liked and he just couldn't find a better way to say it? I just swallowed it and have begun to lament the loss of a relationship I had become excited about. I am not sure what the answers were. I am sure that I am partly to blame, but I am just not sure how, or how I could have avoided the scenario. I was aloof in a past relationship and ended up regretting it. If I express excitement or a small amount of vulnerability, why should that be perceived as neediness? I do not want to play games.
It seems to me that sometimes that the criticism of "needy" is also used when the person really just feels uncomfortable with commitment and/or the relationship and they don't have the guts to say it, and other times there is a real issue there. If I am needy, I want to understand it- but if i was not- I want to be able to re-evalute the relationship! How can you tell if it is the former, or if it's the later?
poster:Walnut
thread:842655
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/relate/20071110/msgs/842655.html