Needs

It seems to me that being needy has bad press and is often seen as a sign of weakness or immaturity. I think being self-sufficient has some good press.

As adults, you all have needs. Denying your needs is just as immature as making unreasonable demands. Humans are sociable, pleasure seeking beings who want to love and be loved. You need other people for companionship, intellectual stimulation, sharing, sexuality and more.

This is not the same as dependency, which is needing someone else to do for you what you can’t do for yourself. As an adult, there are so many more things you can do for yourself than you could as a child, even though you may go on believing you can’t. As a child you depend on your mother or carer for your existence.

People fall into three categories. There are those who are naturally and easily able to get their needs met in realistic and appropriate ways. They are pretty self sufficient too, in that they are not dependent. They make pleasurable and stable relationships with people. Then there are those who fall into helplessness and constantly make demands. ‘I can’t’ is their favourite plea. They are usually anxious and insecure. The third type are the people who never need anybody. In reality they have just learned to go without. Or they get their needs met by having someone ‘needy’ dependent on them. They themselves appear aloof.

Only people in the first category really make mature relationships and experience true intimacy, which are both appropriate adult needs.