Animals don't get 'needy' simply because animals express their needs as they arise. They don't seek validation to be who they are, and yet they are not afraid to ask for emotional support, a nudge, a cuddle etc. They don't linger on feelings of rejections, but move on in cases where their needs are not met. How nice that must be - such an easy and logical approach to handling life. And yet, I don't know many people who master this simple thing - we are so stuck in our heads, stuck in fear, stuck in limitation and many of us also think we are not only allergic to gluten but also any sense of rejection. Yeah, no we are not allergic to either, odds are.

There are generally two types of people when it comes to neediness.

There are those of us who pretend to not have any needs, not need anyone, to be completely and utterly self-reliant. Lies. And often we will rely on addiction instead of relying on others, when we fall into this particular category of beings. We choose to numb out from uncomfortable feelings plain simply, so we can pretend that we do not have any emotional needs that need to be expressed in order to be met. Only humans can make something so simple so complicated.

And then there are those of us, who are constantly demanding some sort of "hit" to feel validated. Please like me.

The latter may come off as that friend of ours, who will text his or her gf/bf every 5 minutes to just "check in", all the while you are having brunch or whatever with that person. Yeah you know that type of person - if you are not that person yourself. It's that person who is constantly scrolling up and down their iphone, as if an epiphany is about to appear from it.

And damn, does that phone glow look hot on one's teint - said no one ever.

Some of us may think we are just expressing our needs by constantly checking in. That's where we are wrong. We are not just expressing our needs here - on the contrary, we are relying on other people to constantly validate us.

This is effing exhausting for everyone.

It is not caring to text someone every 5 minutes regardless of the message saying "miss you" or "look what I am eating now" and blablabla - it is actually incredibly egotistical, because we are not giving. Rather we are actually looking to get something. We are looking for that person to fill a void which is insatiable. Instead of us getting busy with creating a life worth living, now we look for another being to validate us every 5 minutes. This pattern is a huge turn off - and it just so happens that more females than males exhibit this type of behavior, not just in relationship matters but on social media etc. Although, it is increasingly becoming more equal across the gender spectrum, as we are all becoming more obsessed with getting our dopamine fix by a beep, or a like or some type of sound that can make us feel seen.

When we come off needy, we are not being genuinely affectionate.

We are trying to manipulate (unconsciously) another being to provide us the validation of our existence that no one can but ourselves.

We are literally draining people through that type of behaviour - and that repels any sane person over time. Not to mention, it is kinda disrespectful to our friends to be checking our phone constantly and talking to people who are not even present, when we are supposed to be present with those who are, well, present.

It's epidemic - wherever you go these days, you'll see people in groups not talking to each other, but busy scrolling through their phone and pretending being busy with irrelevant stuff on social media or through validation texting. We are so busy being busy, that we have no idea that most of us are not really busy doing anything meaningful or relevant - it's just a lot of clutter, cos we can't prioritize and suck at making decisions. We just allow ourselves to get sucked into a wheel that never stops spinning. And then we play the victim card.

The tricky part here is, how do we balance things out?

How do we be transparent about our needs and risk getting burnt without falling into the trap of being needy to the point of where we depend on other people to validate us?

If we fear the trap of being needy, we may very well come off arrogant, shallow and overall seem pretty careless.

Typically because we actually have so many needs unmet, cos we suck at expressing them, that we create this irrational fear, that if we ever express a need and then it gets rejected, we will just die and fall apart into a million trillion gabazillion dillion pieces never to be picked up again. Yeah, totally logical. So let's just bottle up all our emotions and play it cool. Granted, we may come off from time to time as self-reliant assholes, but we can live with that until - well, until we really can't anymore, because we realize we lose out on valuable connections in life.

This shell that we create makes people feel unsafe around us.

It makes others feel like we may just walk away some day - because we are not making a sufficient emotional investment in another being. And we don't do that because we fear rejection if we become needy - so now we turn into these seemingly "strong" and "self-sufficient" individuals giving off a vibe of not being that into others. Those of us who struggle with this type of pattern, will typically say "hey, I don't want to hassle anyone", so we will just sit back and wait for others to make the move.

We are certainly NOT going to risk rejection.

We are not going to tell anyone our needs, because WE don't want to be that annoying needy person. So now we are trapped in a bubble, where we repress our needs and no one can get through to us cos they can't feel us. They can't read us - and that makes them feel unsafe around us. Unless they are a type who is addicted to the thrill of the hunt (which is another dopamine spiker, and will wear off as soon as they have caught what it is they are chasing), people will keep an emotional distance to us, cos we are not emotionally available. Sigh.

Our logic may be, that we will open up as soon as someone shows us, that they are to be trusted.

That's nice and all, but that only works if WE show that we are also to be trusted. And we can only show others that we are trustworthy, if we are completely transparent. Otherwise we are still just playing games.

We cannot get people to invest emotionally in us, if we do not open up ourselves and risk the rejection that potentially may follow along.

If we risk nothing, we gain nothing.

Emotions are like the stock market - there is no safety or certainty and we just have to get comfortable with that nothing is constant but change. If we refuse, we lose - and the only thing certain is that we create the exact scenario that we fear the most: zero emotional investment nor attachment cos we just won't deal with the burn.

We can start practicing our willingness to take emotional risks by being more open about small fears we have and see how the feedback is.

Gradually, we can then get the confidence to be more like the open book, we probably wish everyone else also were.

Being transparent about who we are and our needs is also the best way to get rid of the wrong people in our life fast.

So it actually can save us from decades of misery, pretending we are something we are not while suffocating on the inside.