Saturday, February 03, 2007
Neediness
I was told that someone hasn't spoken to me for a month plus because he was uncomfortable with me being needy.
Said he couldn't even take the same bus because he felt uncomfortable because he felt I expected him to talk to me.
Uh.
That got me thinking.
I don't think I am needy but then again...I am me. I can't really see my actions in a completely unbiased light.
And since I think I am perfect (really! even with all my flaws...this is liberating.) I guess the light would be skewed towards me.
But the thing is, I went one month without speaking to him with little trouble. The only problem I had was that once or twice I wanted to say sth (unrelated to official stuff which apparently is okay to contact him about - which I didn't know) and couldn't and had to keep it in.
You really shouldn't bottle up stuff, they just seem to multiply - the littlest thing can crack the glass.
Now I want to laugh.
I know why.
I don't like unexplained things.
So.
I shall probably not seem needy to that person anymore - I'm just going to say what I want when I want - but it really doesn't matter.
But then I was thinking about neediness.
Friends need each other in some way at some point in time.
Actually, I think that's how most people find out that the people they know are friends they want to keep.
So asking a friend to go with you to a movie is showing a need for company? I'd have called it preference, but...
The same thing with sharing a meal, or offering a place to stay, text messaging or hanging out - asking for that person's time - means you're showing a need for that person?
Hmmm.
I don't have a problem with needing Chunmin or Ben or Keegan or Marie in my life.
I don't have a problem needing - well, I prefer to spend my time with a lot of people at a lot of different times, the list would be too long.
But I rarely NEED (as in I'll suffer greatly if you don't do sth with me) it. I can be grumpy, because I know I'll be bored - or not even that, I can entertain myslef well enough. I just like having a certain specific person around at certain specific times -
Maybe I am needy, but I know almost no one who minds. And I don't feel bad because when they want me around, then I am there. It isn't one way. Haha maybe it has been so far, for people I haven't known long but - I will eventually.
This perfect outlook rocks.
You may find this interesting:
From answerbag.com
"The mind craves certainty, control, and predictability. In order to achieve this, it constructs mental / conceptual models of reality so that it can plan, rehearse, and simulate actions in the safety of the mind before executing them in reality.
These models are never perfect: in fact, it's impossible to capture reality in such models accurately (that's another topic, sorry). But we rarely notice that these models don't really match reality, once they work well enough to get by we switch from constructing them to believing them.
Since the models represent the result of a lot of work, and since we crave certainty, we become very attached to the models. Anyone who wants to tell us the models are wrong is perceived as a threat, and the ego goes into overdrive to fend off the threat, digging up whatever evidence or strategies it has found effective in the past.
In other words, ignorance is the root cause of this phenomenon -- ignorance of the nature of our own models of reality."
Cool, no? It got me wondering (again) what model of reality I subscribe to. Have a bunch of conflicting ones but...Hey, I'm trying to just see the world as it is and ignore them / compensate for my biases.
What did it do for you?
Love,
Eve.