Needy

I was just reading through a friend's blog and came to a repost about needy girlfriends. The post talks about the things a woman can do to be less needy.  There were a few things about this that struck me as odd.

First, they place a blanket of advice over all women.  They lay out a few random bits about small things you can do to undo what is most likely a side effect of a great societal issue.  They give advice like don't plan everything, give each other space and let him do his own laundry.  They do touch a bit on living for yourself.  I give that aspect some props.

I guess it's not practical to tell women to attempt to view life through new lenses and to back away from the ways they have always been taught to feel.  A lot of women aren't clingy.  A lot of women are great girlfriends and solid confident people.  And then there are women that grew up with parents that didn't teach them the healthiest relationship lessons.

If you are clingy, most likely, you grew up seeing codependence and enabling surrounding every family issue.  I great up with relationship examples that left something to be desired.  Yet, I jumped from relationship to relationship thinking this was the way it was supposed to play out.  I am the needy girlfriend they speak of.  When I was young, I didn't understand what love or a healthy relationship looked like.  Simply telling me to stop planning and stop doing my partner's laundry would have never made me less clingy.  I was trying to find something in a partner that I could only find in myself.

Like I said, telling women to step out of their relationship and attempt to recognize their own worth is a bit heavy for the pages of Cosmo or whatever blog this post came from.  So, while I am disgusted by the fact that it only goes out to women after all the needy and clingy men I have dealt with, I guess I understand that they are working with limited frames of reference and they are attempting to take baby steps on a one-sided issue that extends past the imaginary boundaries they have created for the subject.

On a(nother) personal note, I am a lot less needy now than I was when I was playing relationship leap frog.  Taking a couple years for myself has been a lot more useful than I could have ever imagined.  Yes, I said years.  I didn't get these bad habits over night and so it is taking me a bit of time to uncover them.  But, realizing my faults is making me a lot more confident in my strengths.  And, guess what ... The more confidence you have, the less you need from others, by way of validation.  I still attempt to get validation from Lewis, before I realize that the validation I am looking for is not his to give.  Every time I do it, I realize it a little quicker, apologize for it and move on.  These days, it happens a lot less than it used to.