| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/8/2008 4:00:18 AM |
Sorry deceased, I have to disagree. If anyone has been in a relationship where they were "needed" (which in my world is unhealthy), then they know it is not something to be desired. But you can only learn that the hard way, by having someone need you so much they suck the life out of you.
I will take Wanted anyday...just wanted to know how the men saw the situatio
That's his point exactly... the question is skewed because there are many different levels on which you can need something, yet in the context of relationships it will almost always be assumed that the most extreme will be the interpreted meaning. Why should it? It's the reaction to a need not being met which makes you 'needy', not the need in itself.
For example, I could say "I need a shave". It does not follow that if I don't shave today I will feel distressed, incomplete, or fail to lead a balanced life. Should I say 'I want a shave' instead? Equally, I need to do some laundry. Because if I don't, I'll soon have to start wearing clothes which aren't very fresh. I won't fall apart and become a wreck of a man.
Needing something or someone does not imply that you cannot handle yourself without it, or that you're desperate for it.
How you react to a need being unfulfilled - that's what this topic is really getting at. You probably see the topic more as:
"Do you want someone who wants you, or someone who falls apart mentally and emotionally if they aren't constantly spending time with you or in contact with you"
We know you see it that way, but that's not how we see it. Replace the word 'want' with 'need' in the above and the two choices are still not the same, and everyone will pick the first. Nobody wants a partner who can barely function without their needs being met, but everyone wants someone who needs them. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/8/2008 4:31:18 AM | OP, your nick is simplelady. and you ask a complicated question | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/8/2008 4:40:30 AM | | You need to be happy wth yourself to be needed and love yourself to be wanted !!! | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/8/2008 6:49:40 AM |
How about this.
I want to be needed because I'm wanted but not wanted because I'm needed.
Wow - that's pretty much the definitive answer, I'd say! I was going to reply by saying I'd rather be wanted than needed, but you actually said what I meant [u]much[/u] better! Kudos to you! | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/8/2008 7:06:49 AM | | learned along time ago,to tell a man you're with him cause you WANT him but don't NEED him is the best way to do a ton of damage to his ego ina real quick way...And when he's "emotionally unavailable" ...duh | |
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Tramp
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Joined: 2/8/2007
Msg: 31 | |
| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/8/2008 7:11:19 AM | Hmmm...No one wants to admit, they go hand in hand?
I want and need a woman. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/8/2008 7:15:21 AM |
I want to be needed because I'm wanted but not wanted because I'm needed.
I agree. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/8/2008 10:27:57 AM |
But you can only learn that the hard way, by having someone need you so much they suck the life out of you.
Such a situation is the fault of the one needed, not the other - who needs them. A person with a healthy sense of self actualization is in control of their own resources, both physical and emotional. Such a person knows how to maintain self esteem and is not vulnerable to another who needs them excessively.
The healthy individual draws limits for themselves and when another person exceeds those limits, the needy person is educated and instructed to honor those limits. It is impossible to "suck the life" out of a mentally healthy and stable individual.
Needing someone is a positive relationship to another person. It is as simple as an adult needing friends and interaction with other people in their peer group or family, etc. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/8/2008 5:23:51 PM | Deceased, I will conceed that the actual "sucking the life out of you" is the fault of the one who is needed. But when the one needed actually sets barriers to the one doing the needing, and those barriers are constantly encroached upon...that is when the needed realizes their self actualization to its full potential and bolts ....never looking back.
I do not agree that it is entirely the fault of the person being needed that the situation exists to begin with. Just as it takes two people to create a relationship and all the complexities that go along with it...it also takes two to make it go to hell in a hand basket real fast.
Thanks again to everyone who posted their opinions and thoughts...I learned alot | |
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Bunked
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Joined: 12/16/2007
Msg: 35 | |
| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/8/2008 8:47:12 PM | | Wanted is for feminists, Needed is for women. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/10/2008 5:31:31 PM |
learned along time ago,to tell a man you're with him cause you WANT him but don't NEED him is the best way to do a ton of damage to his ego ina real quick way... Dobie girl, you understand men very well. Men need to hear things just as much as women do. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/10/2008 6:14:07 PM | Hello OP.....
Needed to me spells....a guy is suffering " nice guy " syndrome....he needs you so much that he would cut his balls off to please you.
Wanted to me.....sounds to demanding, sounds like he wants to add you to his trophy list.
I would choose the word " accepted".
I would like to be accepted by a woman for who Iam and I in turn will accept her for who she is..
just my 2 cents..
Good post OP.....I just had different answers. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/11/2008 6:56:55 PM | Ok from the gist of the responses, I am gathering that men (and women) are looking to be wanted and needed.
My experience has been that my relationships end because I don't need the guy enough. Not that I don't need him at all but that I don't need him enough. One told me he felt like a failure because of it. I took that to mean my "lack" of needing him meant I didn't stroke his ego enough.
Anyone care to tell me how much is enough and how much is too much? (Yeah, I like to ask the difficult question.)
Seems like you are darned if you do, darned if you don't.
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/11/2008 8:45:31 PM | | Just give more until he stops complaining that you don't need him. Err on the side of caution, though, and only give more when he complains that you don't need him. Not enough, and he'll hang around to see if you come to need him more. Too much, and he'll leave in case you get "clingy". I guess it's like feeding the rope to a climber. You feed a bit, and stop, until the other person asks for a bit more. But you always keep the line almost taut. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/12/2008 12:26:40 AM | If I had to choose... Then I guess wanted.
It has all sorts of sexual connotations
But feeling needed is very nice too, but that pertains to a more deeper, emotional thing.
In any case, it's good to have both. 'Cos as well all know (and just like the TV ads have said)... OR is a bore!  | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/12/2008 8:36:52 AM |
Just give more until he stops complaining that you don't need him.
And there in lies most of the problem. None of them ever said a word about me not needing them enough. Until they ended the relationship.
Like in all other aspects of a relationship communication is key. So gentlemen, if your lady isn't "needing" you enough...Be sure to tell her!! | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/12/2008 9:12:57 AM |
What men seem to call "needed", women seem to call "wanted". Men HAVE to pay their own way. It isn't a NEED. It's SURVIVAL. A NEED, to most men I know, is something you have to have, but won't die if you don't, and that, is emotional support.
I take exception to this statement. I have always HAD to pay my own way. Never had a choice in the matter.
I've come across this before... it's strange because I think there is a big difference between becoming "interdependant" and being dependant. I have never "needed" someone... that is to say I can pay my own way, and I am complete and happy in myself. Wanting is an entirely different thing.. It's the icing on the cake... not the cake itself. I have found that a lot of men I have involved with have issue with this. But I have also found that the men who need me to "need" them, or want to be "needed" by me are frequently insecure and can't accept that I would want to be with them entirely out of choice, and not because I "need" them. Maybe it's the fact that I can walk away... that because I don't "need" them the only thing holding me there is my choice, which I base on the fact that I believe a relationship is about enhancing one another's lives. I really don't know..it is a puzzle to me.
I do suspect that especially with men in my age group... there is a confusion about roles. Most of us grew up at a time where the "nuclear" family was still the norm (ala the Cleavers) and the larger percentage of women still stayed home and weren't the primary financial support. Yet it was also a time when that was changing... a difficult time for both men and women. Now we are at a time when most women have learned and do provide for themselves (and sometimes their children as well) Women have become less like children who need to be "taken care of" and more self-sufficient. This has created a dilemma for the men who must switch their concept of what a relationship means and what their role in it is. There is also the difference between being financially autonomous and still being able to be emotionally vulnerable. These two things frequently get mixed up. Being "needed" is a position of power and is more secure than just being wanted. Being wanted is based purely on who you are and not what you can provide someone.
So I may be completely wrong, but I think that this concept is a reflection of the changing dynamic between men and women... we are learning new ways of relating, of becoming interdependant as opposed to dependant.. which was the basis for marriage for a very long time.
Just my thoughts on this..
peace | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/12/2008 10:22:20 AM | ^^^ Close, Ravenstar, very close. I'm only 3 years younger than you. But my generation grew up with the fact that things had already changed for us, and that we could not expect things to be even close to "The Cleavers". Most men I know don't want to be chauvinists. They saw the ways their dads treated their mums and themselves, and they don't want to be that way at all.
However, it appears that the women of my age say they want a new-age man, but date the men who hearken back to a more chauvinist era. So what they see in the dating world, shows them that if they want to date, then they must be the same as their fathers.
Men are, as usual, waiting to see what women want, by what types of men women date. Right now, that seems to be male chauvinists, for the majority of women.
Us men are waiting for women to catch up. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/12/2008 12:12:51 PM | I agree. There is a bonus to being "cared for".. and it's difficult also for women to give that up also... even in the face of feminism and equality. I also agree that a lot of men are right to be confused by the double standards this creates.
It has affected both sexes. No one can say that it is the men who are behind, or the women, it is dependant on the individual. Some men can't deal with it and neither can some women. No one knows what the real staus quo is anymore. It's all up in the air. It's a very huge change in human social interaction.. and everyone is a little messed up about it all.
It will be interesting to see what it will be like in 30 years. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/12/2008 12:30:26 PM | | I liked your answer, you are thoughtful. I agree with your answer a hundred percent. No one wants to be with someone just because they are needed. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 1/12/2008 2:03:45 PM | Need = I need his/her love in my life and I don't think I can live without it.
Want = I want him/her to love me but I can live without it if it doesn't happen.
I can only hope for my woman to need me just as I need her. If I even go one day without her, I go nuts. I fully admit that I NEED her because I LOVE her. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 2/24/2008 9:42:05 AM | | From a guy's point of view: If I just want somthing that means I would like it but Ican take it or leave it If a women tells her man she liked him or even loved him but she can take it or leave it, this is trouble for most men. I think this need/want issue is so different when you are trying to get to know someone. If you asked loving marrried couples of more than 10 years together about need do you think their answers would be the same as a couple just starting to date? | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 3/7/2008 9:16:51 PM | | id rather be wanted being needed makes me feel like im filling some emtional void as opposed to someonne whose feels like a relationship is somethig they must have | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 3/7/2008 9:52:50 PM | I think one would have to set your wording to more desciptive analogies.
To need as in love? To need as in support? To need in what way(s)?
To want love? To want support? To be utter forfilled with desire and the mental togetherness that endures throughout time?
These are all aspects of need and want. | |
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| Needed or Wanted?
Posted: 3/7/2008 10:01:13 PM | | Wanted. People like what they want. They may not like what they need.. | |
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