How Does Non-Needyness Really Work?

[SimpleGuy]

I notice that in a few areas like dating and sales being non-needy is the best strategy to get more results. But I can`t really wrap my mind around it. How it works?

Because by wanting to achieve something (being in need = being needy) we are able to pursue goals. But if I don`t the outcome, why do anything?

[Salvijus]

It's not about being non needy, it's about creating an illusion that you're this so high value person that these women or men don't mean anything to you, not worth your attention so to speak, so that they would be tricked into thinking you're this high value prize and others start chasing you. It's just clever marketing. 

Not that I support any of it. 

Real non needy individuals live alone and simply don't care about being in any relationship and then die alone. And still continue not to care. 

Edited Tuesday at 11:21 AM by Salvijus

[Rigel]

Yes it works. You can totally engage with flirting without needing any of it & it works. But you realize that you might not get it & it’s still fine right? I mean it. Could go either way. If you reject people that come to you “cause you’re so not needy” you are actually needy for this perception of yourself as being this “non-needy” person.
You can participate in life in non-needy way without living under a rock like @Salvijus is suggesting. There’s no difference between sex & living under a rock for the true non-needy.

Going to a bar to do pickup is needy behaviour. But you will meet people that vibe with you in other non-needy contexts by just engaging with life & being open.

Edited Tuesday at 01:19 PM by Rigel

[CARDOZZO]

If you had a small sense of self-importance or no sense at all, would you be needy?

Cheng Hsin Newsletter

Quote

Is life about you?

This week let’s turn our attention towards self importance. I want you to focus on how important you feel you are in your actual lived experience. I would like you to find an underlying concept that makes it feel that you are the most important thing in the universe, you are the center of everything.

With all due respect, that might not be true.

Drop it.

During the week 
Work on dropping the self importance aspect of your experience.

Reminder 
This is something to try out and investigate. Do it and see how your experience changes if at all. Find out what happens. Again, we are not intending give you clues how to live.
 

 

[Rigel]

But I also think needy people will get better results than you the way you seem to define “results”. They’ll just find other needy people to be miserable with.

Why do anything?
Why not? What’s the alternative? Living under a rock(not that there’s anything wrong with that)? You can have non-needy desires & self-constructed meanings. Neediness is your attachment, not what you do or say.

[AION]

High value people have needs too but they move from a power position and not from weakness. Weakness, begging and not offering good deals is unattractive.

[Joshe]

Maybe neediness is the byproduct of being desperate for something from someone else and you subconsciously positioning yourself lower than them. 

The variables seem to be desire intensity, forced closure, and often low self-respect. 

What does it mean to desperately want something from someone else? 

I’m very selective about what I desperately want. If I find that I’m being desperate, I correct myself. Eventually, it’s second nature to not be needy. 

Also, you can want things without being needy. I might want some sex but if I don’t get it, I’m not bothered much. And I’ll never allow desperation for a fleeting desire to turn me into a subordinate weakling. I have too much self-respect for that. 

I think this is how I uprooted my own neediness. I really didn’t like being at the mercy of others, so I fixed it. Of course, it’s easy to go wrong in the fixing. You don’t want to become overly cynical, more narcissistic/superior, etc. 

I think becoming non-needy is a big self-development project that requires careful balance, which can only be learned over several years. And for me, it started with not allowing myself to desperately want anything from someone else. But not with suppression. Rather, from realizing things like no one else owes me anything, I can’t force them to do something, and therefore, what others give or don’t give is outside my control, and overly relying on them for psychological safety sets me up for suffering, which I don’t like, so I avoid the entire thing by preventing desperation. Eventually, it becomes an automatic operation. 

Edited Tuesday at 04:13 PM by Joshe

[Carl-Richard]

It's an attitude of non-attachment. You pursue it but you accept whatever that happens and are ok without it. Acceptance is a core feature in the psychological concept cognitive flexibility.

Edited Tuesday at 04:16 PM by Carl-Richard

[Joshe]

2 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

It's an attitude of non-attachment. You pursue it but you accept whatever that happens and are ok without it.

But what does the attitude consist of? 

[Carl-Richard]

2 minutes ago, Joshe said:

But what does the attitude consist of? 

 

6 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You pursue it but you accept whatever that happens and are ok without it.

 

[Joshe]

9 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

You pursue it but you accept whatever that happens and are ok without it.

Problem solved! lol

[Joshe]

 

[UnbornTao]

But what is a need? There is need in the sense of necessity, and need in the sense of emotional dependence. Can you want or pursue something while at the same time not needing it to turn out a certain way?

It's easy enough to say this, though. Lived experience is another matter.

Edited Tuesday at 05:26 PM by UnbornTao

[Salvijus]

3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:

You pursue it but you accept whatever that happens and are ok without it.

2 hours ago, Joshe said:

Problem solved! lol

If you really had no need for it, I doubt you'd pursue it. Same way you probably are not needy for grandmas and the thought of pursuing them doesn't enter your mind. (nothing against the elderly 🙏) 

 

Edited Tuesday at 07:20 PM by Salvijus

[Joshe]

OP is asking for mechanics. “How does it really work”. It’s like they’re saying they want a deep understanding of how an engine works and some distinguished mechanic chimes in:  “combustion”. 

Anyone have any insights into the mechanics of it?

[UnbornTao]

7 hours ago, SimpleGuy said:

Because by wanting to achieve something (being in need = being needy) we are able to pursue goals. But if I don`t the outcome, why do anything?

@Joshe I was speaking to this point, not the title. It's not true that you have to be in need in order to pursue goals. That idea originates from wanting things to be a certain way, which is different from an actual necessity.

You can do things simply to create them. You may want them as well. And doing so will require intent rather than need. Realizing this should help one be more effective in their dealings.

This isn't strictly addressing OP's main concern, but it is related.

[UnbornTao]

23 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

If you really had no need for it, I doubt you'd pursue it. Same way you probably are not needy for grandmas and the thought of pursuing them doesn't enter your mind. 

 

Make a distinction between 'want' and 'need.'

Edited Tuesday at 06:03 PM by UnbornTao

[Salvijus]

17 minutes ago, UnbornTao said:

Make a distinction between 'want' and 'need.'

In this context it means the same thing. 

But you could make a distinction between a desperate way of pursuing a desire and a gracious way of pursuing a desire. One comes from a position of weakness and ego, another from a position of strength and God's wisdom. 

Edited Tuesday at 06:20 PM by Salvijus

[Carl-Richard]

55 minutes ago, Salvijus said:

If you really had no need for it, I doubt you'd pursue it. Same way you probably are not needy for grandmas and the thought of pursuing them doesn't enter your mind. 

You can pursue a goal without strictly needing the goal. You can pursue it because it's desirable, not because you need it necessarily. But also, neediness seems like an extreme kind of expression of a need. You can have a milder expression that could not be classified as needy and still have a need associated with it.

 

Quote

Needy may refer to:

• Narcissistic, a self-centered personality style that often requires constant attention from others

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Needy

 

Quote

neediness

Definitions of neediness

1. (noun) the quality of needing attention and affection and reassurance to a marked degree

“he recognized her neediness but had no time to respond to it”

[...]

2. (noun) a state of extreme poverty

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/neediness

If you lack the self-assurance and character to not display a behavior indicative of extreme privation, that you don't have a sense of balance and stability within yourself or are able to handle shifting outcomes without breaking down into a non-functional mess, that means you're being needy.

 

Edited Tuesday at 06:34 PM by Carl-Richard

[Joshe]

@UnbornTao Totally agree. In my first reply I had something like "it's helpful to distinguish between want and need", but I removed it after I started thinking about the complexity it invokes. It feels like "want" becomes a need at a certain point, so I started thinking of "desire" as the base phenomenon on a spectrum of intensity, but then couldn't figure out the rest of the framework. 

Also, it's not so simple because you can have both an intense want and an intense need.

Where things become unstable is when not getting an intense want is mistaken as some sort of existential threat. So neediness seems to have to do with your relation to the desire - how high you believe the stakes are or thinking your safety will be compromised if you don't get it. 

At the end of the day, I think neediness is a symptom of a fragile self. Find what is fragile and make it not fragile.