"Neediness" and Bids for Connection

Originally published on Substack.

A couple sits next to me at McKay Cottage Restaurant in Bend, Oregon. The woman continues to prod her husband for conversation. “We both need new glasses,” she says. He grunts in response. “I’m excited to get ice cream after we go to Snow Cap!” No response. I know the man can speak because he opens his mouth just long enough to complain that he ordered wheat toast and not the shortcake. “We don’t need the extra calories,” his wife adds. No response.

My mother had always told me that the most alone a person can feel in this world can sometimes happen with someone else in the same house. In the same room. I didn’t quite understand what she meant until my early 20s.

Hearing this interaction next to me made my heart ache. She wanted to connect with him so desperately and he…was just there.?It became very clear to me that my greatest fear in this life is not ending up alone, it is ending up feeling alone while I sit across the table from someone I love dearly.

Needy or Needs Unmet?

For the longest time, I thought I was needy. Earlier in life, that might have been true. As I’ve gotten older, however, I learned it was more about trust and safety. A lot of people in my life have struggled with substances in the same way my father did. It is not that I wanted to spend every waking moment with them. It was more that, when they were with me, I knew they were safe. I could monitor them. I could protect them. I could keep track of how much they were drinking.

This was not a role assigned to me, but one I assigned to myself. Out of my sight, they could get hurt. They could get into trouble. My anxiety would skyrocket and my mind would run through constant reels of the worst-case scenario: them passed out in a ditch somewhere, them getting into a fight and getting killed, them overdosing on a night out with friends. Over and over, my mind would show me pictures of a childhood long past with my partner’s face in place of my father’s. I’d sit in my insanity for as long as possible before finally begging, “can you please just come home?”

I didn’t understand this is what was happening until I started doing the work. Years of therapy and reading The Body Keeps the Score finally added up to one realization: I wasn’t crazy, I was traumatized. Understanding this about myself allowed me to release a lot of guilt and shame I felt towards myself around how I’d acted in previous relationships. While my actions and behaviors were not always appropriate, they at least came from something real and tangible. They were explainable, if not justifiable.

I was not needy, I needed to feel safe, and that was something that was not being provided to me.

Understanding Active vs Passive Love

My love languages are “Acts of Service” and “Quality Time”. I remember a partner once telling me, “I will do whatever you need me to do, you just have to tell me to do it.” But me making a list of tasks (wash the dishes, clean the bathroom, pick up groceries) still involves doing the work to make a mental note of everything that needs to be done and then allowing someone else to simply check those boxes; it’s a very passive way to show love. “Acts of Service” is both the noticing AND the doing. I noticed your trash was almost full, so I took it out for you. I noticed you hadn’t eaten today, so I cut up some strawberries. This is an example of active love.

The same applies to “Quality Time”. Sitting next to someone on your phone ignoring them or inviting someone over while you play video games and don’t talk to them is not?quality?time. It’s time we are passing together, sure. But that time is not intimate. It doesn’t build a connection between us. It’s very passive. I surprised myself when I realized I actually feel the need to spend far less time with a partner when the time that is spent together is actually quality. This means phones are away, we are existing in proximity to one another, and we’re actually having a conversation or experiencing some other form of intimacy such as touch, vulnerability, or a joint action like cooking or dancing.

The more my needs were met, either by myself or by a partner, the less “needy” I became. I asked for nothing because the things I needed, like open communication, connection, and honesty, were given to me. I spent plenty of time alone because I enjoyed my own company and the time that was passed with other people was quality and connective.

This has been true not only for my romantic relationships but for my platonic ones as well. I’ve noticed a deeper connection with many of my friends as we enter our late 20s because we are having?actual?conversations. Gone are the days of discussing who from college is married or pregnant or taking pictures of everything we do. We are talking about our goals, our relationships with our parents, and our true insecurities. For the same reason, I now spend less time with my friends and more time by myself, but I feel more connected to them and less lonely than ever.

Bids for Connection: An Active Choice

Thinking about this reminded me of a?study I’d read about?what it takes to have a successful marriage. One of the key indicators of a successful marriage, the study stated, was the amount of times each partner would respond to what are called “bids.” Bids, or bids for joint connection, are the subtle or obvious attempts at connection we present to other people. Bids begin as early as infancy and exist through adult life.

For example, while a bid from a child might sound like, “Mommy, will you play with me?” a bid from an adult might sound like “I saw this great video about steak today.” In both scenarios, though one is a question and one is a statement, the first party is asking for interaction. The child is asking for their parent to play with them, while the adult is asking for a follow-up question that sparks conversation, “What was great about the video?”

Not only is responding to the bid key to relationship success, but it also is?critical to language and social development. The gaze plays an important part in this interaction. This is why a “response” to a bid without eye movement can feel empty and unfulfilling. Take this example from a study done by Redkay, Kleiner, and Saxe:

Imagine a typical scene at a zoo: a two-year-old child points into an enclosure, while looking at her father and saying “Ba.” The father looks at the child, then into the enclosure, then back at the child, and says “Yes! It's a bear!” In this scenario, the child has made a bid to?initiate?joint attention on something in the enclosure; the parent then?responds?by attending to the likely target (the bear), and then returning attention to the child to share the rewards of the interaction.

Had the father just said, “Yea, that’s great, honey,” without the physical interaction of turning his head, following the gaze, etc, this interaction would have held less value. Think of the number of times you’ve been excited about something and your partner goes, “Wow, that’s cool,” without looking up from their phone. Or when you tell a friend something and they go, “That’s crazy,” but their gaze doesn’t change. While these are technically responses, they are passive. Responding to bids in a way that builds connection and fosters a relationship requires action. Many people think they are doing enough to fulfill their partners and relationships by simply responding. This is not the case. There must also be interest.

Love Takes Energy

This is something that isn’t talked about enough. Even as I write this article, I think about how much energy it takes to consciously be present and respond to bids. In my?last article, I talked about how being present doesn’t occur naturally for all of us. I can barely notice my own needs half the time, let alone be constantly tuned in to the subtle queues and needs of a partner.

I don’t believe the expectation is that you get it perfectly every time. You’ll have days you can’t respond to every bid, days you miss a few, and days you flat-out “turn away” and don’t respond well at all.

The key here is constant communication.?Relationships won’t always be 50/50, but as long as you’re communicating on the days you only have 20% and doing your best to be emotionally and mentally involved, you’re doing okay.

No one is the perfect friend or partner. All we can do is show up when we can, where we can, and how we can. For the right people, that will be enough.