A pathological need for human connection: bad boys and bad girls
Please note that I am a certified life coach, which means basically nothing. I am not a psychologist nor a psychiatrist, or in any way officially qualified to offer help in diagnosing a mental health issue. Still, there seems not to be a way to classify this specific thing in traditional psychology, that I’ve seen or able to pinpoint, so it seems I must do it myself. However, if you are qualified, here are some pointers for your assessment, if you’re not, just take it for what it is: advice you can take or leave, coming from an online smart ass.
Bad boys and bad girls… and bad boys and bad girls
There are people who seem to become self-destructive in order to get love and attention from other people. They may or may not emphasize this by dressing in a certain “bad” way. There is another reason why people give out the bad girl / bad boy vibe, and that… That they enjoy that life. There’s also an entire philosophy to go to self-associating with “dark” subcultures, from disapproval of the way society works and so forth, but I’m not going to get into it because every subculture is a little different political party.
There are people who are drawn to the “cry for help” -bad boys and bad girls because they kinda see them as the low-hanging fruit, rather than unattainable people.
The reason why people think it’s a cry for help
the Normal Person* thrive to fit into the norm, and to help others fit into the norm. They do not, as a psychological group, to the life of them, understand why anyone would not thrive to be a part of the “good people” category if they are emotionally, physically, and intellectually able to. Therefore, when someone seems to be deliberately separating themselves from the common norm, the Normal Person* interpret it as if they are demonstrating how they need help badly: “Look, I just pierced my nose, because I haven’t got a clue. Help me.”
When it is a cry for help, and sometimes it is, the bad boy or girl will reward any attention given with everything they’ve got: Praise, gifts, promises to change… Even genuine attempts to change. A person who feels pressured to change for YOUR benefit will lie to you about wanting to do it, in the tone of “yeah yeah, sure. Of course, I will.” Their tone of voice carries the message: “Look, I know you’re technically right. I know I SHOULD, but I really don’t want to. So to get you off my back for a few more weeks, I’ll say whatever you need to hear to let me the hell be.”
An actual cry for attention
I would say that when someone is ACTUALLY looking for attention by joining a rock band, taking drugs, and drinking their way to an early grave, never truly show many positive signs of change that come from something OTHER than attention. They’ll clean up their act (and quit the band) when they receive attention from someone who they want that attention from. They demonstrate their willingness to change, IF ONLY you show them enough love and incentive to do so. You show them a little love and they freaking blossom, right?
A person who is looking for love will get a hair cut, will change the way they dress, they’ll get a job and whatnot, for as long as you show them love and give them praise and attention for it. The minute you stop feeding that need for love and attention, they’ll relapse. Leave them alone for a night and they’ll find an excuse to go on a drinking binge. I sometimes refer to them as “potato sacks”, you have to keep picking them back up, they’re heavy to lift and will slump as soon as your grip lets go. “You don’t love me. My parents didn’t love me. Nobody loves me… Nobody cares about me…”
Ignore them and be punished
They will also punish you for ignoring them after you’ve given them a bit of love. “You’re not looking after me, look what I’ll do? Huh? I’ll cheat on you, look!” These are people who don’t hide their bad habits from you, they put them on display. (People who feel pressured to change against their own will hide their bad habits to keep you off their case… Until they decide to demonstrate: “Look I’m not what you want me to be, I will never change for you!”) People who want your help do not practice discretion. They are more than willing to openly disrespect institutions and people they feel have rejected them, unlike those who don’t do things for attention; they show respect for other people and their way of life, albeit choose to do things their way when appropriate. This is not to say anything about a situation when someone feels haunted, chased, and harassed by a person or an institution looking to change their way of living or being – of course, eventually anyone lashes out.
What most people do here is eventually give up on them, because trying to keep a person like this afloat is A LOT OF WORK. A bad boy or a bad girl, who is NOT looking for attention, is rarely that difficult to change, in fact, they are GUILTED to changing on behalf of the other person, for their needs; because the person who offers help NEEDS THEM, not the other way around. This, in my view, is abusing the rescue case; forcing a person who has no issues to live an uncomfortable, unrewarding, and non-inspiring life in order to make their “Florence Nightingale” feel good about having “rescued” them. In this case, the charity case didn’t feel like they needed help at all, they felt strong and powerful, and from their perspective, the person who thought was rescuing someone crying for help, was actually asking for THEIR help instead.
Again, another note; a person who is harassed for a relationship or attention will eventually ignore and cut contact to a person who keeps disrespecting them and arguing with them. This is not “a punishment” but self-protection.
Someone simply having fun
When people enjoy their life whichever way they consider life enjoyable, they are not particularly self-destructive. Even though sometimes having fun means drinking and taking drugs, it is in moderation – to live to see another day of drinking or taking drugs or having crazy sex with or without either drink or drugs. Even if they lose the grip and over-indulge, they will try and hide or minimize the drug or alcohol problem so they don’t give an unwanted person or institution leverage to use that as an excuse to enter into their lives. They’ll ask help from people they trust, only.
Someone who is happy with their life doesn’t work toward an early grave, mind you…
That doesn’t mean a 100% clean life, it just means that what they do is for enjoyment, not in order to numb another pain, and the difference is in MODERATION and “mind your own business” attitude. A cry for help is done in a very different attitude: Look, I need help, attention, tending to, I am miserable, weak without you, I am struggling to stay afloat…
People who are bad boys and girls for the fun factor it also have other interests in life. Many such people are interested in arts, philosophy, and music. Although sometimes people who seek attention take to such interests as it gets them attention, there is no reason to pathologize intellectual pursuits as a sign of bad relationships or lack of rewarding relationships in their life or inability to form them… Let alone an excuse to push a relationship they do not welcome into their lives “because they need help”.
Who is seeking attention from whom?
Everyone wants attention from someone, right? Not a sign of trouble that one. (Almost) everyone needs love and connection to other people, but that doesn’t mean that this need is DESPERATE or PATHOLOGICAL in people who are openly seeking for true love, connection, spiritual unity with others, or intellectual connection to other people. It is also not a sign of pathology if someone with a particularly high IQ cannot find an intellectual connection with someone with a normal IQ and someone who has no access to people of similar intelligence to them. That is unfortunate and certainly not a healthy way to live, but not a sign of pathology in that person.
However, a lot of people who DO have a pathological need for connection will easily want to ABUSE people who are admittingly lonely and who are openly looking for love or relationships in a non-desperate way. Then, a pathologically behaving person will wedge themselves in between a person looking for a healthy relationship and the people they believe would be a good match to them. They do this, in order to get attention to themselves – while insisting THE OTHERS are seeking attention – not them. They are like a goalkeeper insisting the center forward wants to serve the buck to them – not into the goal they stand in front of.
Sign of pathology: they feel their object should have no standards
To someone who is in a pathological need for love and connection, it makes no sense to reject love given – ANY love given, because they are way beyond the point of getting choosy about it. However, they feel they are lowering their own standards, and they insist the person who they’re offering love to should have no objection to their love, after all, they are the “higher ranking” person.
Ironically, the people in the pathological need for love and connection are often targeting people who are somehow attention-worthy – celebrities, beautiful people, people who dress in an unusual way, bad boys and bad girls, etc., because to them, all of that is a sign of attention-hungry similar to that of their own. These are often the LAST PEOPLE who are genuinely seeking attention, in fact, they get so much of it that it is in over-supply rather than in the negative.
The logic here, also, is that when someone is very much in need of love and attention, they are more than likely trying to conform to the standard pathologically, so that NOBODY should have a reason to reject their offer of love: “Look, I’m doing all the right things, WHAT RIGHT do you have to not love me back?” They try to rejection-proof themselves.
If you know you need human connection, who should you turn to?
EVERYONE would do wisely seeking connections in people much like themselves. The bigger the difference between people and the way they do things, the higher the chance of a pathological connection that is formed for ANY other reason but true love, given that people define true love in a variety of ways.
When it comes to a pathological need of love and connection, the biggest, most alarming sign is seeking it in people very different to them, or somehow “lower-ranking” than themselves. “Low rank” is subjective, however, as there are people who rank celebrities, for example, as top rung people, while to some they are circus freaks who’d do anything for attention and money. Therefore, the best way to see if someone has a pathological need for attention is to see how differently they present themselves externally to those they seek to connect emotionally with, regardless of your own, also subjective view of hierarchy between people.
Is a need for connection healthy or pathological?
If you are in the position of doing so, ask this person to describe their own ideal person, and then themselves. It might be a good idea to do these exercises on separate days.
If the person whose attention they want matches the description of their ideal person and themselves, the attempt to connect with that person or group is on a healthy, ambitious, and self-accepting. They see themselves worthy of the attention of the people whose attention they desire, and especially if their perception of self is realistic, there’s no trouble there.
Note; most normal people are more than happy to settle for a non-ideal person as their spouse or a friend. This is not a sign of pathology for as long as they agree that the person they are with should be willing to spend time with them, too. A sign of pathology is the idea that this person should have no reason to reject their love, considering they’ve lowered their bar to be with them.
If, on the other hand, the person whose attention they want is nothing like the people they admire, they’ve decided they’ll settle for the attention to the person who they THINK they can get the attention of, even if that person is far from ideal. This may also camouflage as a need to rescue that person; to make that person into their own image – even though that person’s own ideal person maybe something completely different from what their Florence (Nightingale Syndrome) wants to change them into. (Check with that person, if you can, if the “help” is help or intrusion to the sanctity of their identity.)
Sometimes the need for attention reverses again; they may completely submit to the person whose attention they are seeking, and be willing to function as their slave (even a sex slave) in order to gain access and become a permanent fixture in that person’s life. Clearly, not healthy, but also, not to be alarmed if a person wants to become “a sex slave“ to their True Emotion Mirrors where the feelings are entirely mutual, and happy and excited both ways, in short; ideal love.
Excuses to keep on meddling
A person with a pathological need for attention and connection will use all and any excuse to keep interfering with their object’s life. They will keep interpreting certain things as a sign of a need for help, cry for help, and will pass anything they do right, even by accident, as their deliberate action or attempt to help their target. When I was writing this, my mother’s voice in my head said: “Oh, now you got it. Now I can go away and we can be friends again because I just wanted to protect you from people like this.” If this was the first time she’d done this, I’d probably feel all grateful she’s had such foresight in my life, but because this is about the 100th “the last thing I wanted to point out to you”, and given her attempts are somewhat random and led by me, not her, I have no reason to think she’s deliberately managing to show me anything at all.
When you have a pathological need to be needed, you will easily start making the object into a helpless being, someone who needs you whether they do or don’t. People like this will also try and make others see their object as the helpless person that they want them to see them as, to get the community’s support for their attempt to interfere. They will also NOT accept a suggestion that SOMEONE ELSE steps in, someone a bit more neutral and less involved, or a professional, because this is not about the object’s need for help, but THEIR need to be in that person’s life. They’ll make up any excuse to stop another person from taking over – usually insisting their object only trusts them and nobody else, even directly contradicting their objects’ words.
A great example of this way of thinking is displayed in the movie Love and Mercy, the story of Brian Wilson of Beach Boys, where the psychologist is the example of toxic behavior.
A person like this will chase away all other people that are rivals to their attention
This type of person will also see it as their right and duty to make sure their object is isolated from any “confusing” or “interfering” or “dangerous” people, such as their object’s True Emotion Mirrors. They want complete monopoly access to their object, and will always attempt to be seen as being “protective” of their object’s best interest when in reality they are only protecting their own access to that person.
Deep down, they believe that everyone else is simply a rival, a negative distraction between themselves and their object, and if they could, just for a few years (?), make it so that they are alone in this world, everything would be fine and their object would “see the light” and realize how lucky they are to have them in their lives. They see others as “poisonous” or “toxic” rather than realize they, themselves is that.
Lucky me has one as my mother.
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*) Term changed after this post was originally written. Fractions of old terms may exist elsewhere in the post. Read about term updates.
**) Narcissists are Young Souls left alone to survive and they're doing their best. Their emotional age ranges from 3 to 17 -year old. The younger, the more severe the narcissism.
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