Women are devastated by failing relationships, says Nando Pelusi, Ph.D., while men flail more over unattainable relationships.
By
Nando Pelusi, published on March 01, 2008 - last reviewed on June 10, 2008
The act of loving is what gives us fulfillment. Receiving love is nice—but it is not a necessity. Enjoy your pursuits, but refuse to believe that you can't be happy without that certain someone. We tend to be terrible judges of what will make us happy.—Nando Pelusi, Ph.D.
Derailing Desperation
How to keep from falling into the neediness pit
Memo to Men
Be wary of your desire to pursue an idealized woman, maybe even an ex (idealized again, after an absence). Guys get needy for acquisition and pursuit. You're fantasizing about a perfect woman. That's OK. But if you want to get off that roller coaster of chronic disillusionment, remind yourself that your genetic legacy is to fool yourself before you're in, and then pull away once the woman is off the pedestal. Dante may have been intoxicated with Beatrice his whole life, but it was from afar. He never so much as kissed her. That makes for great poetry, but not great relating.
A Word to Women
Be cautious about your tendency to believe you need to make a relationship work at all costs; it's a taxing and corrosive path—and it rarely works. You may not consciously want children, but the emotional engine that has evolved among women is to be very cautious about sex—and then to get very emotionally involved once in the relationship. That means that you may have unwanted feelings of neediness only after a relationship has emerged. You can fight the idea that a particularly fraught relationship must work out.
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