Dear Needy

A letter to a young part of myself

Dear Needy,

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been together for over twenty years. 

I don’t remember exactly when we met. I think it was around the time I took my first steps, but perhaps it was a few years later. You were, in some sense, my first companion.

I think I know what brought you into my life. I was, after all, the youngest of three. I learned to perform early on. To show off my dimples. To be small and unassuming. To let my blonde curls and blue eyes do most of the talking. Words like cute, adorable, and handsome rained down on me, and I grew to rely on them as a plant needs water. I believe that is when our relationship formed. 

Isn’t that funny, the “I believe” part of that sentence. I don’t actually know when we met. 

The past is too complicated – and our memories too fallible – to trace the origins of our personalities back to their sources. There are too many tributaries to that vast ocean. 

I fear conversations like this one will only complicate things. I fear I’m doing this in the wrong order. Instead of a) remembering the past and then b) reflecting on how it might be shaping the present, I’m doing the opposite. I’m trying to explain the present by searching for answers in the past. I fear that, in doing so, I may find easy, obvious answers instead of the right ones. And by writing them down, I may be etching these wrong answers into the walls of my own mind. After all, it’s easy to say, “I have X personality trait because of Y person or event,” but there may have been a hundred other inputs that I simply don’t remember. 

Yet, opening this dialogue still seems worthwhile. To do the opposite would be to admit preemptive defeat in understanding you. And, in turn, myself. 

As you know, I spent my youth as an appendage of Dan. I followed him around, perched quietly on the sofa as he played video games with his friends. I raced around our driveway, rebounding his jump shots and delivering crisp chest passes back to him. 

In those years, his approval, more than anyone else's, meant the world to me. I know, at some level, it still does.

Then my relationship with him faded. He recognized that I needed to make friends of my own. He also correctly realized that a trailing 9-year-old brother was a handicap for his own social life. So my invitations waned and eventually vanished. I remember I was – we were – devastated. 

I have a specific memory that represents the next year. Hoping to make new friends, I ran up to a group of classmates playing foursquare at recess. As I approached, they laughed and ran off to play elsewhere. Eventually, they let me join their group of friends, but I quickly learned there was a strict social hierarchy in the group. G at the top. D his second-in-command. And then a group of mid-level colonels and lieutenants. I was at the bottom. A cadet, if that. Luckily, the lessons I learned from hanging out with Dan’s friends proved useful in this environment. Absorb insults. Be useful. Impress people. Be modest. And mildly subservient. During those years, these behavioral canals deepened into canyons. 

I suspect it was during this time that you and I became permanently inseparable. 

This same playbook worked remarkably well with people older than me. Politeness. Straight A’s. Athleticism. Obedience. Good looks. My dad, a paragon of authoritarian masculinity at the time, was particularly pleased by them. But they worked wonders with every adult I knew: friends’ parents, teachers, coaches, and neighbors. Praise and attention rained down on me again, as it once had. And so I learned that it’s much easier to make people impressed by me than it is to make them genuinely like me. 

Things improved in jr high and high school. I joined a new group of friends that had little hierarchy. My relationship with Dan rekindled. Dad became more lenient. In school, I was a jock and a nerd and a popular kid. 

But you never left me.

Even in adulthood, I notice your subtle presence dictating my behavior. You’re quick to force a smile or offer an enthusiastic nod of validation. You withhold opinions to avoid any risk of conflict. You silently crave recognition. You seem to play an endless subconscious game of: How can I make this person like me?

Through all these years, you’ve stayed with me every moment, a shadow I’ve wanted to escape. 

It’s only recently that I’ve turned to face you, so that we may see each other eye to eye and start a conversation. I realize now that you entered my life out of necessity. And that you were a helpful companion to have in childhood. You saved me during those early years. 

I’ve been so hard on you in return. I’ve hurled contempt and frustration at you for decades. I’ve deprived you of the very things that you need most: compassion, acceptance, patience.

From now on, I hope we can be partners in forging a life together. But I also see that you prevent me from connecting with other people. You soften my personality until it is barely recognizable, shielding it behind a veneer of polite agreeableness. You round my imperfect edges into a perfect circle, but those edges are what lets me connect with others, snapping together like puzzle pieces.

You are willing to trade authenticity for approval. I am no longer willing to make that trade.

I hope, in the coming years, that our companionship can grow into friendship. I promise to do better – to be more patient and understanding with you. 

How will we know if we’re doing well? A few people will hate us. But more will truly love us.

Love,

Mark