What makes “wanting” a man okay to say for a woman today but “needing” a man anything but? It seems silly to feel as if you can’t admit to ‘needing a man’ simply because society has told you that you shouldn’t and hammers that message home daily.
There is nothing wrong with “needing” a man so long as ‘your need for him’ doesn’t rest upon your inability to stand on your own two feet. Doing so is of necessity in order to have the option of choosing a man suitable for you in all ways. That’s an inarguable reality. What’s arguable, however, is the notion that you also must give up the pleasure of feeling as if you ‘need him’ in the trade simply because it’s not fashionable to be both at once. What a ridiculous and damaging way to think.
There is a special joy found in needing another, which goes well-beyond merely “wanting” them but doesn’t tarnish the importance of the latter in the least. “Need” incites vulnerability but also courage, opening the door to true intimacy and bonding. Try telling a man, “I want you but I don’t need you” and see how he reacts versus telling him “I want you but I also need you.” He will hear that he is replaceable in the first and irreplaceable in the second. Which do you think he will respond to better? Which would you, given the tables were turned?
The idea that a woman loses her independence or sense-of-self in ‘needing a man’ is sheer lunacy. Plenty of women believe this currently, though, to an extreme that leaves no air in the room nor any space to think otherwise. It is an extremism that has left a vacuum for Andrew Tate and the likes to fill, I believe. Circumstances set in motion, whereby men don’t feel needed on any level by way of society and the very women they seek it from, such frustration drives them in one of three directions. They become catatonic, overzealous or somewhere in between, none of which is beneficial to anyone and at the center of the very complaints that leave these same women wondering where “all the good men” are.
This is the point where victimhood is relabeled as womanhood, whereby women find comfort in each other’s tragic tales and perceived blamelessness. They then cheer each other on, convincing everyone that this is what female empowerment looks like – none of which is escaping the attention of little boys and little girls who get dragged into this mess to dire consequences.
Is it any wonder that suicide rates among young boys have skyrocketed, diminished are they at younger and younger ages in the classrooms and in front of girls. Or why these same young girls go on to adopt the behavior they’ve observed towards boys, only to perpetuate and expound upon it further. It’s a shameless robbing by way of innocence and trust of both, leaving neither unscathed at all.
There is so much to gain by accepting the fact that “needing a man” is part of the female’s unique makeup. There is also something remarkably beautiful in the release of the facade that begets she doesn’t. The minute a woman puts down that anchor, she frees herself up to explore her feminine side without reservation – a side associated with nature, warmth, nurturing, strength, and balance. Is it any wonder our world is so off-balance these days?
Rather than pointing your finger in the direction of men, why not turn it towards a society that frowns upon your femininity and has you convinced that you are better off without it while encouraging you to adopt a more masculine demeanor. To what end? Certainly not species survival. And definitely not self-love or any love for that matter.
Have you ever stopped to think that maybe the story that’s been crafted around you is wrong? The “wheels in motion,” not what they seem? A ruse everyone, including men, was unwittingly thrown into and paddling hard to survive? Making mistakes along the way and hurting each other to boot?
A nation cannibalized by loneliness, I fail to be convinced that both men and women aren’t lonely, caught between “what they know inwardly” and “what they are being told outwardly.” In there, specifically for a woman, lies the true disillusionment, unhappiness, and reticence in receiving a man without the barriers “needing” removes.
As fellowship is hardly a substitute for intimacy and wanting a substitute for needing, a woman’s power lies in being real. And “needing” a man as much as “wanting” him that’s a realness other women need to hear. Just as much as men need to be reminded.
By Laura Wellington at CDN
Laura J. Wellington is an award-winning media-technology entrepreneur. She founded the popular blog THREAD MB alongside being an author and TED Speaker