Do you get enough affirmation or affection?

My wife is a stone cold ice queen and I end up trying to get the good feelings I have out elsewhere, which I consider her problem not mine. yeah, her problem. ice queen.

@daloon: You’re not “needy”, you’re human.

Although many of us (myself included) will say we don’t care what others think, we do. We simply choose (intellectually) to not let a lack of affection bother us.

I have a list of people whose actions (or is that inactions?) bother the hell out of me. And as much as I rationalize the situations, it’s still an emotional burden.

That being said, I get plenty of genuine affection from my daughter and wife. It never removes the burden, but they lighten the load.

This is an interesting question. I think its answer calls for a lot of internal exploration that may not exactly be comfortable.

As for me, I am very concerned with what people think of me in some domains but not in others. Generally, I am concerned with how people view the aspects of me that I am likely to judge in others—namely, appearance and intelligence. When I think about it, this is pretty backwards because just because I judge others on those two characteristics doesn’t mean everyone else has the same evaluation criteria. However, they’re two elements I consider important. (For instance, another person may judge people on their religiosity, but that does not make me want to exude a religion.)

I my own biggest critic, and I know when I fail. I hate it when I have a “bad skin day.” And god forbid I say something stupid. When my appearance or my intelligence fails me, I hate myself. I care about other’s views of my appearance and intelligence, but that’s just about it. And when I look uncute or say a dumb thing, I just assume everyone is thinking the same thing I am about myself: “Yikes!” or “Uhhh…”

As for affirmation, I’m not especially interested in affirmation from my peers. In fact, it often makes me uncomfortable when my peers sing my praises to a weird degree. In many circumstances, I don’t like being complimented because it either feels condescending or something else unpleasant.

I do get enough affection, but all from my boyfriend. I am constantly asking him (in a joking way), “How beautiful am I from 1–57?!?!” “Did I look like an absolute angel when I was asleep???” “Are you ever completely and totally amazed by my brilliance?” Of course, he always answers with the most flattering possible answer, and we smile and laugh and kiss. That doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I need that. (This fits into your “asking for it” type, but… I don’t know, it’s so jokey that it’s different. And he compliments me in the same type of way even when I don’t ask for it.)

Anyway, in general, it’s weird because I care so much what others think of my appearance and intelligence, but I don’t care how they feel about most other aspects of me. I have some pretty extreme positions when it comes to certain issues, and if a person disagrees with one of my stances and likes me less because of it, I’m fine with it.

I don’t know if this all answered your question appropriately, but there are some semi-drunken musings elicited by your question.

@daloon, I have the same problem, and I cope by going out of my way to be extraordinarily and genuinely nice to people during the day. It helps with some of the uneasiness because the reaction I get is pleasing.

Generally, I don’t tend to care what anyone thinks about me because I dislike 95% of the people I meet. However, if I admire someone in any shape way or form (which is, again, very rare), then yes, I find myself caring what their opinion of me is.

For most people though, I wouldn’t even want them to like me, because I think they’re so stupid it would almost be an insult. I’d rather just be off their radar entirely.

When I find myself caring about someone to a great degree though, if I feel like they don’t care one way or another, it definitely hurts. Just because I know I have an extreme way of thinking and I analyze the hell out of everyone. I would hope that, after they analyze me back, they see something worthy, too. I just hate meaningless crap. I pretty much only be-friend other people that analyze things the way I do, so that way I know they like me for actual reasons, not just… Because.

With 3 daughters, and a lovely husband, I get loads of affection. Not quite as much affirmation, though Fluther helps in that regard…nothing like a GA to brighten your day!

Why else would I come here? I’m so loved here!