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Yes, I feel the same as I posted previously. Perhaps I'll elaborate. In terms of how they manifest themselves, needing and wanting can be very similar, but there can be a huge difference in motivation. If someone needs me, that implies that there is some deficiency within themselves that I help fill. Perhaps someone has low self-esteem and needs me to validate them. Like I said before, enjoying being needed is, as I see it, a symptom of co-dependency: the needer feels validated by the person they need, and the needed feels validated by the fact they are needed. There is little healthy about this type of relationship.
Being wanted is, of course, something that is pleasurable for most anyone. Often times though, a person having a great deal of want for another person can be misinterpreted as having need for that person. For example, if someone gets a great deal of enjoyment out of spending a lot of time with another person and misses that person tremendously when they are not able to spend time together, that is often interpreted as being needy. I don't think that is necessarily so. Enjoying another person's companionship to such an extent that the absence of that person or their companionship is saddening does not inherently imply need. In this way, intense feelings of appreciation and want for another person can sometimes be misinterpreted as neediness if the person being wanted is not careful to look at the situation and ask "why does this other person enjoy my companionship so much?"
The difference between needing and wanting lies primarily in motivations rather than actions. In both cases, one person may want to spend a great deal of time with the other person and may feel saddened when it is not possible to do so for some reason. The difference is that wanting is a reciprocal relationship and needing is a symbiotic relationship. The wanter gets great enjoyment out of companionship with the wanted and also wants for the wanted to get the same enjoyment out of their companionship with the wanter. Sadness comes from the lack of fulfilling that want or from the lack of that want being returned by the wanted. The needer, on the other hand, gets great enjoyment out of the needed filling whatever deficiency the needer feels, and also out of the needed getting enjoyment out of filling that deficiency. The needer/needed relationship is based on each person getting something different out of the relationship whereas the wanter/wanted relationship is based on both persons playing both roles and getting the same thing out of the relationship. Often times when the wanted does not feel the same want for the wanter, the wanter can be seen as someone who is needy. In these cases, the wanted tends not to look deeply enough to see the motivations behind the desires of the wanter as opposed to simply looking at the desires themselves.
Sometimes, I think, it is best for the wanted to first verify that the wanter is wanting as opposed to needing and then to accept the wanting as the gift of companionship that it is and allow themselves to become open to reciprocating that wanting. This openness is what leads to deep, meaningful, and healthy connections between people...and the resistance to such openness is one of the reasons I think such connections are so rare. Most deep connections are the result of lucky timing, where both persons are feeling open to wanting and being wanted. If more people would open themselves up to wanting and being wanted when someone else expresses a want for that person (as opposed to a need), I think we would have many more deep connections with others than we do today.
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Le temps détruit tout
"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling
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