No need for neediness on June 15, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

I hope you can give me some help or at least some insight into a man’s brain. I am a 30 -year-old woman and I am fairly independent, believing in standing on my own two feet most of the time and having strong relationships based on intellect and feeling. What I keep finding is that the strong (strong inside and out), intelligent men who seem at first to be my equal are only interested in me for either “just friends” and/or sex. They don’t want a woman their equal, they want a woman who is meek and dependent, who NEEDS them all the time — almost as if the woman needed them in order to live. I do realize that people do need each other from time to time, but I am not the needy/clingy type. I have had men actually say to me, “Well, you don’t need me,” in a sad matter-of-fact tone of voice, and then dismiss me as a girlfriend altogether! What am I supposed to do, beg and say, “Oh no, I really really do need you! Please don’t go!?” I want men to realize that a woman will stay with them NO ONLY because she needs him, but because she likes him and wants to stay. So my question is, how do you show a man that you do need him but in a healthy give and take way? I don’t want to have to become a needy, clingy woman who seems to need a man 24/7 just to get a boyfriend.

— Puzzled Near the Pacific

BG’s response after the jump…