Dealing with Overly-Needy or Demanding Friends

Have you ever been to a party where somebody needed to hog the spotlight and dominate every conversation? Perhaps you have a close friend with a similar need for constant attention, someone who's life is always filled with drama that you get dragged into, time and again. Relationships and friendships are not always a two-way street. Sometimes we end up giving a lot more than we receive, and the arrangement never seems to work the other way.

Dominant and/or needy personalities seldom have time to listen to our problems because they're too busy spinning out of control with their own. Their issues are always much bigger, and much more pressing, than ours. Not that we have much of a chance to state our own case, anyway; these people usually have to be the ones talking, too, at all times. The brutal truth is that this is why they crave our company in the first place: we're meant to listen, to be receptive, and supply them with our energy like we're batteries.

Psychologists and counselors sometimes talk about "external processors". These are people who assimilate their experiences and gain clarity about their lives by talking it out. Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with this approach...except that external processors need a willing ear on the other end of their ceaseless banter. That's where we come in. We might as well be one of those dolls in a psychiatrist's office that patients engage in "dialogue" with. We typically end up with as much opportunity to express our own feelings as those dolls do.

As a result, we end up tapped of life energy; what's more, there's little we can do to help our needy friends because they don't know how to be receptive to us. There comes a time when we just have to stop being a conduit for their feelings, refuse to be their battery any longer. We have to learn to say No and - to use the dreaded psychological phrase - assert our boundaries.

If these kinds of dominating people drain so much of our time and energy, then why do we let them into our lives in the first place? This is a complex question, but any number of answers will inevitably revolve around our own sense of self-worth. If we don't feel worthy of love, for example, we might shy away from a more reciprocal relationship. We feel the need, instead, to "prove" our worth by giving and giving to people who never give back. This habit benefits no one. When we learn to set limits and say No, we not only allow ourselves the space to breathe but also, possibly, help our dependent friends as well - by forcing them to stand on their own two feet.