Q: You often mention how getting love and attention is so important for everyone… yet some people are perfectly comfortable being self reliant and don’t want close relationships… If dismissiveness works fine for some, should (and could) anxious, lonely people also persuade themselves that they don’t need intimate relationships to be happy?
A: We can convince ourselves of just about anything. Concentrate on it long enough and you can believe you are sitting on Mars. But being convinced of something doesn’t make it so!
We don’t need one close, intimate relationship. We do need enough attention from all sources, however. If we don’t get it, we end up lonely. We also don’t get enough feedback to stop us from going around in the same old boring and psychologically damaging circles mentally. Too much of this and we can become very depressed, or even worse.
