We hate ourselves for needing other people’s approval so much

By David McElroy · January 3, 2022

Their voices were quiet, but I could tell the man and woman were arguing. She seemed calm and dispassionate. He was full of rage. They were sitting near me Monday evening.

His angry words got louder. Finally, he stood and glared down at her.

“I don’t care what you think of me,” he said loudly. “I don’t need you or your approval!”

And then he stalked out of the restaurant, never looking back.

I knew he was lying, but I have no idea whether he knew that. If he hadn’t cared about the woman’s approval, he wouldn’t have been so angry. He wouldn’t have protested so strongly. And if he really hadn’t cared what she thought of him, he wouldn’t be a normal human being.

I’ve been fighting this battle all my life. I don’t want to care what anybody else thinks about me. I don’t want my actions to be shaped by fear of being hurt by your disapproval. I’ve often lied to myself and I’ve sworn I didn’t care.

I don’t want to need you, but I do. I don’t want to crave your approval, but I do.

I need you to like my work. To understand my work and my motivations. I need you to be interested in my thoughts and to admire the best about me. I need you to believe in me. I need you to see the fears in my shadows and still think I’m good enough anyway.

I crave all of that — and more — but I hate myself for having such a powerful need for your approval and admiration.

It’s not everybody whose approval I crave, of course. It’s the relatively few who I care about enough to want to please. I want the approval of crowds far more than I like to admit to myself. But the approval I really crave is from the few whose disapproval can hurt my mind and crush my heart.

It’s popular in society to teach people that they shouldn’t need others’ approval. It’s common to praise those lone wolves — mostly in books or movies — who walk alone and don’t care what others think. I don’t necessarily disagree with that sentiment, but I don’t see how it’s very realistic.

Our need for approval has been used all our lives to control us. Parents used it. Teachers did, too, as did religious leaders in many cases. Everybody who’s been in a position of power or authority over us has used it to shape us to their liking. We probably weren’t even aware of it at the time, but people gave us conditional love and approval in exchange for our acting as they wanted us to act.

They controlled us. They molded us.

My experience is that the more aware you become of this need for other people’s approval, the more you deny it. With everything I’ve done in my life, I’ve been like a stage performer who was only too aware of the audience. I’ve had one eye on that audience, eager for their applause. Desperate for their approval.

This makes me vulnerable to others’ control. And I don’t like that. I fear losing control — because I’ve experienced hurt from those whose approval I craved — but my quietly hidden need for approval from others is so powerful that I blunder forward anyway, even though I rage at myself for having the need.

My need is manipulative. It makes me change myself — to try to be what would get me the love or approval or admiration I need. It unconsciously shapes my behavior and it even pushes me at times to be what someone else might want.

Would she want this from me? Would she want me to become that instead? Would this make her proud of me?

I constantly fight this inner battle and I believe almost everybody else does, too. In fact, I think those who deny most loudly that they want approval from others are almost always those who are deepest in denial.

And that’s what I recognized in that man tonight. I saw someone who desperately craved that woman’s approval. For some reason, she wasn’t giving it to him — so he desperately needed to believe he didn’t need her approval.

He was lying to her. But more importantly, he was lying to himself.

I don’t like to admit that I need your approval. I sometimes still lie to myself and claim it doesn’t matter. I tell myself I’ll be fine without getting the approval I crave. I assume that would be the emotionally healthy thing to feel. It seems safer. And it doesn’t threaten to hurt me so much.

But when I’m honest with myself, I know better. And I hate the fact I’ve unconsciously given you this control over me — because it’s most often a need which brings pain to all of us.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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