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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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If I perform well enough for you, will you give me love, approval?

By David McElroy · March 20, 2022

My secret shame is that I need your attention.

I don’t like admitting that, but I can’t help myself. It’s not just an egotistical desire. It’s a craving — for attention, approval and love. I don’t like feeling this way. I’ve beaten myself up about it for years and tried to shame myself into changing, but I’m not sure I can. I’m still struggling to figure this out.

My ex-wife had an insightful observation years ago. As we talked one time about what I should do with my future, she said that whatever I did, it had to be something with an “applause factor.” She pointed out that I was driven by the applause I get — metaphorically speaking — from my work.

Her insight was that I was not going to be happy unless I could do something that would be on public display — and that people could give me approval for.

I had never consciously been aware of this, but I knew she was right. I’m always watching my audience — consciously or unconsciously — out of the corner of my eye. Are they watching? Do they like me? Will they love me? I need applause just as much as I need food, water and air — but I don’t feel shame about needing food, water and air.

I feel a strong sense of shame about needing your attention. And now I don’t even know who my audience is anymore.

For almost eight years now, I’ve known who my audience was. There was a woman who I had loved — and who had loved me — and everything that I did or said or published or planned was all done through the lens of her existence.

Whether I knew she would read what I said or did mattered little. Everything in me was oriented toward her just as powerfully as the needle of a compass finds magnetic north. But that recently changed. She’s no longer my audience, for reasons that I won’t explain now. (I’ll have a little bit to say about that another time.) The sudden change has left my compass spinning wildly — as though it no longer has any idea where to orient itself.

It’s as though I’ve been performing — metaphorically speaking — for an audience of one. And now that audience is no longer there, so I’m confused about whose attention and approval and love to seek. I crave those things — and feel guilty for craving them — but I no longer have any idea whose attention I need.

When I was a newspaper editor, I used to go into restaurants where people were reading my newspaper, especially in the mornings. Nobody would know who I was, but I could watch people’s reactions and hear them talking. And when I had been part of publishing something of which I was especially proud, I couldn’t help but go out there and listen.

The occasional comments of approval I heard were the applause that I needed to keep going. They gave me fuel to do something better the next time. I needed that.

I’ve written before about how social media is a danger to those who grew up with narcissists. If you had a narcissistic parent, you probably never felt good enough and never felt that you could get enough approval to make you feel loved. You learned to eat up every morsel of approval you could find, because in those moments of approval, you had just a hint of the esteem that more healthy people had for themselves most of the time.

Social media is a great place to “perform” in order to get such approval. If you allow yourself to do it, you will become almost unrecognizable to yourself on social media, because you’ll find yourself trying to get “likes” and “loves” and “laughs” and whatever little insignificant scraps tell you that people approve of your performance.

But this is probably why my entire life has centered around media in one form or another. Newspapers allowed me to experience praise for my work. Making a short film which was accepted at a couple dozen film festivals — and won some awards — was another huge shot of attention and approval.

Everything that I’m still drawn to doing — writing, video, podcasts, movies — all have that in common. If you’re an accountant, few people know whether you’re a good accountant. Few people can see your work and praise you. But everything which draws me allows me to speak to an audience — and pray that they like me and approve of me.

Weirdly, part of me is extremely confident — yet another part of me is still a child longing for the teacher to put a gold star next to my name.

I need your understanding. I need your love. I need to believe you like me. And if I can’t get those things, I’ll at least work for your applause — and that’s why I crave the approval that comes with success.

Will you like me? Will you approve of me? Will you love me? Will you finally understand me?

Those are the questions the child in me asks. They’re the questions the adult in me still needs answered. And so I seek the approval and good feelings from anywhere I can find them, whether that’s in line at the grocery store or posting photos on Instagram or publishing video on a YouTube channel.

While I’ve been struggling to write this, I came across something I typed a couple of years ago. I don’t remember writing it, but it’s very true. I said, “Training a child to seek approval from other people keeps the child feeling scared, misunderstood, dependent and alienated for life.”

I don’t want to need your attention. I really don’t. And right now, it’s even more confusing since I no longer have a specific audience whose approval and love I crave. It’s really scary and disorienting.

I need a new muse. It would be best if I didn’t, I suppose, but the reality of my life is that I still have these long-term questions — about being liked and loved, about getting approval, and about being understood.

In order for me to feel good about myself, I need a very specific audience — an audience of one — to watch all of my performances in life, good or bad. And for that person to love me anyway.

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For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to For “throwback Thursday, let me introduce you to Sam. In 2009, I took in a young feral cat who I named for the early American revolutionary Samuel Adams. He was one of the most confident — downright arrogant, in fact — cats I’ve ever been around. He had an amazing personality and I immediately loved him. He was no more than 8 or 9 months old when he suddenly died for reasons that my vet couldn’t explain. Even though I had him only a short time, he was one of my all-time favorites. #tbt #cats #tabby #feral #birmingham #alabama
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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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