Beware of energy suckers

In the past decade, I’ve heard a lot of newfangled terms to describe an exhausting, overly demanding relationship. The culprit might be called a cling-on, energy vampire, stalker friend, needy, or a social vampire. The relative, lover, colleague, or friend who demands and asks too much of us and our time has come to appear socially pathological. We don’t want too much weight to bear in a relationship these days. It doesn’t fit with our ‘No Strings Attached’ world.  

I’m not entirely comfortable with the proliferation of terms to criticise emotional neediness. They imply that a basic human craving for reassurance is an intolerable encroachment on another person’s freedom, autonomy, or happiness. I talk about this in my book, Marriage Confidential: Love in the Post-Romantic Age. In a healthy relationship, the investment of time and attention feels reciprocal. This reciprocity separates healthy need from pathological neediness. Sometimes, we’d rather be laughing and having fun with a friend than ‘processing’ an issue with them, but we set aside that selfish preference. We make a deposit in the Friendship Bank that we’ll someday withdraw ourselves, when we need help. It would be a cold, hard world if all yearning for reassurance were dismissed as neurotic and impermissibly annoying.

Having gotten that disclaimer out of the way, however, there is no doubt that there are indeed some relationships that are morbidly and impossibly needy, clingy, demanding, and exhausting. The clingy relationship could happen between lovers, friends, colleagues, or relatives. I’m going to treat the romantic and the non-romantic separately.

You might be in a needy relationship if…

• Your heart sinks and your stomach gets in knots when you see the person’s name appear on your phone, or calendar
• A pending social engagement gives you a case of performance anxiety, that you simply won’t be adequately supportive, ingenious or clever in helping to solve whatever problem they’re bound to dump in your lap
• You know more about this person’s problems, issues, and opinions than you do about your own spouse’s. You feel as if you have a front row, box seat to their life drama, even though you’d prefer to be way up in the bleachers
• You find that this relationship makes you feel frustrated, helpless, angry, and irritated
• You close the door with relief once the friend leaves
• Or, finally, the most basic litmus test: You might be in a clingy relationship if the relationship leaves you feeling persistently enervated and drained, rather than energised and rejuvenated.

In these cases, the term ‘social vampire’ is a harsh term, but apt.

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