Without going into embarassing details, a dear friend said something recently which made me worry that I might be clingy. And sexist as it may be, it’s bad enough for a woman to be clingy, but I’ve lived my life believing that in a man, it’s a capital offense.
So I thought I’d put the question before the Teeming Millions:
What makes someone clingy?
Clingy to me is someone that has a need to always do couple things, with little to no flexibility for them or their partner to have time to themself or separately with their own friends.
Another variation of clingy is someone who always mentions their partner in any conversation. Even if it has nothing to do with them.
Multiple calls, emails, IM’s etc every day. Staying in contact is nice, not being able to go an hour without communicating is clingy.
The clingy person seems to lose themselves in the relationship which just strikes me as very unhealthy.
Outside of a direct couples relationship, I’d define ‘clingy’ as someone who insists on constant contact and companionship despite a lack of reciprocation by the other person and/or one who completely ignores obvious signs that their ardor is not appreciated.
Static?
A clingy friend to me is someone that depends on me to make all the decisions and seems totally reliant on what I’m doing to form their own plans.
FWIW, I am specifically asking about this in the context of a romance.
Clingy in a friend means that they expect me to share all of my spare time with them, otherwise they are terribly hurt (and then require reassurance about how good a friend they are to me).
Oh, in a romance… then I’d modify what I said to include lots of reassurances in general from me about the strength of the relationship, lots of phone calls etc through the day, and having to spend all free time as a couple.
In a relationship it’s if the person doesn’t have their own ‘life’, if they depend on me for evening and weekend plans, if they always need to be reassured of their good looks/stellar personality/hot abs, etc., and if they’re really clingy in the physical sense of the word - i.e. constant PDA’s, cuddling.
I’ve had clingy exes. Calling all the freakin’ time (like several times a day), wanting to do everything together, always needing to be sitting next to me even when we’re out with a bunch of friends, complaining that I never answered their text messages right away. Ugh.
It’s someone who wants to be closer with me than I want to be with them.
I would define clingy as someone who immediately invests their whole BEING into a relationship in a manner that seems excessive. If you can go a couple days wherein you have minimal contact with your man, you’re probably not clingy. Clingy means CONSTANT contact, i.e. everything must involve him. And god forbid HE do anything that doesn’t involve you!
I’m glad to get this input. Thanks to all!
IN A NUTSHELL:
I feel like a person is clingy if they act like a parent…i.e., where were you, what were you doing, who were you with, what happened…etc.
A parent has a right to ask these questions. Your SO may have that “right” also, but generally if it’s a healthy relationship, they ask out of curiosity and interest, not suspicion and/or doubt.
And if they do ask out of suspicion and/or doubt, you will know.
“Clingy” to me means that there’s no right answer to these questions.
I think this is what it boils down to. If two people are equally clingy, they call each other not " clingy", but “loving” and “romantic”.
Clingy is a mean word, a fancy way of calling names. It means: "I don’t want to be as close to you as you want to be with me, and that means *you *are at fault here.
I don’t know about that. Outside of a romantic setting, I’ve certainly had people who wanted to be my friends who sent me fleeing in the opposite direction because they seemed clingy. They always wanted me to get together with them, pay attention to them, be included in all of my social activities, etc., and acted like I’d hurt or insulted them if I opted to do something with other friends and not included them.
This is exactly what I was thinking.
The opposite is “distant”, which translates into “you’re not as close to me as I want you to be, and it’s your fault.”
A clingy person is a tool. They define themselves by the person they’re with. They can make strange and inappropriate badly-timed awkward references to how amazing or incredible that person is.
There’s nothing romantic about it. Romance is built on positive things like mutual admiration, wanting to see each other happy, and inspiring each other. Clingy people are more affected by negative things like fear of being alone, a sense of inferiority, a lack of personal motivation or ambition.
They’re as different as night and day.
So…are you clingy or not?
He always asked to go out with me and my friends. Asked who I was on the phone with and if I went in to another room to have alone time, 5 minutes later he was sitting in the room with me. Constantly wanting to cuddle. Whether it was on the couch, in bed or if we we were in public. I felt like I was being suffocated.