How much affection do you want?

LOTS, you reply. But sometimes, you may say that, and maybe, just maybe, it isn’t so. You may think you want affection but may have learned in early childhood or trained yourself in adulthood to do without it, and so that fact alone may be keeping you from getting the “lots” of affection you say you want. If you have trained yourself to endure without it, you may be missing the “affection boat”, because you will not attract affectionate people, if you really don’t need it.

What’s more, sometimes, we have a strong affection need, but we’ll pick a partner who does not. So our partner, because they have learned to live without it, may never fulfill our affection needs. On the other hand, we may appear smothering to that person, who then runs away from our gifts, because it’s really too much for them to handle. If you have lots of that chocolate milkshake to give them, but they only have a thimble to put it in, a lot of the sweetness will be lost. What’s more, maybe they keep the thimble, because a thimbleful is all they can handle. Anything else would be too much. These people may need to gradually move from a thimble to a teacup to a mug to a glass in order to accept the entirety of what you have to give.

The question is, can you measure out your portions of love to that person in such a gradual form? Most of us can’t. We give’ em the whole milkshake, and the ice cream all melts, and they are overwhelmed. This also holds true for whether or not we like to be included in groups, social networks, and even family gatherings.

Some folks don’t mind staying home alone on holidays, and others absolutely need to be in groups all the time. If you have a partner who likes to go out who is unaccepting of you, who doesn’t like to or need to go out, you may have a problem, especially at holiday time. Indeed, this can cause many problems, if one person in the partnership is social and the other is a loner.

Additionally, some of us have a greater need to control situations than others. We need to orchestrate, combine, order, and delegate. This can be good or bad. Some of us really just want to be the power behind the throne and want to do what we’re told or just show up for the 9 to 5 and leave the bossing around and responsibilities accompanying that to others.

One thing is sure; two bossy types who live together may have some major hurdles to overcome in relationship. Likewise, two people who are not interested in making any decisions could have some problems getting things done. The best kind of relationship is to have one person who has high needs to control and one who has a low need to do so, or two people who are middle of the road on both, so they can switch off.

Dr. Will Schutz created a questionaire that can tell you whether you have high or low needs for affection, inclusiveness, and control. It is called the FIRO-B questionnaire. You can link to it at www.cpp-db.com/products/firo-b/index.asp   . Find out your score, and then compare with partners and friends.

I myself discovered that while I have a high need to give affection, I actually have a low need to receive it! Wow! This makes sense, because as the third child out of five in my family, I was often left to my own devices, and yet I was very comfortable in a social milieu. This was heightened by being the only female out of five children, because I was isolated from the boys in my play and my bedroom and chores, by virtue of being a female, rather than male. So I was great at being with people and comfortable, but often had to do a lot by myself and for myself. I learned to be independent and not to need people. That is an eye opener and says everything about my personal relationships as well as my job choices. But I never would have guessed that, until I took the FIRO-B.

Check it out, and see what you come up with!  If you don't know what it means, write to me at afoster8@uh.edu or booklady@loveinloveout.com, and I will help you decipher it.