The Truth About Clingy Friends, Neediness, & Attachment

Hi everyone! This episode is all about understanding our clingy friends and our own clingy behavior. 

We explore why clingy friendship behavior shows up, how attachment styles shape our reactions, and what helps both anxious friends and the people who love them. We share tools to self-regulate, set clear plans, and build security in our own lives.

Some of the subjects we jump into in the episode are around:

• fear of abandonment and low self-worth as root causes
• attachment theory overview and four attachment styles
• anxious and avoidant push-pull dynamics in friendship
• strengths within anxious traits such as loyalty and empathy
• self-regulation tools and diversifying emotional support
• building routines and anchors outside friendship
• attachment labels as frameworks not fixed identities

If you enjoyed this episode, or maybe if you disagreed with parts of it, just let me know in the comments wherever you're listening
If you watch this episode on YouTube, give it a thumbs up 👍 and engage with the video.

Disclaimer: While I have a background in human psychology, I am NOT a licensed therapist or psychologist so please reach out to a medical/mental health professional for more personalized help with your needs.

Resources I used in the making of this episode:

• https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1993-01038-001
• https://www.attachmentproject.com/attachment-theory/
• https://www.simplypsychology.org/attachment.html

Sound Effects & Music:

• Whip 14 by Geoff-Bremner-Audio -- https://freesound.org/s/735139/ -- License: Creative Commons 0
• Geoff Bremner - Chill Hop Loop 1 [ Concept ] by Geoff-Bremner-Audio -- https://freesound.org/s/841290/ -- License: Attribution 4.0

Transcript

Framing Clingy Friendship Behavior

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, I'm Jack and welcome back to the Friendship Studio. This is where we're going to be thinking out loud about friendship culture and technology in the modern world. And I have a few questions for you this week. Have you ever had a friend who just bombards you with text after text if you don't respond back quickly enough? Or maybe you've actually been that friend. Or maybe you're just curious why some people seem to get really anxious in their friendships. Because it can get pretty overwhelming at times. And for me, it's like it's not about shaming this type of behavior, but it's really just trying to understand it and reframe it so that way our friendships can thrive. Okay, so let's first get into actually defining how clingy behavior often looks. So it's gonna be a mix of these things, but there's usually these kinds of things going on. One of them is that just the needing of constant reassurance, you know, the are we good? Are we okay? Should I do this? Should I do that? Just kind of the inability to reassure yourself, you know, this is that this is that kind of behavior that you'll see. Like in clingy behavior, the constant reassurances is one of the things I think is most common. And then also people get really anxious when their texts aren't answered quickly. Usually it's like it needs to be within a couple of minutes. Feeling left out really easily is another one. And also taking it personally when someone needs their space. So that could just be like someone being saying, like, I need to study tonight, or I'm gonna hang out with my partner, or I'm gonna take a class or whatever, and you know, or maybe even just like I need space for like a week, you know? And that kind of goes back into the feeling left out easily. Another thing can be that people like to feel like that emotional intensity in their friendships, especially early on, and they kind of use it as a way to quickly bond, right? So you'll see that in a uh a lot of people who have clingy behavior that they just want to feel really close to the person that they're in a relationship with, in this case, like a friendship, but that they want to be close to them really quickly. Usually, also these people have fewer friends and they kind of latch on to like one friend more than the others. So if they have more than one friend, it's not usually more than like two or three. There's their friend group is pretty small. And then the last thing I'd say is these kinds of people have difficulty in handling really ambiguous situations. So maybe you say to this friend, I'm going to, you know, we can meet up for coffee in like a couple of weeks. Like I'll, you know, I'll reach out in a couple of weeks. Um, but you don't set like a time or um a certain day. And it's just kind of like, you know, open and you know, a couple weeks is maybe two or three weeks, but they don't really know that. And so these kinds of people have a really hard time with those very ambiguous, or if it's not clear, if it's not like I'm gonna call you tomorrow at 9 a.m. and we're gonna talk for two hours or whatever. A lot of times these people have a really hard time with those kinds of situations, and I think it's a really important point to note that like people who are clingy in their all of their relationships, but in this case, like friendships, a clingy friend is really more so scared of losing someone and and losing this friendship. It's not really about like loving that person so much, it's like clingy behavior is usually just someone's nervous system that is trying to prevent a loss before it happens. They're scared of losing something, and so they want to stop that before it happens. So let's jump into the psychological bag for a little bit. Like, what are the psychological roots of this behavior? And I think the biggest one is the fear of abandonment and rejection. That's like the number one thing that what it can kind of like trace back to. Also, someone with really low self-worth, they're scared of someone seeing them for who they are and not liking that. And that kind of ties into the, well, I'm gonna constantly be reaching out because I'm scared. Have you seen something you didn't like? You know, like they just kind of like I want to stay on top of it because if there's anything that you don't like, I want to make sure that I know before you end the friendship or whatever. And you'll see this a lot in in romantic relationships as well. But this does happen in friendships. And then the other thing is that, like, a lot of times their past relationships were also unstable and even possibly traumatic. And that's friends, that's family, that's romantic relationships as well. So those are kind of like the roots of why this behavior comes about. All right, so I want to talk a little bit about, or a lot of it actually, about attachment theory, how what it is, and kind of like how it relates to clingy behavior. So to me, you can't really talk about clingy behavior without discussing a psychological theory called attachment theory. And if you took any type of psych class or you're just like a fan of human psychology, then you probably know a little bit about this theory. It's all over the pop psychology space and the internet. Like, but if you don't know that much about it or you haven't heard that much about it, a quick introduction is that it was developed initially between the 1930s and 50s by British psychiatrist and psychologist John Boldby and also a Canadian-American developmental psychologist, Mary Ainsworth. And then this theory, the things that they came up with and the scientific findings for the framework that is attachment theory, it's also been expanded upon throughout the decades. And so now we generally kind of define modern attachment theory as a type of psychological framework that states that humans have an innate or natural need to form close emotional bonds with the primary caregivers for survival and security, which makes sense, right? We we need our caregivers, we need our parents to take care of us and to love us and to feed us and to be there for us consistently in order for us to grow up to feel secure and to survive. So, those the the way they describe it, the way the researchers have described it is that the early bonds that you have with your caregivers, with your parents, they kind of create this blueprint. We all have a blueprint in our life, and that influences, but not determines. That's a huge point. It influences our emotional regulation, our trusts, and our relationship behaviors throughout our life. It kind of creates this guide book of how we probably will end up being in relationships, but again, it doesn't determine anything. And I think that's a really important point to make. So that's the definition of what attachment theory is. But the main points that have come up from attachment theory that most people have heard about, if you listen to any any podcast or anything online that talks about relationships, they almost always will bring up the concepts of the four attachment styles. And these attachment styles are again, they're patterns about how we relate to others, and they're usually formed in early childhood. So there's four types of four types of attachment styles. The first one is secure, and then there's three other insecure attachment styles. So secure attachment people or people who have secure attachment, they're comfortable with the intimacy and the independence. So it's both. And that can come from and does come from the fact that you actually had parents, you had caregivers that were consistent and emotionally available to you. And that makes a world of a difference, right? You can kind of tell when you go, when you have those friendships or you have any of those relationships and you meet someone, you kind of like, I think you have, you you, you seem to be really grounded and they're comfortable with they can be close to people, but they also can do their own thing. Those people generally would be considered to have a secure attachment and they could have developed it, but a lot of times they actually had some type of like consistent caregiver growing up and has allowed them to develop that type of attachment. So the other three are insecure, they're called insecure attachment styles. The first one being anxious, preoccupied, and it's also known as just anxious attachment. So most people just say anxiously attached. And this is where I believe most uh clingy friends, most of our like clingy friends would come from. This is their attachment style. And this type of attachment style is a desire for the intimacy, but they also fear being abandoned. The next one is called dismissive avoidant, and it's usually just no people you'll hear people say just avoidance or avoidant attachment. This attachment style is kind of like the opposite of anxiously, anxiously preoccupied or anxious preoccupied. And this attachment style, the avoidant attachment style, really values independence and they often avoid emotional closeness. So you'll see these types of people come together all the time: the anxious and the avoidant. It's like the runner and the chaser, whether it's friends or dating or sometimes even in our families, you'll see those types of people come together because there's this like push-pull, and it's it's upsetting. It can be really upsetting, but a lot of times you'll see those people come together. Um, it just it drives the, especially it drives the anxious person crazy because they just want to be have that closeness, and the avoidant person pulling away definitely kind of triggers all of their insecurities. Um, and the last attachment style is called fearful avoidant. Um, it's also known as disorganized. And this one is a very difficult one because it's actually a mix of a desire to be close, but they also have a fear of the intimacy. So it's the push-pull. It's basically the anxious, preoccupied person and a dismissive, avoidant person all in one. And this attachment style is really difficult to have, and those types of people they really struggle in their friendships, they struggle in all of their relationships. Um, they usually have suffered quite a bit in terms of like their childhood usually was pretty scary, and there was a lot of fear and usually even abusive. So a way that we can kind of reframe clingy traits though, and kind of see some of the positives for it is we want to look at friends who have anxious tendencies often tend to have these things that we would consider good things, and we want to kind of try to amplify that so we can have, you know, we can pull that out of ourselves if this is us, or we can see that in our friendship, so we can basically just, you know, because it can be frustrating. So we don't want to be coming to our friends thinking that there's no positives to this behavior because friends who have anxious tendencies also tend to have pretty, they they're pretty loyal, right? They're pretty loyal, they care really deeply, they know also how to be emotionally aware. And these are the people that are gonna be investing really heavily in your their relationships and their community because they value connection. And that's like that's an amazing person to have in your life. So if this is you, you don't need to care less, but you do need to focus on slowing down and becoming more regulated. Some of the ways that you can do that are thinking about number one, just like calming yourself down before you reach out to a friend. You want to really ask yourself like, do I really want to connect with this friend right now? Or am I just needing reassurance? Am I just kind of feeling insecure about something? I'm unsure. Those types of things really help you understand, like, why you're reaching out. And the other thing that I think is really, really important to do, and this is like the number one thing, it's been really helpful for me as well, is to actually build other connections. So you don't want to have everything on one friend. You don't want one friend to be just like with partnerships, you know, it's the same advice that they give to romantic relationships. Your partner should not be everything to you, and one friend should not be everything to you. So if you build other connections, it's like you can diversify your emotional supports. I think that's like the number one way that you can kind of help bring some control back and like bring things back into your control. Because I think a lot of anxious people, they just feel a sense of everything is out of their control. And that's another reason why people can get just like really, really, really clingy. And then building upon that, like this is another aspect to it, is like you actually want to expand your life outside of your friendships. Even even as you build more friendships, you want to have a life outside of your friendships. And what that means is have hobbies, you know, have hobbies that don't rely on a friend coming with you, have other goals, create routines for yourself. So if you know that your one of your friends is or a friend or all of your friends are basically the thing that secures you during the day is like your anchor, find a way to say, you know, my anchor of the day is gonna be journaling in the morning, going for a run, in dance class in the evening, walking my dog, whatever. Try to bring everything into within your control, right? So that way your stability isn't dependent upon whether a friend is available. And then the last thing is that you really want to try to like separate, I'd say it's like separate your feelings from the facts just because you feel left out, just because you didn't get invited to something, or a friend doesn't have time for you right now, or or whatever the case may be, like it doesn't necessarily mean you're being excluded. And that just kind of comes back to you have a heightened sense of abandonment and rejection. And so it's gonna automatically make you more prone to thinking you're being left out on purpose, but that's not necessarily the fact. So I think putting all those together, you can kind of help bring that anxiety down to a manageable place and again start having that internal stability instead of it all being external. So, what happens though if you are on the receiving end of a friend's clingy behavior? It's definitely frustrating. It can be frustrating, but I think some of the things to keep in mind is you don't want to be mocking this. This type of behavior is even if it's not anything that you would do, it comes from someplace. You know, we just talked about all the places that it can come from. And so we don't want to mock it because that type of stuff is not gonna help. It's not gonna make the friendship better, it's not gonna make them change. I think the other thing that you can do, if this is a friend that you obviously care about, is you wanna be as clear as you can because that can help reduce this friend's anxiety. Where you can be clear, be clear. If you know that you're making plans, give as much detail as you can. So I will call you in two Thursdays from now at around 7 p.m. You know, if you don't know that much, just try to be as clear as possible. Clarity helps people who are anxious, like a million times over. In that same vein, reassuring them is not enabling them. It's really, it's really you understanding where they're coming from. And if you're their friend, that is a way that you can contribute to the friendship because you're doing something small for them, like giving them clarity. And that makes a huge difference and just calming their nervous systems down. And this is also one of the ways that people can actually start to become more secure, is by having people in their life that are willing to do small things like that, like provide the clarity, like be consistent, and that helps them develop a more secure sense of self. And I think the last thing too is that you actually, because this can be a lot, you know, it can be clingy behavior is on a spectrum, right? So you don't want you do want to create some boundaries for yourself. Maybe you say, I don't take calls after a certain time, unless it's an emergency, or I just don't take calls period past a certain time. Maybe I also don't like to do a bunch of endless texting, endless texting, like call me or send me a voice note, or just call me in the morning, or whatever the case may be. So it's important to create boundaries for yourself too, so you don't get burned out by this type of behavior. And the last point that I want to make is actually it's kind of a bone that I want to pick with the modern day discussion that we have around attachment styles with the stuff that's online because attachment styles are actually just a framework for helping you understand yourself and other people around you. And so I think it's about looking at the patterns of behavior, it's not about creating identities around the actual attachment styles. I have seen people running around, especially online, and they're just kind of like waving their attachment style flag as if that stops them from being held accountable for their actions. And almost too like that attachment styles are something that's fixed and permanent, which it isn't, because you can start out in life in one of the insecure attachment styles, or actually even secure attachment, and then maybe turn into one of the insecure attachment styles. But usually it's something like you have you start out with one insecure attachment style, and then through meeting secure people or like you're in secure situations, plus things like therapy, you know, the arts, creating discipline in your life or having discipline in your life, you can actually develop a more secure and grounded attachment. So I guess my point that I want to make is that attachment style is not a life sentence, and it's not going to tell you what kind of life you're going to live. It can help explain some things, but it's not here to define you. And that's just my disclaimer. Anytime I talk about attachment styles, which I probably will in other episodes, but anytime I talk about them, I don't want people to think of it as a way to identify and then just hold on to it and then woe is me, this is how it's always gonna be, this is the only way I can be, because that's not how it is. It's meant to evolve through and learn from, and it's only to help you. It's if you feel bad about yourself, I would say don't even look into attachment styles because I know I felt that way when I first came across uh the whole attachment theory. I was like, well, this doesn't feel great. This does not make me feel good. And so I didn't look at it for a long time. And I worked and I found other ways to help me with things that I needed help with. And then I kind of came back to the whole attachment theory, and I'm like, there's a lot of great things about it, but I think it can make you feel, oh, well, I grew up this way, so that's the that's the way that my life is gonna be, which means that I'm only gonna have these kinds of friendships, I'm only gonna attract these kinds of people, and that's not the case. So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and I hope it made you think either about like your own behavior, your own way of being with your friends, or maybe if it made you think about a specific friend's behavior and hopefully made you think about like the why behind the things that we do in all of our relationships, but especially our friendships, because that's what this whole podcast is about, is about friendships and how we can make them better, why they're important, all of that. So if you enjoyed this episode, or maybe if you disagreed with parts of it, just let me know in the comments wherever you're listening. I love hearing from you guys. You all have amazing things and stories to say. If you watch this episode on YouTube, give it a thumbs up and engage with the video. And that's it. That's it for another episode of the Friendship Studio. I'll see you all next time. Bye.