Alright, so how would a person like me avoid the clingy, needy, and dependent label when talking about something like this?
I wonder if it's simply a matter of them saying to the NT, "Would you pay more attention to me?" that's getting interpreted, "Spend every free moment with me."
it depends on how close you are to the person. speaking only for myself of course, if it's not someone i'm in love with, the question, "would you pay more attention to me?" would immediately stomach-punch my panic button. you see, i'm set up to fail in that situation if it's not a committed romantic relationship (meaning i've already reached the point where i expect WORK to achieve growth).
i could attempt, despite the panic, to pay attention to a friend more in the short term, but to be honest, i'd quickly either start to resent it or slide into my natural way of doing things, either way... failing them. so i panic. because i do care and don't want to hurt them, fail them, but i know i will. i can't succeed. basically, that friend may as well have said, "this isn't going to work. i need more than you can give."
I enjoy my space also, I have enough friends and activities to satisfy my extrovertedness. But when I'm afraid to call someone because they're sending out conflicting signals about the nature of the relationship, I'm clueless. And then after a while, I become apathetic towards the relationship and the other person thinks I'm playing games. I'm not playing games, I'm just beginning not to care! And if the other person still cares, I can see how they'd think I'm the one acting insincere.
you... bless your heart. if it helps, when i fell in love with an NT, i experienced the same kind of thing. i analyzed him to death, tried to read 'signs' because, well HE wasn't saying anything! i didn't know what was real and what i just wanted to be real. then i'd analyze that!
eventually, i started to logic my way out of feeling anything. felt myself starting to become apathetic towards him. and, that's when
my NTness kicked in. that's when i could again be objective enough to think clearer. i relaxed, and looked at it from how it would feel from my own perspective, and that's when it became much easier.
i always had let him speak to me first nine out of ten times. that way, i knew without a doubt that he wanted to talk because
i wouldn't speak to someone unless i planned on being there for a while...
just in case (one never knows how talkative someone is going to be).
however, i changed tactics by being open, direct, and honest about it. i decided to
tell him that i know he's busy, so he shouldn't expect me to speak first very often at all, no matter how much i may like talking to him, because i don't want to interrupt. (and when we did speak, i made it clear at
those moments that i had missed him, so he'd know). from that point on, it freed him up. it made it less stressful because he now knew it was his decision which is exactly the kind of freedom that
i would want.
the thing is, is that because he spoke often (and i watched the patterns, naturally
), it didn't take long to know that i could relax in how he felt and then i spoke first more often and as much as i wanted (though of course, there were a few times when i did interrupt, regretted speaking, then repeated the same thing about my not speaking first). overall, i still didn't do it much, but every now and then i did because it's fair, and that way, he'd know i liked talking to him too.
things became much much easier after i put the ball in his court, but also made it clear that i want to play often even though i'm playing 'nice'.
