Needy men are on the rise...

Women get plenty advice on the following, not too be clingy, not too be demanding, not to be too controlling, I guess such traits seem to be a “woman” thing!

Just how do men escape being labelled? All evidence points to the fact that men aren’t just as needy as women are but, in fact, even needier?

Long gone are the stereotypical emotionally-cold men who dread the thought of the ‘ball and chain’.

The needy man epidemic has been rising in recent years. Women are with the ‘but do you think he likes me?’ worries that our mums and older sisters had – we’re more worried about how to ditch the needy men asking us out.

There has been a lot written in recent years on women’s independence from men. The book written by Hanna Rosin’s - The End of Men: And the Rise of Woman to Atlantic.

Hanna Rosin's claims that we are now actually living under a matriarchy or very soon will be. Rosin's book teems with examples of the decline of modern man and the rise of woman in terms of money, education, employment and power. Men, she argues, have been the major victims of the recession, failing to adapt to the decline in manufacturing industries and to the challenges of post-modernity. If you believe her, vast numbers of the male working class have been transformed from proud breadwinners to unemployable couch potatoes. Their womenfolk, on the other hand, have seized the opportunities offered by the economic changes of the last few years; they have retrained, re-qualified and taken the driving seat.

Women, no longer rely on men as they once might have. But while the needy man is on the rise – the not-so-needy independent woman is too. Girls don’t ‘need’ boyfriends anymore. We can support ourselves financially, enjoy casual relationships with no stigma and go on as many dates as want, whenever we want.

Women no longer rely on boyfriends to take them on dates or give them security, because they can find it elsewhere. Women are more focused on climbing up the career ladder and getting a decent salary, rather than worrying about how to ‘bag a man’.

Now the men who are trying to hurry a relationship on from the casual dating stage to become a full-blown relationship, to living together in a very short time.

More female students than male students graduate from university. Afterwards, more females than males - get jobs.

It’s been reported that companies led by women perform much better. Women are more educated, successful, financially self-sufficient, and thriving, on their own than ever before.

Men, on the other hand, are going in the opposite direction. There is evidence of this, in addition to the statistics that show women’s rise in the workplace. 

Recent studies reveal that men are becoming more interested in commitment and attachment while women are becoming more interested in autonomy and independence.

Wives, now, are more likely initiate divorce. Divorced men, meanwhile, are more likely to remarry.

Then, too, there is the documented fact that elderly men are much more likely to die after losing a partner than are elderly women. Men can’t even shop for themselves, and it’s not hyperbole:

Men are less decisive shoppers than women and more likely to require a second opinion from a sales person when making a purchase.

The male desire for this sort of support isn’t just social, but biological, too. Men, it turns out, are both physically and emotionally more fragile than women. Boys experienced a higher release of stress hormones than girls in response to a recording of a baby crying.

Boy foetus are more susceptible to miscarriage, birth defects, and developmental disabilities; boys cry more when they are upset; have a harder time calming down; and are more emotionally vulnerable to the ill effects of lack of affection. Men just tend to mask it better.

But the cracks are starting to show. Men, though historically inclined to equate needing help with being weak, are increasingly more likely to ask for support. That’s a good thing. The more open individuals are to expressing their needs—whether rational or less so—the less likely they are to either become problematically “needy,” or to be labelled as such. Whereas neediness was once the purview of the woman, there is, at last, awareness that emotional support and reassurance knows no gender.