"How do I get other people to pay attention to me?"
Every person and situation is different. Our needs for acceptance and recognition vary to a great degree. Some people could care less while others need lots of "love". It's perfectly normal and we are unique no matter how universal some basic human behaviors are.
I think that independence form opinions and approvals of others is crucial to self-development, but I am not here to judge those who need more recognition than others. However, I'd like to discuss an aspect of life more bothersome to those who do crave to be recognized and accepted (for whatever reason). It's something that can make one quite miserable - lack of attention.
People who suffer from lack of recognition may sometimes confuse the feeling with loneliness. They want to be noticed, admired, wanted, and if it doesn't happen, the resulting sensation resembles that of being abandoned. During my practices I've met numerous people who suffered from what's called "loneliness", but the thing is, not all of them were lonely. Some genuinely wanted to find true friendship, true love, or a small group of like-minded individuals, a real circle of closeness, protection, support. But then some others weren't looking for closeness as such, they were seeking other things: social approval, recognition, and maybe even a following of people (fans) who would take great interest in them.
I think it's important to recognize what it is you are after. Is it love and friendship, or do you seek attention, or maybe even fame? Sometimes people want both, and it's OK. I don't think fame is universally bad; it all depends on why it's needed and how it's used once attained. Still, clearly understanding what it is you're after, what exactly you crave can make it easier to attain it... or to stop needing it completely.
Whatever the case is, people who want attention, interest, love usually ask a number of similar questions:
- How do I become a more interesting person?
- How do I get the attention of others, especially of the people who I need?
- How can I find my people, my circle of friends?
- How do I make someone I like to notice me?
- Why nobody likes me? Am I worse than others?
- What is it in me that makes people indifferent?
- Why that other person is always the center of attention, and I go unnoticed?
- Where are my best friends?!
There isn't one answer to everyone. People and situations always differ, even if differ slightly, and everybody requires a specific approach. Still, I'll try to focus on something that's pretty common: the thing is, this question - "How do I become more interesting to others?" - is not the right question to ask. Everyone who seeks attention, approval, recognition, love, friendship asks something along these lines, but I believe even the question itself is wrong. In order to solve the problem, we must ask a more important question, the one that also gives us a clue to answer the first one. The question is
WHAT DO I DO TO BECOME MORE INTERESTING TO MYSELF?
An obvious difference, right? In order to become interesting to others, we have to be absolutely crazy, exited, and enthusiastic about OUR OWN LIFE. The harsh truth is that no one wants to be around bored, lackluster people who constantly whine and suffer from so-called loneliness and lack of attention, but don't give a shit about themselves and their own life. Call it "discrimination" or whatever other bad word, call it "unfair" - it very well might be! Yes, it is discriminating and "unfair", but it's also very true - in general, most people are NOT interested in those who have no interest in anything.
To get the attention of others one has to be a self-sufficient, charismatic, independent, energetic, insightful, always developing, growing Human Being who takes great interest in Life. Such people never suffer from lack of attention because they don't have time for that kind of suffering and don't need others for self-realization or self-assertion. They don't seek recognition and don't depend on it, but get it anyway because this is the law - night moths always fly into the Fire. If you want hundreds of butterflies circling around you, finding you in the dark, and seeking your presence (even if it means getting burned!), all you have to do is have that inner light shining, that unstoppable Fire burning within.
Easy, right? But incredibly difficult for those of us who are tortured by that first question, "How to become more interesting to others?" Throw that question away. Put it in the trash, erase it from your mind. Let's substitute it with the following:
How do I live my life in such a way that I am absolutely exited and interested in being one on one with Myself?
We can find the answer to this question through self analysis, meditation, practice, trial and error. Once we start practicing this absolute excitement and interest in Living Our Own Life, when this love for life becomes genuine and natural, that inner Fire starts burning, and I guarantee that it will attract those butterflies (people!)... and then another realization will come: at this point the grave need for attention and recognition will fade significantly or disappear altogether.
That is because "interesting people" are never burning from within to attract attention. They don't do it because they need crowds of followers - they don't care. It happens simply because it is their nature. An interesting person lives his life, does his deeds, walks his way... and THAT'S it, his life is very interesting to him.
People who are deeply into being alive, saturated with life, appear different to others. You can usually sense that invisible aura of intense saturation around them. When people get close to that highly saturated field and step into it, they inevitably want to dive back into it again and again.
If we manage to raise our level of interest in life, increase our enthusiasm, our passion toward being ourselves and living intensively, the question of "how to get the attention of others" won't exist.
Instead will exist an interesting, fulfilling life and other people who will want to be a part of it, naturally. And when this happens, people won't be spectators or "fans", they won't be used like puppets or audience to satisfy the cravings of our ego. They will be much more: great acquaintances, maybe even loved ones or friends, but whatever the case, first and foremost they will be truly valued as human beings.
Now I'd like to say something about "suffering".
In general, every kind of suffering or discomfort, every "something is wrong" in our lives indicates that there is a good change to stalk and study ourselves. I believe that stalking our own habits, emotional reactions, mood swings, needs, desires, and dissatisfaction is necessary if we want to improve our lives. At times the experience of facing less pleasant aspects of one's mind can be by itself very uncomfortable, disturbing, or outright scary, but it's one of those steps toward greater awareness.
In the case of suffering from lack of attention, love, recognition, etc., we may try to find not only the reasons for being "uninteresting" to others, but also the reason WHY there is this need to be interesting and why being "not interesting" is experienced as suffering. Causes of all this can vary a lot, and in the process of their discovery people sometimes find that there are other underlying problems that have nothing to do with whatever they thought the issue was in the beginning.
By nature and/or nurture we are social beings... but how much "social" attention-seeking is too much?
Thinking about this, I remembered something curious. In the times of my childhood and long before everybody started being stuck in the virtual world (there were no personal computers or publicly accessible Internet back then) kids and teens entertained themselves by having these cute questionnaire notebooks. We would write 10-15 questions and then give the notebook to our friends and classmates to fill up. "Name, surname, favorite color, favorite song, name of your best friend... " And the last question would usually ask to make a small drawing for the owner of the notebook.
Now, dear readers, please tell me... Do you think anyone really cared about someone else's favorite color or a small drawing in the corner of a notebook page? For a passing moment, maybe. Beyond that? Not really. Yes, it was fun for the owner of the notebook to gather everyone's answers, especially if we managed to give questionnaires to the boys we liked (owning notebooks was mostly a "girl" thing). But it was even more fun for those people who actually answered the questions.
Why so? Because we all love to share. Naturally, most people like to tell "interesting" facts about themselves, to share about the things they like, or their own characteristics and how cool they are. In addition to these questionnaires we also had real paper diaries. We would write in them secretly and keep them away from everyone... but there was always that little glimpse of hope that one day Someone right, Someone special would find that "secret diary" and read our hopes, dreams, pains, and fears. I call it some sort of a subtle spiritual/mental exhibitionism.
True deep loneliness and not getting enough attention are not always equivalents, but people often confuse these things. It's strange because they are not the same (though they both can be present in one person). Look at this: you can be the center of attention of millions of people yet be the loneliest person in the world (and suffer or NOT suffer because of it). Or you can get no attention and recognition at all and be the happiest person in the world nonetheless.
At this stage of human evolution we, people, are very social beings. Being interesting, getting others to notice you, getting enough interaction, acceptance, love in combination with self-reflection and focusing on "I" - all this is very pleasant to the human brain. Those of us who write, draw, speak, show, etc., want to be seen and heard by the crowd of potential spectators and listeners out there, or maybe just that one special person whose attention is more valuable than the whole world (hello, people in love!). Most of the time we act and create for the others to notice (at least to some extent), otherwise would we even care? A regular human being in this society generally wants to be seen and heard on some level - some more, some less, but I'd say that beyond all the exceptions and "different people" who don't care, for many of us being accepted and recognized is a BASIC NEED which comes last only after physical survival.
And here I want to make an arguable point -
Maybe a person craves attention because he/she cannot achieve self-realization in any other way, and even worse - cannot acknowledge and confirm the fact of his/her own real and substantial existence in any other way.
Let me rephrase it a bit: maybe people desperately need attention because it reduces their fear of non-existence (death). Maybe we want to be noticed because we have lost our ability to be real and to feel real without constant confirmations from the outside world.
One more thing to consider... Attention is energy. Attention from interested people, whether they are fans or haters, feeds the person it is directed at. Both "good" and "bad" attention can be gathered by the center of it and used as fuel. When we get attention, we get energy, and some people (think famous people, some show-business stars, popular kids, women and men who heavily rely on their looks and nothing else, charismatic psychopaths, some spiritual gurus, etc) get so hooked on it that their need for fans and followers is the driving force for everything they do in life.
I'll wrap it up for now, these are just some things to think about. It certainly goes deeper than that, but we are all very different (no matter how generic many things are described in psychology and such), so to go deeper it must be done on a personal, individual level, and that task is everyone's own adventure.
Be well, be interesting (to yourselves!), and remember that this life has endless possibilities and mysteries to explore!
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Disclaimer: the author of this article is not a clinical psychologist and does not give medical advise. If you suffer from severe depression and/or have other (biochemical, etc.) issues, you might need to seek professional help.