may I have your attention, please?

*taps mic* Is this thing on?

Now that I have your attention, I’d like to talk to you about ...attention. Specifically attention seeking.

If I were to take an unscientific poll of anyone reading this, I’d guess roughly 127% of you would say attention seeking is a negative thing. You may have a picture in your mind of a person --usually a woman, but perhaps a man --who is shrill and does outrageous things at exactly the right moment for maximum impact. You may have a picture in your mind of a person who sulks and says things in the hopes of being contradicted with praise. You may have a picture in your mind of the person who talks about the time they had a day 2.5 times worse than yours could possibly ever be when you share about a bad day. You may have a picture in your mind of someone extremely annoying.

The purpose of what I’m writing is not to confirm these pictures you may have in your mind. The purpose of what I’m writing is to offer some background and another viewpoint.

In the work I do professionally, we regularly discuss the reasons people act the way they act. There are four reasons --and they all begin with the letter A, to make them easy to remember:

• Access --the person wants something from someone else
• Avoidance --the person does not want something from someone else
• Attention --the person wants social interaction with someone else
• Automatic --the action is reinforcing in and of itself and usually doesn’t involve other people.

If we take a look at this definition of attention, it is not a negative thing. Nearly all people want some kind of social interaction. If we didn’t, there would be no social media. Why post your pictures? Why post your thoughts? Why reply to things people say? In this sense, we all seek attention, if for no other reason than to know we are not alone.

So then we come to more extreme behaviors. These serve the same purpose. Unfortunately, where many attention-seeking behaviors are adaptive (think life skills), some are maladaptive (think behaviors that won’t get you very far in life). As an example, if a person posts a picture of their grandchild on their Facebook, this would be a way of sharing their pride in their grandchild with other people in a way that would be considered appropriate to the majority of people (adaptive). If a person enters their grandchild in beauty pageants, even though the child has no interest in being in beauty pageants, and then posts picture after picture of themselves with their grandchild at pageants, it starts to veer into the realm of inappropriate to a lot of people (maladaptive).

Take this post: I am currently writing it because I have an automatic need to get the words out. I never need to show this to another person. It could be a diary entry. If I post it, though, I am seeking attention. I don’t necessarily expect attention, but I would hope if I share it, someone would read it.

Where it would veer into maladaptive attention-seeking territory is if I threatened to do something or revealed something shocking. (Note: this can actually be an adaptive strategy if I hope to gain something like employment from it, and then we’re talking about access in addition to attention. Although that could also be maladaptive … . Yes, this is confusing stuff!)

Let’s say I say something shocking like, “I’ll never write anything else ever again because I suck and I’m a horrible writer!” If I have never said this before, you might pay attention and take me seriously and reassure me and give me a pep talk. If I have said this again and again, you will notice patterns. This pattern would likely become bothersome. If I start heading into maladaptive territory, I may actually quit writing until someone approaches me and talks me through it --hiding, in a sense, to see if anyone will look for me. Before saying, “Oh, there she goes again …,” though, look at what I just described …

I learned the first time that, if I do something (threaten to quit writing), I will get social attention for it. I will be soothed for a time because people were nice to me. I might try it again, without thinking about it, the next time I feel the same kind of stress --because, believe me, writing is stressful sometimes. Depending upon how much time has elapsed, I may get the same response from other people. At some point, however, if I keep doing it, people will stop paying attention. That’s when the attention-seeking behavior increases. It’s just me trying to get my needs met through a pattern that we all agreed on in the first place.

Now imagine this has been the only pattern I’ve ever known for my entire life. And using my example above, the original cause was likely anxiety. There I would be alone, languishing with my anxiety, not expressing myself or expressing myself violently, and nobody cares except maybe the police. Attention, if you will recall, is what we seek so we don’t feel alone. That’s a pretty bleak situation.

Instead of going through the cycle again and again, with it getting worse and worse, it is better to break the cycle.

For the attention-seeker: it is best if you approach people directly with your need for attention. If someone isn’t available, ask them to help you find someone else. In my frustrated writer example, I might say, “X, I’m feeling really crappy about my writing. Can I talk to you about it? Or can we talk about something else?” Try not to pick the same person every time. Be brave. Widen your circle. And seriously, if you have access, consider a professional --they have to talk to you, and most of them are really nice people.

If you expect attention, you also need to give it, too. Reciprocity is what social relationships are built on --if you want people to be there for you, you need to be there for them, or they wander away.

For the attention-giver: ask questions, if you have time. Instead of launching straight into comfort (which you do because you are fundamentally nice people), ask open-ended questions. Why do I think I’m a terrible writer? What makes me say that? And probably the most important question you can ask is, what do I need? Listen to the answer. If you don’t have time to ask or listen, be honest. None of this half-listening stuff, if it can be avoided. Set an appointment and keep it.

Save your attention for people who deserve it. A person who deserves your attention is a person who attempts to reciprocate and demonstrates interest in you in ways that do not benefit them. Sometimes, people can be a bit of a mess, but if there are consistent signs the other person is trying, honor that in a way that doesn’t burn you out.

Realize you also get something from the relationship. Think about what that is. Chances are, it is also attention.

So, is everyone straight on attention seeking now? Yes?

Good. *drops mic*