When I was little, ‘need’ was a great word.  As a rule, I only got something if I needed it.  Cries of "Mom, I want..." were invariably met with a disapproving glance and the expected maternal response of "You can’t have it. You don’t need it."   It remains a basic parental responsibility to help children distinguish between what they want and what they need.  Need is good.  Want?  Not so much.  Getting something you wanted was typically reserved for birthdays and holidays.  As children, we’re encouraged to fulfill our needs, but limit our wants.  So why is it now, as adults, want has top billing, while need is transformed into a four-letter word?

Kids instinctively know what they need the most:  love, love and more love.  But they’d better get over it by the time they reach adulthood.  For after a certain age, ‘want’ becomes the new need.  It’s now needing something that elicits a disapproving response.  A woman who admits to needing love runs the risk of being perceived as - heaven forbid - emotionally needy.  Which is frequently #1 on the Top Ten List of Things Men Fear in a Woman.  It appears to be a Mars/ Venus conundrum.  Women are frequently condemned as being too emotionally needy, while on the other side of the fence, men proudly declare they don’t need love.  Instead, they smugly declare to ‘want’ it. 

I’m calling bullshit on that.  Everyone needs love.  Says who?   Let’s start with renowned psychologist Abraham Maslow, who in examining human motivation, proposed his now famous Hierarchy of Needs.  It begins with physiological needs – food, water, breathing, sex (yep, you read it here).  Right there in the middle are the social needs of love and belonging.  Should you have a love and belonging deficiency, you’re susceptible to loneliness, social anxiety and depression.  I’m putting my money on Maslow.  That’s why I’m perplexed that wanting things is okay, but needing love and affection isn’t.  If I understand this correctly, it’s okay to want a 56-inch plasma television with Surround Sound, but it’s not okay to need love.  That doesn’t seem right to me.

My female friends are far more likely to admit that they need love than their male counterpoints.  (So long as a potential date or the current boyfriend isn’t standing within earshot.)   But men?  There seems to be a tendency among those I know to sidestep when it comes to love.  On Valentine’s Day, a friend suggested that it’s the nature of women to love.  We’re open to it.  Men, he proposed, need symbols.  (Read camouflage.)  Like a special ‘love day’ created by a card company at the turn of the 20^th century to drum up new business. 

It won’t hurt my feelings if ‘want’ loses some of its lustre, especially as the current economic debacle was created, in part, by ’wanting’ becoming a global mandate.  I’m not proposing that either ‘want’ or ‘need’ be downgraded.  I’d merely like to see them get equal billing.