I have abandonment issues but I suspect that pretty much everyone else does too, to one degree or another. Some seem to deal with theirs more gracefully than others and some seem to hide theirs better than others.

I'll admit that if someone seems to be approaching me just to help them soothe their feelings of abandonment, on a personal level I do tend to feel used and to steer clear of them, for that reason among others, until they seem to have settled themselves back down.

That particular reaction is usually the least of my concerns, though:

• I figure that if someone gets into a pattern where every time they feel abandoned they look for someone else to reassure them, it'll be much harder for them to learn to reassure themselves -- so the reassurer may not be doing the reassuree much of a favor by reassuring them.

• To take that a step further: if the reassuree (and of course I count myself among potential reassurees here) doesn't feel adequately reassured, or reassured soon enough, he/she will naturally want to blame their bad luck or the reassurer for not showing up in time or not doing their job right. Again, the quest for better or more available reassurers is likely to consume our attention and distract us from helping ourselves.

• What I personally find most reassuring is not the idea that I'm lucky, that someone is making it their job to be there for me, or that for some abstract reason I "deserve" reassurance; but rather the knowledge that I have something to offer, that at least some others will be naturally inclined to seek me out for.

Without getting distracted into specifics about whatever I might feel I have to offer, I wanted to look briefly at some of the things that might keep me in a relationship (whether personal, social, professional, political or any other kind) with someone else:

• They continue to show that they can be trusted. If they say they'll do something, they do it. If they've said they won't, they don't.

• If they want something from me, they let me know they want it but they make it clear that it's my choice to provide it or not. If I decline, for whatever reason (or none), they don't switch to demanding or threatening or acting out. They're open to discussing whether they really need exactly what they're asking for or whether something else (that, perhaps, I'd rather give them) might not do almost as well -- or better.

• They seem to be open, at least most of the time, to seeing and hearing me, not someone in their past whom I happen, for better or worse, to remind them of.

That's my short list, anyway -- scratching the surface on short notice. Actually, I'd love to discuss some of this stuff at greater length eventually, but I don't know that this thread would be the best place for that.

Yes, it can be and often is. If I'd been around for any part of that interaction, I probably would've been asking myself what would've been in it for them, either to reach back out to you, to ignore you, or to come up with some other response, better or worse.

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I have a lot of emotional baggage. I pile it all in the closet and go out to play.