I've always been a bit "needy" per say socially. I'm not gonna go into a deep dive psychoanalysis of myself, but when I was in elementary school especially, I was a bit of an outcast. Kind of always that guy on the periphery of the friend group who would get invited to some stuff but left out other times. I wasn't the most socially developed at a young age because I was an only child. I always felt like I was trying really hard to fit in, and belong to the group. I had more friends the older I got, but except for junior and senior year of HS, this problem has persisted throughout most of my life.

This has translated to my dating life as well. I always feel like I need to have some success dating to feel validated. Objectively I'm doing really well in life, have a nice apartment, a roommate I'm friends with, a nice car, about 5-6 close friends, and a well paying job for being 24 in my second real job out of school. But I still get extremely anxious and needy when it comes to women. It feels like I am chasing their validation more than anything. My self esteem isn't low, but it gets inflated beyond belief when I am validated by someone I am into.

This problem rears its head no matter if I'm in a committed relationship, messaging a girl on hinge I've never met in person, or trying to navigate setting up a second or third date. It's almost like I feed off of this needy behavior, because when girls show a high level of interest in me, I lose interest unless I am extremely physically attracted to them. I feel as if I'm seeking out this pattern of behavior from childhood for some unknown reason, where I have to chase someone really hard for it to be exciting when I obtain it.

Whenever I smoke weed though, this neediness and desperation completely vanishes. I am totally content with how things in my life are, and feel none of this existential pressure to be validated by making someone like me who initially appears to have low interest. Weed makes me a bit TOO content though and I'd like to find some middle ground between my baseline when I'm sober, and when I'm baked.

I'm wondering if I possibly have ADHD or some other mental health disorder and I'm using weed to unknowningly self medicated? My theory is that if I do have ADHD, I'm chasing the hard to obtain stuff because that is what provides the most dopamine release. When I'm baked, the weed is doing the dopamine release exogenously, so I no longer feel the desire to pursue things as hard. It's quite dramtic actually.

Sober, I'll be sitting around waiting for a reply from a girl I'm texting, wondering when she's gonna message me and reading way to into it. Stoned, I'll leave her on delivered for 6 hours and not even care to reply until the next morning in most cases.

Anyone else noticed similar patterns in themselves? How did you resolve them, if you've found a solution?