Forum: Those who need feedback the most don’t ask for it
Published 1:30 am Saturday, November 1, 2025
By Dan Hazen / Herald Forum
I have often been The Needy One in relationships. Adolescent and romantic or mature and professional, I’ve needed reassurance that everything is alright.
I initiate the “state of the union” discussions; monitor facial expressions, body language and other cues to ensure that the other is content, fulfilled and gratified. In other words: that they’re good with me. Imagine my surprise then, to discover that I’m not The Needy One anymore! It turns out Microsoft, Google, my insurance company, my clinic, and every app developer and vendor in the world are The Needy Ones now. They desperately seek feedback on how they’re doing, what you think of their service, how’d you like the product.
“Fill out this quick survey! Enjoying this App? Turn on notifications? How about your location? Where are you? Who are you talking to? Would you like a cookie? Please accept our cookies! OK, how about just some of our cookies!?”
It’s positively creepy.
These needy relationships exist almost exclusively in the realm of commerce, so the good news is (technically) you can leave them. Greed drives the need. It’s simply about increasing market share, stock performance and profit. Like all needy partners, it’s finally about them, not about you.
But in the realm of government, it’s the opposite: nobody (beyond select local governments) actually cares what you think. And leaving the relationship is much more complicated. Compare the number of requests for feedback you get from your state representative to those you get from your local frozen yogurt shop. We don’t have a needy partner in government; we have an abusive one. They don’t ask how things are going because they don’t care, and we’ve set it up so they don’t have to.
Abuse tends to show up in one of two distinct forms. From the Trump Horde we get Type 1: Good old-fashioned ridicule, intimidation and violence. Oh, it always starts with a thrill. They give you what you want in excess; ply you with promises of attention and prosperity, but the lies and rot become impossible to ignore only when it’s too late and you’re trapped. They suddenly turn on you with ferocity, blaming you for making them do it. Resistance is met with unhinged aggression, and threats are deployed just behind florid promises. We should pity the red hat sycophants who have only now begun to realize the nightmare they have unleashed.
Type 2 is trickier. It’s the subtle Gas Lighter. They may never out-right cheat or lay hands on you like the vulgar Type 1, but they will slowly twist expectations, re-write the rules, make elaborate justifications and incrementally shift the story so that you sleepily descend into a mediocrity which they fully control. It’s decentralized; no single leader to focus on; the Not-In-Your-Face-Long-Game kind of abuse.
Welcome to Washington state where, after decades of promises from the same leadership cadre, we boast the most regressive tax system, $20 billion in the hole with students still woefully underfunded, fish hatcheries closing, roads falling apart, brand new near-insolvent, long-term care debacle, where both homelessness and spending on homelessness are growing, rated 51st in law enforcement staffing, near 50th in gas prices and now burdening farmers with additional fuel costs while local billionaires pay next to nothing in taxes.
“Oh, but I love you, Baby! I promise, this time, things will be different.”
Dan Hazen lives in Marysville and works in Everett.
