How unhealthy is it to ignore/neglect emotional needs?

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I have used my thinking for dealing with anything and everything till now and have been successful.
A recent incident(which a girl initiated not me) made me panic & realize that I am hopeless when it comes to emotions/emotional situations. I am 26!

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*added due to a request below*
The girl held my hand(palm) for a long time nearly about an hour(with gaps in between). I liked it as well. But, I did not know how to react and just let it be. In other words I froze.
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I have been contemplating on not having any romantic relations.

Please shed some insight on how unhealthy is it to ignore/neglect any emotional needs?

Last edited by ThinkingMonkey on 04 Dec 2012, 3:35 am, edited 2 times in total.

I think you need to be more specific and elaborate. What happened that made you freeze and decide you were neglecting your emotions?

I would say very because I have read what emotional damage it does to kids who don't have it growing up. Those are the horror stories I hear about being raised by an aspie parent. Since I am not good with it myself, I sometimes worry about my son. I do hold him and pick him up if he gets hurt because that is what you are supposed to do as a parent and I want my son to grow up right, not damage him.

The girl held my hand(palm) for a long time nearly about an hour(with gaps in between). I liked it as well. But, I did not know how to react and just let it be. In other words I froze.

Last edited by ThinkingMonkey on 04 Dec 2012, 3:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

hmmm... thanks. Am still contemplating.

Alright, so it's basically a question of social maturity. Whereas others would naturally know what to do, and the girl expected you would to, you didn't.

But in this instance, do you think the girl picked up on the fact that you seemed stiff, or is it that you felt uncertain, but to her everything seemed perfectly natural? If it's the latter, you'll learn to get used to it if the girl really likes you.

Plus, if you feel contemplation is your strongest point, you won't be able to hide it from her. Too much will certainly scare her off, but you're gonna have to be a bit more open. Say, "you know, I like you a lot. This is pretty cool, it's not every day I hold hands like this."

Don't be too specific, just sort of hint at it. That's how NTs operate. If the girl likes you, she'll understand what you're saying, and be willing to work with it. But if you come on too strong or too contemplative it will scare her off.

Then again, I don't know if you're concerned with this in a broader context, or is this the key incident that caused you to panic?

I am/was concerned with this in a broader context. Some amount of time has passed since the incident.
Yes, this is the key incident that caused the panic.

One more thing, the girl is(and was) not my girlfriend. I do not know whether she picked up on the fact that I was stiff. Although, it seemed like she found everything was fine. She kept holding back my hand even though I did not respond in any way.

And thanks for the tips.

I can certainly relate to this. I knew I was awkward around people and had no idea with girls but when I started finally dating at 16 I figured that I would just get the hang of it automatically like everyone else seemed to. This never really happened and I had a string of 3-4 week relationships where girls quickly went from thinking I was the cool rebel who played guitar and wore a leather jacket to realising that I had no clue at all how to be around them and all the rest was just to make up for it.

I am not sure it is necessarily 'good' advice but, at uni I made some friends through the rock music society and had a little more success with women using dutch courage and rock clubs. Married a girl I was introduced to at one and we have been together for ten years so seemed to work for me.

I have till now gone to a pub/bar only four times. I don't really like alcohol. May be some day if I am at an utmost need of emotional security may be will try out the Dutch courage trick..

On a scale of 1-10 unhealthy it is a 10.

Emotional needs are every bit as important as physical ones. Do not neglect them

Define "emotional needs". Is that like dating or something???