You can't always get what you need, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you deserve.

I have a friend who used to be in a bad relationship. The kind that you have to painfully witness sitting along the sidelines waiting to help her clean up the mess when she's finally ready to leave. You've said all you can, the decision is now up to her.

A strange thing happened to her the other day - her controlling and emotionally unstable ex wrote a song about her. A romantic song. The kind of song that in a different context would make you go weak at the knees, and make Adele blush. This song was a tribute to her, a profession of intense love and longing, an admission that she was the only one that ever mattered to him and he has yet to move on, nay, he never will. She's too high up on that pedestal. It was a confession that she was the almighty Deity in his Heavens and he was more than remiss that he let her go.

Never mind that it has been years since their break up, that she has a vibrant life full of supportive friends, a kick ass job, and a new fiance who, by the way, would make most guys envious. Never mind all her personal successes and triumphs. When friends heard this song they gushed, "Isn't this the most romantic thing? Aren't you the envy of all girls everywhere? You got what every jilted ex dreams of - that validation that he still loves and thinks about you! How incredible. I'm so jealous."

Excuse me?

I may consider myself a bit off kilter at times, a bit kooky, but in what world is a song from an abusive ex professing his hang up on you considered romantic? More importantly, why are people so quick to assume that every girls dream is to get that final validation (sometimes disguised as 'closure') that they are still loved from a previous boyfriend? That somehow their existence is still meaningful and that all the years spent without said man have not been a waste of life because HE still thinks about them?

I don't know about you, but I've also dated some pretty craptacular guys, yet as a former jilted ex, all I'm dreaming of is finally finding inner peace and happiness in my daily life for myself and from myself, and when it comes to men, celebrating the REAL love that I have co-created with my current partner built on mutual affection and respect. The greatest blessing for me would be that my ex forgets he dated me so that I never have to worry about him ever, ever contacting me. MY life is (so much) better without him.

So what is it that has taught girls and women to derive their self-worth from men? Why can't we feel significant on our own, without needing it to be validated by and through a romantic interlude with a man - whether it be sex, a relationship, or even that possibility that he may say hi to you while you stand at your locker before 5th period?

Before you even mention it, I certainly will NOT endorse some misinterpreted evolutionary theory that women have adapted to be this way because men controlled resources and all they needed to do was KEEP that man while they squirted out his babies (clearly women would be lost without them). Don't get me started on that - that's for another day. Plus we all know that there's a flaw in the system when our data is only ever interpreted through a biased lens of patriarchal assumptions....

Now, it would be a gross misinterpretation to read this as me implying women DON'T need men -  that's not my point or intent. Well, OK, maybe we don't NEED them, much like they don't NEED women (save for the sperm and egg situation), but for the majority of us, I think I can safely say we WANT men in this world. A lot.

But so many women and girls act like they need them for their very existence. ("OMG he totally rejected me, I almost DIED" and "I am NOTHING without him - what am I going to do?") Maybe this stems from the biblical story of Eve being created directly from Adam's rib while he was conjured up independently from others, magically from the earth. So in this story men don't need anyone, but women are reliant, are indebted to him, and shall serve the rest of their lives in gratitude of this gesture.

I don't know if that is a pervasive belief worth a grain of salt, but certainly the popular media isn't doing anything to dispel it. Take for instance the boy band supergroup "One Direction". Their big hit single is about loving a girl because of her insecurity; "You're insecure....you don't know you're beautiful, that's what makes you beautiful". They then go on to list a bunch of qualities that they love about her - every single one of them are physical attributes that women typically do when flirting, or trying to attract male attention.

Is this song really validating? That you're loved only in so far as you are catching his attention? That having no self-confidence is a desirable trait? What message is this sending to young girls? This is the root of why so many women, myself included, have found ourselves dating someone while our friends waited for us to come to our senses. In fact, as I write this, I have been invited to listen to a song on the radio where the female singer describes how she doesn't even know where her long lost love has left to, but that she has stopped living until she finds him again, wishing, hoping, waiting...

Come to think of it, I cannot name a single supergroup on the top 40 charts that young 13 year old boys are listening to in their rooms waiting for that one lyric that will finally make them feel worthy, like someday they will finally "earn" a girl that commands as much love and respect as the female chanteuse exudes. No, most of these boys (keep in mind all my statements are sweeping generalizations) have their hands down their pants watching as the barely legal Disney popstars bounce around, tits out, singing "I'm a slave for you" and "Call me, maybe. Call him yourself! These young boys are raised on seeing boybands that reduce tweens to tears at the mere sight of them, and female popstars who will do and wear anything to make you love them.

Britney Spears, Destiny's Child, Spice Girls, Taylor Swift, Carly Rae Jepson, Kelly Clarkson, Adele - all powerful and popular - sing about getting the guy, losing the guy, crying over the loss, wondering how to go on...Some of these songs are even painfully obvious tales of unhealthy or abusive relationships that the women themselves know they shouldn't be in, but are too afraid to leave, lest they need to rely on themselves for happiness.

In recent years there have been a few exceptions to this rule (Taylor Swift's "We will never get back together" comes to mind, as does Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger" and a handful of others), but the pervading message is that of needing HIS approval and attention to feel good, feel worthy, feel fine. I can think of three popstars who break the mold and demand respect, sexual gratification and attention without having to plead for it - Cher, Madonna and Lady Gaga. You know what kind of men adore and worship them? Gay men.

What is lacking in female friendships, support networks and internal psyches that none of those sources provide any sense of self-worth, comfort, strength, happiness, fulfillment or validation of worthiness as a human being? Where are the strong female protagonists in the media and in songs? These messages damage women and damage men; Women are seeking the wrong source of self-approval, while men are left having to convince insecure women they are indeed worthy - instead men should be using that time to engage in their own emotional explorations and fulfillment. Women's happiness is not men's job or their responsibility, but it should be their pleasure to enjoy and cultivate spaces where it can be manifested. Likewise, men's happiness is not ours to cater to or ensure, but it is our pleasure to create cultures where we can enjoy their happiness and successes along side our own. If we dropped all this BS, there would be a lot more happy, fulfilling relationships out there that would mutually benefit and satisfy the men and women in them (yes, heteronormative alarm bells are sounding right now).

I'm not immune to this sense of "needing", nor was my friend whose ex wrote that song. I've waited by a phone, I've felt waves of relief when he said he wanted to see me again, I've had a bad day turn around because he said hi to me in the hall, and I've cried without shame in public when it ended. But I'm not certain how much of this was because I was anticipating the possibility of experiencing love, of spending more time with someone I really liked and who, just maybe, liked me too, or because I just lost someone I really loved (which are all normal and healthy feelings) and how much of it was that dreaded emptiness that terrified me, that told me that if I couldn't get a boyfriend, or couldn't keep a boyfriend and was all alone, my life suddenly lost meaning, lost direction, lost purpose.

Let me state the obvious: these messages fuel insecurity. Insecurity is poison to relationships - romantic and otherwise. Insecurity is also the catalyst to many women dating and staying with men that don't deserve them or don't treat them well. And it becomes a cycle. I was once addicted to a man who tried to steal my very soul.Why? Because I believed it didn't belong to me - that my health, happiness and worth was in his hands. What I labelled as love was really an intense anxiety that I would somehow upset him and would lose that social status that I had finally gained by being associated with him. Never mind that he wasn't enjoyable, interesting, or even good in bed. It didn't matter - I finally had a boyfriend and I was going to hang on for dear life regardless of his treatment of me.

Having been through that, having seen close friends go through that, and also having experienced every single one of us jump ship and find true fulfillment and happiness (either as fabulous single women, as women with female partners or even as conventionally married women), I can honestly say that the trend for girls worshiping men has got to stop. It's not that men don't deserve the respect and attention (they do) - it's that (surprise!) we also owe it to ourselves to be adored and respected too. It's that simple, that obvious, that beneficial, and it begins from within.