When Connection Backfires

Understanding and Healing Dysfunctional Bids

Imagine reaching out for connection and watching the person you care about retreat. You meant to draw them closer, but somehow, your attempt pushed them away. This painful pattern plays out thousands of times daily in the lives of young adults struggling with what therapists call “dysfunctional bids for connection.”

While healthy bids for connection build relationships, dysfunctional bids sabotage them. The cruel irony? The people making dysfunctional bids often desperately want connection, but past trauma or conditioning has taught them behaviors that guarantee the opposite of what they seek.

What Makes a Bid “Dysfunctional”?

A bid for connection is any attempt to get another person’s attention, support, or emotional presence. Research by Drs. John and Julie Gottman found that couples who stayed together turned toward each other’s bids 86% of the time, while those who divorced only responded to bids 33% of the time. These statistics reveal just how critical our bidding behaviors are to relationship success.

But not all bids are created equal. Dysfunctional bids are attempts at connection that are masked by behaviors rooted in fear, pain, or unhealthy conditioning. They’re the defensive mechanisms we developed to protect ourselves, which now ironically prevent the very connection we crave.

Common Types of Dysfunctional Bids

1. Aggressive Bids

These bids come across as hostile or confrontational, even when the underlying desire is for closeness. Examples include:

Starting arguments to get attention
Using sarcasm or put-downs as a way to interact
Creating drama or conflict to force engagement
Criticizing others to mask vulnerability

The Hidden Message: “I’m afraid you’ll reject me if I show you I need you, so I’ll push first before you can hurt me.”

2. Passive-Aggressive Bids

These indirect attempts at connection express needs through subtle hostility:

The silent treatment when feeling hurt
Withholding affection as punishment
Making snide comments instead of direct requests
Sabotaging plans when feeling excluded

The Hidden Message: “I don’t feel safe asking directly for what I need, so I’ll make you notice through my absence or subtle resistance.”

3. Self-Deprecating Bids

Constantly putting yourself down to fish for reassurance:

“I’m so stupid, I can’t do anything right”
“Nobody would want to hang out with me anyway”
“I’m the worst friend/partner/employee ever”
Excessive apologizing for minor issues

The Hidden Message: “I need validation but I’m too afraid to ask, so I’ll criticize myself hoping you’ll contradict me.”

4. Testing Bids

Creating tests or scenarios to “prove” someone cares:

Deliberately creating problems to see if someone will help
Making unreasonable demands to test commitment
Pushing boundaries to see who will stay
Creating emergencies for attention

The Hidden Message: “I don’t believe anyone will stay if I’m just myself, so I need proof through extreme circumstances.”

5. Over-Functioning Bids

Trying to become indispensable through excessive caretaking:

Doing everything for others to feel needed
Solving everyone’s problems before they ask
Giving compulsively without boundaries
Sacrificing own needs to avoid rejection

The Hidden Message: “I’m only worthy of connection if I’m useful, if I prove my value through what I do for you.”

The Origins of Dysfunctional Bids

These patterns don’t develop in a vacuum. Research on family communication patterns shows that the way we learned to seek connection in childhood directly influences our adult bidding behaviors. A study of young adults found that social skills deficits are strongly associated with increased stress and loneliness, which in turn impact both mental and physical health.

Childhood Experience	Learned Bidding Pattern	Adult Manifestation
Bids for attention consistently ignored	Escalating bids to demand attention	Creating drama or crises to be noticed
Emotional needs met with criticism	Hiding vulnerability behind aggression	Hostile or sarcastic communication style
Affection only given for achievement	Conditional self-worth	Perfectionism and over-functioning
Parents emotionally unavailable	Testing behaviors to force engagement	Pushing boundaries in relationships
Punishment for expressing needs	Indirect communication	Passive-aggressive behaviors

The Cost of Dysfunctional Bids

Dysfunctional bidding patterns carry serious consequences. According to research examining social skills and health, people with poor social skills experience elevated stress, increased loneliness, and compromised both mental and physical health. This creates a vicious cycle: dysfunctional bids lead to failed connections, which increases isolation and reinforces the dysfunctional patterns.

For young adults, these patterns can contribute to what’s commonly called “failure to launch” syndrome. Research shows that approximately 25% of young adults aged 25-34 lived in multigenerational households in 2021, and while not all are experiencing failure to launch, many struggle with the social skills necessary for independence. Among those who do experience failure to launch, males are more affected than females, and the pattern is twice as common among those without college degrees.

The consequences extend beyond living situations:

Romantic Relationships: Dysfunctional bids create a pattern of pursuing and distancing that prevents intimacy
Friendships: Friends may distance themselves from the drama, inconsistency, or emotional exhaustion
Career: Workplace relationships suffer when colleagues can’t interpret or respond to unclear communication
Mental Health: The cycle of failed connection attempts reinforces anxiety, depression, and low self-worth

Recognizing Your Own Dysfunctional Bids

Self-awareness is the first step toward change. Ask yourself these questions:

Do people often seem confused or hurt by my attempts to connect?
Do I frequently feel misunderstood in my relationships?
Do I find myself creating conflict when I actually want closeness?
Am I afraid to directly ask for what I need?
Do I test people’s commitment rather than trust their stated intentions?
Do I feel anxious when I’m not being “useful” to others?
Do my attempts at connection often backfire?

If you answered yes to several of these questions, you’re likely operating with some dysfunctional bidding patterns. The good news? These patterns are learned, which means they can be unlearned and replaced with healthier alternatives.

The Path to Healing: From Dysfunctional to Healthy Bids

Step 1: Identify the Pattern

Name your specific dysfunctional bidding style. Are you aggressive? Passive-aggressive? Self-deprecating? Testing? Over-functioning? Or some combination? Understanding your pattern helps you catch yourself in the moment.

Step 2: Understand the Root

What childhood experiences or traumas taught you this pattern? This isn’t about blame, it’s about understanding the origins of your protective mechanisms. Often, these behaviors made perfect sense in your original environment but no longer serve you.

Step 3: Learn the Alternative

For every dysfunctional bid, there’s a healthier alternative:

Dysfunctional Bid	Healthy Alternative
Starting an argument for attention	“I’m feeling disconnected. Can we spend some time together?”
Silent treatment	“I’m hurt by what happened. I need some time, but I’d like to talk about it.”
“I’m so stupid”	“I’m struggling with this. Could you help me think it through?”
Creating tests	“I’m feeling insecure about our relationship. Can we talk about it?”
Doing everything for others	“I care about you. I also need to take care of myself.”

Step 4: Practice in Safe Environments

Changing deeply ingrained patterns requires practice. Start with low-stakes situations and people who are patient and understanding. Community settings where there’s explicit focus on healthy communication can be invaluable for this work.

Step 5: Tolerate the Discomfort

Healthy bids will feel incredibly vulnerable at first. Your brain will scream that you’re in danger, that directness will lead to rejection. This discomfort is normal and temporary. Each time you make a healthy bid and survive (or better yet, connect), you’re rewiring your brain.

The Role of Community in Transformation

One of the most effective ways to transform dysfunctional bidding patterns is through immersive community experiences. Research shows that real-time feedback in social situations accelerates learning far more than individual therapy alone. When you’re in a community setting, you can:

Practice new bidding behaviors in real-time
Receive immediate, honest feedback
Observe healthy bidding modeled by peers and mentors
Develop trust that authentic connection is possible
Build a reservoir of positive experiences to counteract old patterns

Programs designed specifically for young adults understand that transforming dysfunctional bids isn’t just about learning new behaviors, it’s about healing old wounds in the context of supportive relationships.

The Science of Repair

Here’s something crucial that research on bids for connection reveals: successful relationships aren’t defined by never making mistakes. They’re defined by the ability to repair. Gottman’s research found that happy couples maintain a 20:1 ratio of positive to negative interactions. This means even thriving relationships have plenty of missed or negative bids, what matters is the overall pattern and the ability to repair ruptures.

This is incredibly freeing for those working to change dysfunctional patterns. You don’t need to be perfect. You need to be willing to:

Acknowledge when you’ve made a dysfunctional bid
Take responsibility for the impact
Try again with a healthier approach
Trust that relationships can survive your mistakes

When Professional Help Is Needed

Sometimes dysfunctional bids are symptoms of deeper issues like trauma, attachment disorders, or personality patterns that require professional intervention. Consider seeking help if:

Your patterns are significantly impacting your quality of life
You’ve tried to change on your own without success
You’re experiencing severe anxiety, depression, or other mental health concerns
Your relationships consistently fail despite your efforts
You’re engaging in self-destructive behaviors

Moving Forward with Hope

Dysfunctional bids are painful, but they’re also evidence of something beautiful: your persistent desire to connect. That desire, even when it manifests in problematic ways, is actually a strength. It means you haven’t given up on relationships, you haven’t closed yourself off completely.

The journey from dysfunctional to healthy bids is challenging but profoundly worthwhile. With awareness, practice, support, and patience, you can learn to reach for connection in ways that actually bring people closer rather than pushing them away. The authentic relationships you’ve always wanted are possible, you just need to learn a new language of connection.

Sources:

Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. Harmony Books.
Segrin, C. (2017). Indirect effects of social skills on health through stress and loneliness. Health Communication, 32(1), 118-124.
Pew Research Center (2021). Young adults living with parents. Retrieved from Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends.

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