Desperately Craves Affection

In general, it's assumed that we all need affection (physical mostly as well as verbal) to thrive. This is essentially the opposite of Hates Being Touched (or sometimes the person is a combination of this trope and Hates Being Touched) where a person has perhaps been deprived of affection for so long that they desperately crave it. May or may not lead to the person exhibiting No Sense of Personal Space.

Compare Love Hungry, where the character wants to force others to love them.

Examples of Desperately Craves Affection include:

Anime Manga

• Kuroshitsuji II: Alois Trancy.
• Naruto at times. Probably came from his attention starved youth.
• Shinji Ikari is a odd mixture of this trope and Hates Being Touched.
  • Asuka too.
  • Generally, much of the cast fits this.
• In Code Geass, before C.C. became immortal, she was this, to the extent that her desired Geass power was the ability to make people love her.
• Lucy in Elfen Lied.
• In Axis Powers Hetalia it's implied that Russia is this. Unfortunately, he tends to scare people away.
• Quite a few characters in Fruits Basket.
• Guts and Griffith before he became Femto anyway in Berserk are both painfully starved for genuine affection and intimacy. Guts is also a combination of this and Hates Being Touched, though he makes an exception for Casca.

Fanfic

• Mukuro in the Katekyo Hitman Reborn fanfic "Homecoming" due to him being kept asleep for so long since he's a prisoner. This leads to him frequently sexually harassing Tsuna.

Film

• WALL-E. Evident in his relationship with Eve.

Theater

• Blance in A Streetcar Named Desire desperately desires to be touched and fears it as well.
• Phantom of the Opera (the book and The Movie).
• The title character of the Victor Herbert comic opera The Princess Pat had the song "I Need Affection."

Live Action TV

• Ryan O'Reily of Oz. Evident in his relationship with Dr. Nathan.
• The Big Bang Theory: in the backstory Leonard was so deprived of affection as a child that he built a hugging machine.
• Piper in Orange Is The New Black.

Video Games

• Oswald in Odin Sphere is driven by a desperate need for someone - anyone - to love him, after learning that the adoptive father he thought cared for him really only saw him as a tool. This need is what leads him to agree to slay the dragon Wagner for Odin once Odin promises him the hand of his daughter Gwendolyn in marriage.

Western Animation

• A common fan interpretation of Luna from My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic (with some support in canon admittedly) is that she went slightly insane from isolation and snaps back at the end of the episode.
• Family Guy: Meg Griffin. Meg is often shown as emotionally fragile or disturbed, derived from desperation for love and attention.

Web Original

• The Nostalgia Critic hates being abandoned, and craves any kind of love or attention he can get.