At which age did desperation seep into your need of acceptance?

Interesting question, and I can see you are provoking responses you want to see,

It's hard to answer, it could be when I was 7 and my neighbouring best friend was two years younger than me, and I felt desperation to make him feel we would not grow distance in friendship when the school we went to separated us. I felt for him, I understood even at 7 with talking with my mother, who made me understand you are his best friend, and he's not going to be able to see you. I felt a cry inside myself. I'd look down that narrow paved pathway fenced off only separated by an invisible line, wondering how he was?

When we were not in school, I remember giving to him, and I knew it was out of wanting to give acceptance.

This may not be your definition of what you were looking for, but I promise it feeds my future of whenever I may have felt needing acceptance.

The time when i changed was in grade 3, i forget how old i was then, maybe 11 or so, but i was bouncing a basketball off a wall at school that had a bat stuck to it, like the animal, not the baseball bat, and i decided there and then to embrace my uniqueness, the rest of my school days i was a clown and made some laugh which i enjoyed, but too often people didn't care, and i didn't mind too much because being your own weird, is being it for your own enjoyment. ... Now for the last decade and some with the internet, a lot of things get to be thought about again, a midlife crisis this may have all been, what was i doing all that time, i spent all my waking hours glued to a screen which featured many a time in the past of people complaining about how the website their on all the time operates!! Or fruitless debates where all it is is being rude. My desire, when i'm thinking correctly is to either be having fun, or doing something meaningful, and making the two co-exist seamlessly while evaluated with a cold, clear reasoning. I have for the most part just turned into a bloated, tired old flunky, who endlessly says stupid, banal things, and i knew it as of late, and i cared not, for i saw it as a reason to do a mighty noble deed, to overcome an addiction. But if i make my stay here meaningful, then why would i feel the need to overcome such a worthy avenue of spending time, even if just a little at a time. ... Maybe it's a desperate thing in the sense that i desire more of myself than i often attempt to accomplish, disappointment.

High school probably. Young and inexperienced. I've learned a lot. For one, not to let desperation rule your actions.
A man's got to know his limitations.

I do like to be accepted but I hope I’ve not appeared desperate.

2 to 3

Never