shared library name resolution

[Mike - EMAIL IGNORED]

On Fedora Core 4, I have some C++ code developed
that I keep in a library.  Until recently, I used
ar to generate a libXXX.a .  Now I have changed to:

TARGET = libXXX.so
CPPFLAGS = -fPIC -DPIC -O3 -I.

$(TARGET): $(OBJ)
   gcc -shared $(CPPFLAGS) -o $(TARGET) $(OBJ)

to create libXXX.so , and I noticed that some
executables dropped in size by about a factor
of 10. Good.

Now some of the code in my library depends on
the realtime and openssl libraries so when
utilizing these, I have always used:

    -l rt -l ssl

in my link lines.  But for code that did not depend
on these capabilities, the corresponding -l were
not required.

Now, on the contrary, find that these -l designations
are required WHETHER OR NOT these capabilities are
needed in the application. Otherwise I get unresolved
names.

Is this to be expected with shared libraries?  Is
there something I could do to my shared library to
prevent it?

Thanks for your help.
Mike.