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Relationships
The Challenges of Intimacy
Why intimacy requires constant vigilance.
Posted July 18, 2017
[Article revised on 25 April 2020.]
Emotional intimacy can be understood as a state of closeness between two people resulting from a process of interaction through which they feel able to share increasingly sensitive and significant aspects of themselves that they normally keep hidden, in some cases, even from themselves.
It begins with one person taking a risk by disclosing a private, personal, and emotionally charged thought, feeling, or biographical detail that leaves him or her exposed and vulnerable, in the hope or expectation of a supportive response, which, if forthcoming, encourages further self-disclosure from both parties.
This process is partly dependent on trust, which, in the absence of a strong pull factor such as mutual physical attraction, can take years to establish.
Intimate discourse need not be verbal, and can also take the form of emotional expressions, meaningful glances, sustained eye contact, physical proximity, touch, and so on.
Emotional intimacy can lead to physical intimacy, and, less commonly, physical intimacy to emotional intimacy. As a result, the two are sometimes conflated.
Historically, people lived in large families in tightknit communities that provided for all kinds of intimacy. But today, many people rely on just one person, usually their romantic or sexual partner, for all their intimacy needs, reinforcing the notion that one cannot have emotional intimacy without physical intimacy, or that they are one and the same thing.
But intimacy exists on a spectrum and in different shapes and forms. It is possible to create some degree of intimacy in all our relationships, including even the most formal or fleeting ones. And even if we are happily partnered, it might be that our most intimate and fulfilling relationship is with another, third party.
In general, women are better than men at creating intimacy, meaning that a woman’s most intimate relationship is often with a same-sex friend. On the whole, men guard their privacy more closely than women. They are more reluctant to self-disclose, especially to other men.
Interestingly, this is not, or not as much, the case in non-Western societies, suggesting that the issue has more to do with cultural conditioning than with any biological differences between the sexes.
In the West, men are taught to associate emotions, emotional sharing, and emotional warmth with effeminacy and homosexuality; and to value macho traits such as assertiveness, autonomy, and resilience, which conflict with naked self-disclosure.
For the most part, men prefer to reveal themselves in fits and starts, usually under the cover of some other activity such as drinking or sports.
This is a great loss for the male sex: Intimacy can feel like a bubble of bliss in which, at last, we are able to be ourselves with someone else, and, more than that, affirmed in ourselves. Tapping into the perspective, experience, and skills of another person broadens our horizons and enhances our possibilities. Their near-unconditional support makes us feel more confident and secure. Their interest and participation in the minutiae of our lived experience seems to enrich it, lending texture and substance to our otherwise mundane, alienated lives.
Unsurprisingly, people who report having one or more intimate relationships tend to be happier and healthier, and intimacy is an important predictor of long-term relationship satisfaction.
Given its promise, the ability to create and sustain intimacy is central to a certain kind of flourishing life.
Deep intimacy depends upon healthy self-esteem to tolerate the vulnerability that comes from the self-disclosure of emotionally sensitive material.
It also calls for courage and curiosity and a fair amount of self-knowledge, with many avenues for further intimacy sealed off by not knowing what one thinks or feels, and, more to the point, not wanting to know.
It is, of course, not just about scrutinizing ourselves but also about reading the other, reaching beyond their words to arrive at their true meaning, and adapting our every interaction so that it accords with their, and our own, perspectives, dispositions, and sensitivities.
It can take a long time to start seeing someone for the person that they truly are, rather than as an object or instrument, or intruder, in our world.
It is impossible to trust someone who seems to be coming at us with an agenda of their own and scant regard for our needs, sensibilities, and particularities.
Modern dating, which is mostly about instant gratification, and largely depends upon conforming to a certain profile or stereotype, can leave us feeling like a piece of ill-designed furniture, or a lump of flesh on the meat market.
Once achieved, intimacy isn’t necessarily the sinecure that we might have hoped for, particularly if the affection that follows in its train has acquired the existential flavour which people generally call love.
Inevitably, life follows its course, with competing priorities and attachments taking their toll on the relationship. Having poured so much of ourselves into the other, we become painfully sensitive to the slightest sign of disdain or indifference on their part, which we interpret as a loss of their goodwill and, more than that, an indictment of the person that we are, and which, of course, they know so well.
Our natural reaction is then to snipe back or pull up the drawbridge, further undermining the connection that had taken so long to build.
After some time, we may change tack and force our hand. But as we tighten our grip, suddenly, like a bar of soap, our relationship slips away between our fingers. On both sides, affection turns to anger, trust to resentment, and friendship to enmity.
What we forgot is that intimacy has a life of its own, that it cannot be forced or imposed, and that, sometimes, the best way to save a relationship is to step back before it is too late.
Neel Burton is author of For Better For Worse and other books.
