Intimacy? What is it to you?

[Aschleigh]

What do you consider Intimacy?
How do you pursue it in your relationship? How do you maintain it over the long term? How do you deal with someone who isn't ready or doesn't know how to communicate their feelings? Is Intimacy important to you? Is it important to your partner?
What have you done to stay connected to your partner over the long term?

[Anna.]

I consider intimacy when somebody has gotten inside your head, you know? Like, anybody can get in your pants (physical intimacy), but it's a whole different thing to get inside your head (emotionally intimate).
My boyfriend now knows me inside and out, like, he understands how I think. I've never been physically intimate w/ my bf. I have with other guys, but I am ridiculously closer to my current boyfriend than I have ever been with anybody else.

You maintain intimacy by staying real with each other and being open and honest about your feelings. It's like you keep your guard down with that person and you allow yourself to be vulnerable with them. You talk about EVERYTHING, so you don't fall into a rut.
I think intimacy is vital to any strong relationship.

[Anna.]

I'm very surprised no one else has posted on this thread. hmm..
Anyway I was still thinking about the question and I looked up the definition of intimacy on dictionary.com, thought it might shed some light on it.

Intimacy
2.a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group.
3. a close association with or detailed knowledge or deep understanding of a place, subject, period of history, etc.: an intimacy with Japan.
4. an act or expression serving as a token of familiarity, affection, or the like: to allow the intimacy of using first names.
5. an amorously familiar act; liberty.
6. sexual intercourse.
7. the quality of being comfortable, warm, or familiar: the intimacy of the room.
8. privacy, esp. as suitable to the telling of a secret

[Donster]

Intimacy to me is making a physical and emotional connection with someone. it doesnt have to be sex. It's about reaching out to connect. It could just be a squeeze on the knee when you are sitting side by side on a bus. it could be a meaningful look when you are in a crowd of people, it could be a good-morning email when he shows up at work. These are all intimate behaviors that help to bring people close.

Intimacy is hand holding. Intimacy is cooking a nice meal for someone. Intimacy is folding someone's laundry for them because you know they are too busy with something else.

I'm very interested to see what other people's definitions are.

[OverParanoid]

Originally Posted by Donster

Intimacy is hand holding. Intimacy is cooking a nice meal for someone. Intimacy is folding someone's laundry for them because you know they are too busy with something else.

Unfournately I dont see it this way. To me Intimacy is just being close to someone because you want to be not because you have to. Cooking and doing laundry can be done everyday, Imtimacy is doing something that could be at a spur of the moment, or just holding each other and talking the night away.

[Donster]

You can always just cook for yourself, but if you do something lovingly for someone, isn';t that a form of intimacy too?

I saw this special on TV once about employees who work at the white house. These people take serious pride in their work, regardless of the admnistration or their own person political beliefs. they just absolutely LOVE the fact that they are working for the president, for america. and they take tremendous pride in their work, even if its just polishing silverware or wiping down a table. I see them as being intimate with the office of the president.

I also think tht its all the little things, the everyday things, that really translate to true intimacy. Sure, a nice romantic dinner in a fancy restaurant can be a very intimate thing. But its the day to day of a relationship that is the reality that we all have to deal with, and its intimacy in these situatoins that we need to maintain for arelationship to work in the long run.

[NJRon]

To me, intimacy is only experience by opening yourself up to potential pain. Through the process of revealing yourself and, still being accepted, intimacy builds. Like peeling away the layers of an onion. True intimacy is allowing your core being to be held by another and trusting that they will treat it as their own.

[Aschleigh]

So True NJRon. I feel like I have to achieve a certain intimacy with myself first. I feel my feelings even when they are uncomfortable, I tell the truth even when their are uncomfortable comsequences. Then I can let some one in enough that they could hurt me a lot.
I have been in a relationship now for 7 months. It's hard. I have been more intimate with him than any other boyfriend. It freaks me out sometimes.
He can do the slightest thing ( like not call ) and it pushes my buttons.
We argue but so far we always figure something out together.
Sometimes I get depressed and very clingy and he just deals with it.
Sometimes he gets ansty and very distant and I just deal with it.
I feel like I am compromising a lot. I had been single for 6 years prior to this relationship, so I am not used to compromising at all.
But bottum line I have never met someone who inspires me so much to grow and learn and be patient at the same time. The last 7 months have been some of the most dramatic in my life, the bliss, the sadness, the vulnerability, the doubts, the confidence. I had no idea it would take this much effert to be in a relationship. That's probably why I have been in so few. Regardless of how things work out with him, I know I have achieved a great understanding of intimacy just by going through it.
I think the key is to treat yourself well first, believe you deserve health then finding someone with that belief to.

[NJRon]

When people say it takes a lot of work to be in a relationship.. very few people actually realize that 80% of the work is on themselves.. not the other person and *certainly* not on the relationship.

You are definatley on the right track. People who are afraid to tackle themselves first are not ready for intimacy...

[Donster]

In thinking about this further, I think there is a distinct cultural bias in how I perceive intimacy. In Asian cultures, family members show their love for each other by doing things for each other, rather than than with the hugs and "i love yous" that people in America are used to.

Being Asian-American, my style and perception is more of a hybrid.
But perhaps I am also confusing the concept of intimacy with the concept of showing love for someone.

So to re-define what I think intimacy is--it is very much something that is shared between two people in a relationship, something only unique to that couple (and this applies to friends as well as to lovers). It could be a knowing glance, a special touch, a shared experience, an inside joke, or even knowledge about one another that no one else knows. But it is very much the fact that it is unique to the two people in question that make it special. And these are only things that can develop when two people spend a lot of alone time together.

Not to vent too much about my own personal issues on someone else's thread, but one of the warning signs in my relationship was when I saw my ex beginning to develop intimate behavior with another guy (one whom I thought was "just a friend" for the longest time.) Stupid me!