Dating, distance, and love.

I had lunch again with my new friend, the psychiatrist. We got to talking about intimacy and I realized I really have no model in my life of how it should be and what it really looks like. I was raised in a family where we were taught to fear my dad and pretty much never saw any closeness between our parents, so I imagine my own issues with intimacy started at any early age.

I asked her to explain intimacy to me. She talked about having someone know us, the real us, sharing things about ourselves that others don't know. It's that ebb and flow of coming together as one and then separating as individuals. It's knowing that someone knows the real you and loves you anyway. It's knowing the heart of another person and sharing yours with them. It's knowing what someone likes and doesn't like and respecting those choices. It's cuddling and feeling safe and warm and contented. She said that intimacy grows step by step, inch by inch. It's not something that one can force or make happen, but it develops with getting to know each other more and more.

She also said that real intimacy can also come with spontaneous moments, those times when someone reveals something about themselves that endears them to us. Like he tells a story about his day or what he was feeling and we just feel warm and tender toward him. It can also happen with those little gestures, like when he reaches out to hold our hand or puts his arm around us in public or whispers a sweet nothing in our ear when we least expect it.

I'm not the only one who has intimacy issues, I'm sure. Just think about how we even talk about it with euphemisms. Instead of saying we're dating someone, we say we're "going out" or "seeing someone." Instead of "making love," we're "hooking up." Maybe talking about it that way makes it less painful when we break up. OK, it does require vulnerability to be intimate because we have to share things about ourself we'd rather keep hidden. But, says my new friend, we humans have an instinctual need to feel close and be loved.

So, I ask, how do those of us with a longer pole length let someone get close? Let it happen, she says, and enjoy the moment, watch our own behavior carefully, and let it unwind little by little. Share one thing at a time, listen compassionately, and watch as each of you open up to to the other slowly. I like to think of relationships as creating a picture, like when two people, each with their own brush and their own set of paints, create something that they could only make by doing it together. So let's see if we can create some beautiful pictures. Two by two.