I think we can all agree that in our world today, in the "free"
world certainly, there is an intimacy crisis. We have a problem with intimacy.
We're afraid of intimacy, yet we agonize over the lack of it. What better
indication of this than our use of euphemisms to describe what should be very
intimate relationships.
It used to be that "dating" described intimate relationships.
But we don't call it "dating" anymore. That sounds too much like something out
of a geology class. "I am dating Lucy."
So then it became "going out." Remember when people used to go
out? Again, that was often used to describe an intimate relationship. Everybody
was "going out."
The ultimate euphemism is the one in vogue today. Today,
intimate relationships are "seeing someone." It's part of casual conversation:
"Are you seeing anyone?" "I'm seeing someone..." One of these days, somebody's
going to say to me, "I'm seeing a very, very nice woman," and I'm going to say,
"Can I see her too?"
Why the euphemisms? Probably because if you identify the
relationship as an attachment, if you consider this a commitment, if you think
of this as an investment of yourself in a relationship and then the relationship
ends, it will hurt too much. You will have to say to yourself, "This
relationship fell apart." And that's too painful, so instead, what you say is,
"Oh, I'm seeing someone." Should this not work out -- "Okay, so I'm not seeing
him." It sounds a lot less painful. So we put this buffer
around our relationship to keep a distance, to prevent it from becoming too
painfully intimate.
Now obviously, intimacy implies vulnerability. If you're going
to be intimate, you're going to allow someone to see parts of yourself that you'd
rather not have people see. You're going to allow someone into that part of your
existence, into that part of your mind and heart that you yourself are not
exactly comfortable with. And you don't know how the other person is going to
treat it. And you don't know how it's going to feel to have someone else
scrutinize that part of you that you're a bit ashamed of. But that is the whole
meaning of a relationship.
The whole idea of a relationship is that we stop being alone.
And the only way you stop being alone is if all of you, particularly that part
of your self that you're sensitive about, is no longer alone. If you can share
that with another person, you have ended your loneliness. As long as that part
of you is still alone, then you're alone. Intimacy is supposed to be the
antidote to loneliness, and I think it would be safe to say that with all of our
social skills and with all of our partying, we are basically a lonely people.
Intimacy means that you become attached. You become joined. You
belong together. There are difficulties. There is embarrassment. But it's a
shared embarrassment. Whatever happens after that connection takes place, it's
shared. It brings you closer together, not further apart. Intimacy means
loyalty. Loyalty to an identity. If we run away from the identity, then we're
ruining the relationship. We're undoing what is most precious to us.
If we abandon that sense of identification, the next thing that
begins to suffer is our sexuality. For most human beings, at some stage in life,
sexuality cannot and will not exist without intimacy. Rarely do you find a human
being who prefers to separate the two. Certainly a sensitive human being cannot
separate them.
Sexuality, properly understood, is connected to intimacy.
Intimacy means that you put aside this fear of exposure, that you overcome this
resistance to being known, and you allow a person into that part of your life
that is maybe not so comfortable. Then maybe you have entered into an intimacy.
