No person, trying to take responsibility for her or his identity, should have to be so alone. There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep, and still be counted as warriors.

Adrienne Rich

I’m a person on Earth today. My first experience with intimacy, probably like yours, started when I was born – when I was unconditionally dependent on my mother for life. She carried me in her body as a hungry, banging, painful blob of matter. She strolled through the autumn landscape of Peabody, Massachusetts chewing on her owns fears, hungers, regrets, anticipations. And as I grew in the womb, closer to becoming separate from my life source, she held a radio playing Beethoven up to her belly, hoping I would one day love music as much as she does.  

The question of intimacy and its noted scarcity in our society has been on my mind since I was young. Why do people give weird looks if I embrace my dad in public? Why can’t I tell my boss I have to stay home from work because of menstrual cramps? Why is it “uncomfortable” to have platonic (or maybe a wee bit sexual) physical intimacy with a close friend? Why are first dates on tinder so mind-numbingly interview-like and judgmental? Why do I feel lonely when there are 25 other people on the bus, all going to the same place?

I do not claim to know anything about intimacy except for what my own experience has illuminated. Like everyone else, I make assumptions about society because I have a brain the size of two fists and limited peripheral vision. I am aware that this blog cannot and may not cover your experience of love or intimacy (but please talk to me about it so we can explore new dimensions!!). The main purpose of this blog is really to dive into what intimacy means to people, how it drives us, and how to improve our relationship to it.

When we hear the word “intimacy”, we think of gazing into the eyes of someone we adore under a candlelight glow, a wanting of the skin, a memory of warm whispers passed between lovers. In short, we think of romantic or sexual intimacy. As a society, we are committing a colossal disservice to the gift of closeness by enclosing it in the sexual realm.

Intimacy can be between a grandmother and her grandchild eating breakfast, a nurse and a patient’s family during a difficult diagnosis, strangers at foreign bus stop getting lost, a two people on a high school soccer team, a group of friends sharing experiences of their past, a church group praying, someone texting you “good night” no matter where in the world you are. Intimacy can be sharing a piece of art with an audience, paying for “professional cuddling” on a rough afternoon, or hiring a professional mourner (aka moirologist, China).

As humans of the modern world, we are incredibly lonely. And though loneliness may be part of our human condition (according to existentialist thinkers), it has never before been thrust into our faces at such speeds and quantities. Technology may be used as a tool to foster intimacy (such as allowing long-distance conversation), but it also ramps up the pace of our lives. At our fingertips, there is always something to do, somewhere to be, someone to plan something with. When we sit in our rooms staring out the window, we wonder at the seemingly myriad possibilities beyond us that could make us happier, more productive, more worthy of love.

Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.

Adrienne Rich

Many of us are still caught in the mindset that intimacy must first and foremost come from sexual relationships. If we find ourselves single, in a committed relationship that we are not “certain” about committing to, or in the midst of a breakup, we feel utterly groundless and lonely. The loneliness is born from thousands of factors. But we don’t help ourselves as a society by demanding intimacy from basically one person. First, that person will never be able to meet all our needs (physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc) and second, that person is not guaranteed to be around forever. As Anton Chekhov, the Russian playwright, comically remarked, “If you are afraid of loneliness, do not marry.” Because of our paradigm of thought, marriage often isolates us from pursuing other kinds of intimacy outside the partnership.

We have become stingy with our “love” and intimacy, fearing that if we are vulnerable we will be hurt, will inflict hurt, or will be perceived as obtuse. As a result, we limit the reach of our ability to give and receive love. This creates a scarcity complex around love and intimacy – a feeling that we can never have enough, that relationships are competition, and they are most desirable products on the market. We reserve our love for sexual/romantic/marital partnerships and leave the remaining relationships distant and dark. And we wonder why we are so often thoroughly dependent on romantic relationships for fulfillment, and why we feel a loneliness creep in desperately like a spider every time that relationship is on the rocks.

Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.

Viktor Frankl

In this blog, we will hold conversations about intimacy and all the unexpected places we can develop it. We will discuss loneliness and how cultural expectations for various ages, sexualities, occupations, and social structures can make us feel isolated and/or empowered. We will be interviewing people of different stages of life as a window into their experience of intimacy and loneliness. The hope is that these conversations will empower us to be empathetic and vulnerable, maybe shifting our own habits to interact with love more freely.