Intimacy Revisited

I wrote an entry a long time ago on intimacy and I feel the need to continue talking about it. Some recent events in my life have made me ask myself: what is the difference between intimacy in a romantic relationship and intimacy in friendship? Is it a difference of degree or of quality? Is it different at all? At my age (25), I feel it is time to examine those kinds of questions.

When I think of romantic relationship I think of meeting a girl that catches my attention. I ask her out on a date (if I have the guts). We go out on a few dates hoping that some sort of connection will be made. We kiss sometime between date #1 and #3 depending on that connection. I must admit that as a guy, I am highly preoccupied with physical intimacy. I think we must be built that way. But often, as it develops we wrongly interpret it as a sign of emotional intimacy. When it comes to dating, we are expected to be proactive and make the first move. We have to ask the girl out, we have to initiate the kiss. I think we are much more preoccupied about which 'base' we are standing on than building emotional intimacy. We want to satisfy the physical before the mental and spiritual. Afterall, sex takes alot less work! The problem is that often physical intimacy progresses too fast for one of the partners which blocks or inhibits the mutual connection. Is it true that guys are more able to appreciate pure sexual pleasure without the emotional connection compared to women? I believe that guys are more likely to confuse the two. All this coming from a guy--I will put my ego aside for this article.

I don't want to downplay physical intimacy but it seems that our culture has put way too much emphasis on it. It often focuses on sex exclusively and this encourages people to base their idea of a relationship on it alone. That is a recipe for disaster but unfortunately it is too easy to fall into the influence of the media. Many relationships nowadays are no longer genuine. People are not taught to found their relationship in strong faith, for as soon as hardships come, someone doesn't want to bother with it and leaves. Just as things become more real, we escape. We don't know ourselves and we don't know what we want. So we get into it blindly seeking to enjoy the ephemeral pleasures of the honeymoon high, hoping it will last forever.

We have been raised on Disney fairytales and Hollywood chick flicks. They are crual illusions and are very difficult to get rid of. Imagine what happens after Ariel the mermaid and Prince Eric get married. They start their lives living in the castle. Ariel doesn't know anything about human culture, which creates frustrations. Plus she misses her own family under the sea. Eventually she gets so lonely and begins to smoke. By this time, she's no longer as physically attractive and begins to show signs of aging. She is no longer fascinated by silverware and expensive dresses. Does Eric still have the faith? To be continued...No one at Disney thought this sequal would sell. No one wants the real story. We want to believe that a good relationship is one that escapes suffering or one that will solve our personal suffering.

Now that I got rid of all my negative insights about relationships. I would like to speak more specifically about the difference between friendship and romantic relationship. How does the world separate those two categories? I know for sure by the way I was brought up that a romantic relationship is partly defined by the presence of physical intimacy that goes beyond huggs and kisses on the cheeks. It could also be seen as a relationship that is formed in view of reaching the point of marriage. A life mate sort of thing. It is part of our western culture to seek one life mate with whom to build a family. Our life mate is also the person that knows our darkest secrets and all the little details of our lives. This is where lies the intimacy. To know one another at a much deeper level than all other people. To share experiences that are unique, which make the relationship special.

But why is it that I take on a completely different mindset when I date as opposed to developing a friendship with someone? When I think of dating, what comes to mind first is sexual attraction. I look for the spirit of Eros. I think of Eros not only as a form of physical attraction but sexual in the sense of body and mind. I'm suggesting of course that the mind can be sexy just as much as the body. When we meet a sexy mind, doesn't it seem that the body just follows? But on the other hand, don't sexy bodies loose all their attractiveness if the mind is not also sexy? It all comes back to my thought that I believe there is too much emphasis on physical love rather than mental, emotional and spiritual love. I see it as a hierarchy of love, the most important being spiritual love and the least important, physical. The rest in between is a bit harder to classify.

When I think of friendship, it always seems like the love is more 'pure' in a manner of speaking. It seems closer to a spiritual connection than anything else. I ask myself sometimes why I have become such close friends with a certain someone. You learn alot about yourself asking questions like that! The answers are even more revealing when you've been friends with the person your whole life or at least a large part of it. We discover ourselves through relationships, especially through frienships.

This leads me to ponder about why people don't seek first and foremost to develop a frienship with their potential life mate. Obviously, most of us would say "of course I want to be friends with my partner!". But is that really true? Once sex gets all tangled up in the relationship, what happens? Why do things become complex? It's a funny 'humanimalistic' thing. Sex makes people behave in weird ways sometimes. We can't negate it's impact and influence. So what are we to do? To answer my first question, 'what is the difference between intimacy in a romantic relationship and intimacy in friendship?,' I will leave it to my readers, because at this point, my guess is as good as theirs.

All of this sounds really nice on paper, but are we really capable of behaving as our minds would like us to behave? Do we have enough self mastery to seek spiritual and emotional love and not be tempted by physical love? This for me, has been an endless struggle, but it's been a great journey so far and I keep discovering things. Perhaps only the elderly could answer all those questions. But they may have an advantage, for as sex drive diminishes, I imagine, everything becomes clear.