I heard something today that cut to my core. It was something like; ‘intimacy is knowing that there’s someone who you can tell, whatever goes through your mind, no matter how shameful, and they’ll still take your calls afterwards, and care about how you’re doing.’
And I realized that I haven’t had that, at least as an adult. And there’s no way I can see of ever getting there in the future. Because whoever I talk to, always there in the back of my mind is the knowledge that if they knew the whole truth about me, they would be appalled, and want nothing more to do with me. Anybody intelligent and caring enough that I would want a relationship with them would by definition be so disgusted by me that they’d have to disown me.
I can never experience real intimacy. Everything in my life feels superficial, because I always have to keep people at a distance, even when I’m pretending to open up. I always feel alone, on edge, even when surrounded by family who think they love me. Because they love the idea of me they have, rather than who I really am.
I’m tired of wanting what I can’t have. Of regret. I want this awareness gone. I want to just be able to enjoy my life, however limited it is. To feel I’m making the most of the few options open to me, rather than failing to reach the standards for a worthwhile life.
I need to let go of my hopes, desires, expectations. But I can’t. They’re baked into everything I do, into the world around me. Every time I turn around there’s a reminder to the part of me that says ‘you need this to be happy.’ There’s more evidence that confirms that I’m going to end up so alone, miserable, and unfulfilled that sooner or later the pain will become unbearable. What kind of life is one lived completely alone?
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In order to get, you need to give. If you want intimacy with someone, be willing to give intimacy back. Be selfless toward people, listen to them, be their friend, be there for them… and in return they’ll probably be there for you, too. The best part about giving is never to expect anything back… but if you do get something back, treasure it.
Also, by that definition of intimacy, I’m not sure anyone has experienced it. I really don’t think there’s a such thing as unconditional love. For instance, if you told your lover that you were thinking sexual thoughts about their sister… do you really think it would be forgiven? Not everything should or could be forgiven. We all hold the darkest part of our thoughts to ourselves for selfish reasons. Don’t be fooled.
I’ve been there for people on occasions. But it doesn’t really mean anything, because I’m aware I’m deceiving them – that if they knew the truth they wouldn’t want anything to do with me.
Maybe that’s a poor definition of intimacy. It seemed pretty convincing when I heard it, but there’s some stuff I missed out. But maybe all relationships are deceptive to some extent, or everyone’s ultimately equally alone. I don’t know.
I do believe that everyone is definitely alone… I mean, to some extent. I am not saying that relationships are “deceptive” at all, I am just saying that to expect 100% transparency is just not realistic even in the most intimate and loving relationships. And that is OK. I honestly wouldn’t want to be with anyone if they showed 100% of themselves to me. I’d like to think that there is still some mystery to a person, a persona that they’d like to keep to themselves, even if it’s just .001% of who they are. Nobody needs to know EVERY last detail.
If you’re talking about telling someone you’re suicidal, you’d be surprised at how many people are OK with hearing that and would be supportive to you.
I’m not saying 100% transparency, like you’d know every insignificant detail of someone (their toilet habits for example). But would you want to be with someone who you don’t know fundamental things about? Who has huge skeletons in their closet? Things that if you knew them you’d run a mile? Is that an honest relationship? Is that intimacy?
I’m not at all talking about telling someone I’m suicidal. To me, that says nothing essential about who you are as a person. It’s the reasons that are potentially shameful.
“What kind of life is one lived completely alone?”
Not necessarily a bad one … just one, that, in my opinion, could be better 🙂
The definition of intimacy you heard was one with good intentions and kind of hints at the true/deeper essence but ultimately misses it. It, instead, skims the surface with prescribed expectations like “must pick up my phone call after hearing me out”. What it really wants to say is something far more fundamental.
True intimacy occurs when you perceive (deeper than just seeing or hearing) the other person as not just the form – the body, the mind (that is to say, things like intelligence, knowledge, education), status/fame, wealth and possessions … anything you think of as tangible.
When you’re intimate with someone, you don’t just perceive your mental image of the other person and assume that that’s who they are – “35 yr old female, mother of two, divorced, Masters degree, makes $50k, lives in an apartment”; you perceive and accept the other person unconditionally, just as they are now.
To give you an example, and this could be an interesting exercise. If you can go to a cafe or other public place, and find one person (ideally, a stranger who you don’t have any preconceived notions about) who is willing to accept some company. Go sit with him/her for a few minutes. Ask him/her questions about his/her life. And, while he/she is speaking, don’t think and categorize and judge and criticize … just watch and listen. Then, the time is up, he/she says, “Thanks for listening, but I gotta head out. Take care.” and leaves. And, you never see/hear from him/her again.
That is true intimacy. Just being there as a presence for someone, with no judgment, accepting him/her unconditionally.
Hmmm…I think I’ve kind of done that in the past. Didn’t make me feel any less lonely. Maybe lack of intimacy has nothing to do with it.
Its intention is not to “make you feel less lonely”. That is entirely missing the point. If you go to an interaction with the expectation/requirement “You must make me feel less lonely”, forget it, it’s not going to work !
Intimacy does not exist to serve an egoic need/desire. And, it is not conditional … “As long as you bring home a salary, I will be intimate with you.”
And, intimacy does not require contracts of future actions to be taken. “I promise I will call you at 5 o clock to talk more about your issues.”. Neither does it serve to guarantee that, for hours after the interaction, you will remain “happy” and “not feel lonely”.
It is just something you experience during your interaction with another being. It is as fleeting as anything else. It is just a simple looking at or perceiving something without judgment, during which the mind stops, and there is a joy that arises from the simplicity of the interaction … no judgment, no requirements, no expectations … it just is, and you appreciate it while it lasts. Nothing lasts forever.
If you were lonely during your interactions in the past, you were thinking, which means you were not being intimate at all.
Think of the few moments in your life when you did experience pure joy interacting with others. Maybe when you were a child (most children experience the pure joy of being because their minds haven’t been filled with useless shit yet). During those moments, were you thinking and judging and demanding ? Or simply enjoying the moment as is ?
I agree with you Waldschläfer. Intimacy is something deeper than just having a conversation. You have to remove self and truly care about the other person and be truly interested in who they are… you can’t expect anything in return. If you expect things in return you are not being intimate at all and will definitely remain lonely. When you become truly interested in a person’s experience in life, you instantly become less alone because you absorb who they are and they become apart of your experience as a human.
I’ve read most or all of your posts during the time I’ve been here, because I think they address important and meaningful issues, both in your life and at large.
So, let’s cut the crap and stop bullshitting ourselves here. You clearly crave human interaction. That’s painfully obvious. And, you’re also the warden of the prison you’re in. You’ve put yourself there, and you’ve got the key.
There are but very few justifications for locking yourself up and thinking you don’t deserve the company of others. Are you a sociopath ? Are you afraid you would go out there and start k1lling people ? Or are you a s3xual pr3dator ? Would you go out there are start rap1ng women or children ? If so, then, maybe your self-imposed prison sentence is warranted.
No ? Good, I didn’t think so, either. Then, you are serving a self-imposed prison sentence because you’ve built a mental image of yourself that you are unacceptable because you’re convinced the world would deem you unacceptable. And, that is where your problem begins and ends.
You cannot change other people’s perceptions of you. You can only give yourself the unconditional acceptance you deserve. And acceptance does not mean thinking you’re great, it just means “Ok, this is how I am.” Whatever you think is inferior or defective in yourself, is just a product of life circumstances and a severely restricted perspective created by your ego/conditioning. That’s just on the surface of things. You have created an identity for yourself out of it. You see yourself as some monster, like in a lot of these Sci-Fi movies these days.
If you walk around with an advertising banner that says, “I’m a monster. Don’t talk to me.”, I doubt it will help.
Or, do you enjoy torturing yourself ? This is a serious question. A lot of people do enjoy just that.
It’s complicated. While I don’t necessarily fit exactly into your prescriptions for ‘warranted solitude’, I do come close enough to feel justified in feeling I don’t deserve the company of others. That’s about as much as I can say, but take the lack of specifics as a marker of severity. It’s not just in my head. Telling people this stuff really would end my life.
I wouldn’t say I ‘enjoy’ torturing myself exactly. But I suppose there is a compulsiveness to certain trains of thought that I find hard to give up.
“I do come close enough to feel justified in feeling I don’t deserve the company of others.”
Ok, let’s assume you really are justified in feeling this way. If you really do accept this, accept it fully … but you clearly don’t, because you want human interaction. Do you see the ambivalence ?
Clearly, you are torn between the two feelings, like those two identities from an earlier post. What does that suggest ?
That neither of the two extremes is all that realistic. You’re not a monster, and you’re not God’s gift, either. You’re somewhere in between, like everyone else on the planet.
I do see the ambivalence. I’m incredibly conflicted about it. Which is I guess what most of my posts are about, directly or indirectly.
I deeply want human interaction (for whatever reason – ego centered or just as a basic human need), yet also feel that I don’t deserve it, and that I’m deceiving anyone I do interact with – so interaction tends to leave me feeling anxious and empty.
I struggle to fully accept the idea of total solitude – both because I’m not sure whether that’s a life worth living, and I lack the moral conviction to fully impose it on myself, even if it’s what I deserve.
I don’t think that morally speaking, I’m just like everyone else. I’m certainly not God’s gift. I would say that I’m not just a monster, though there are definitely monstrous things about me. As I’ve mentioned in a previous post, in some ways it’s analogous to Jekyll & Hyde, though without the separation in identity. View me at certain moments and I’d be certainly identifiable as a monster. At other times these aspects are buried, and I’m capable of empathy and thinking morally.
What are your skeletons?
If it was something I could talk about openly online, then they wouldn’t be that big a deal. Let’s just say there are lots of them and they’re pretty fucking horrific.