Some people do enter into intimacy in their relationships, and they do change as a new relationship begins. If you are conscious you choose differently. You become conscious of your patterns by allowing your feelings fully. You can’t experience what you won’t let yourself have. If you’re busy flipping the light switch what will you see clearly?
I don’t think I’ve had an intimate relationship. Evidence points to most people not having intimate relationships. Otherwise long strings of divorces wouldn’t be so common as to be boring to hear about. Am I wrong?
Other cultures were more allowing with extended families. We have made families smaller, and then in houses big enough to ignore each other, and then children don’t learn intimacy. Yes, people do use distractions to avoid intimacy. And indeed, they often feel that feeding and making sure the kids don’t hurt themselves is enough.
Most people are just downright scared of intimacy. Yes. People often say they want proof of spiritual reality. They are often mistaken and lying to themselves. They fear intimacy so much, because it is a mirror of the reality we came from. If you are intimate with anyone, you can’t avoid being intimate with yourself. And living like that, you can’t ignore that some of the goals you had weren’t yours, and that some of the stuff you do doesn’t have any meaning for you. The reality of intimacy spreads. In street lingo they talk a lot about “keeping it real“, and sometimes they actually do. Most of the time it’s empty posturing, but there is something behind the “front” we hold up for ourselves.
Lately, I’ve noticed my lack of intimacy and have worked on this with my closest friends. Excellent. I have intimate friendships myself. It‘s a bit harder for guys in this social paradigm. They start calling a guy gay. Not to say sexual attraction to your own gender is to be criticised, but sex and intimacy are not the same thing necessarily. They can be expressions one of the other, but both are very broad. People often don’t consider that sexuality is the core of identity awareness. That in fact, a mans “manhood” is bigger than his sex drive, or that a woman is more than the female role she’s taught. These things can be learned in intimacy, easily really, but are often not learned outside of intimacy.
If men are close friends they are often leered at. I tend to form close friendships with men and women. It isn’t a gender thing. Why when I was walking and talking with a guy friend, or going to a movie with a guy friend, should I be leered at?
In China, girlfriends walk down the street holding hands, and they’re not necessarily gay. Yes. Asian culture differs, and are more accepting of human nature even though they aren’t perfect. In American culture, if two women hug no one really thinks it strange, but what if I hug a distressed male friend?
Since working on becoming more intimate with my friends, I’ve expanded this to people I just meet. Instead of talking about the weather, I will start asking about themselves. Indeed. In fact intimacy with strangers is a truth. The people in your community that you don’t know personally? Intimacy is no less important, no less a truth. If I go to a fast food place, what is more intimate than letting someone give me something I intend to eat? And why shouldn’t they be respected for doing so? We often treat “burger flippers” with an almost contempt, if we aren’t actually contemptuous of them. Does this make any sense? Really, to let someone feed you anything is pretty darn intimate.
People conceive of “their home” as if it’s shut off from their community somehow. But if your neighbourhood knows any peace is it because nobody is bothering with you? If you neighbourhood knows peace, it’s also because of intimacy. A neighbourhood watch, or police patrol. Is this not so? Intimacy isn’t foolishness, isolationism is. This is perhaps the biggest reason why America is in such distress, financially, and culturally.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~