Intimately memetic (and inimicably verbose) 10/10/07

Bast recently blogged about intimacy, and how that behaves (counselor speak) in her world. Since she piggybacked off bronx, and it seems everyone's been thinking and mulling and talking about it...i figure it's less a meme and more direct suggestion. Still and all, i've been chewing on it too, so it's apropos to follow the yellow meme road.

As i've said before, i don't have trouble with intimacy. I'm really pretty good at it, actually, and often, i'm *too* good at it - at least as compared to others i am being intimate with. I'm capable of seeing the intimacy for what it is, without reading more into it. I'm capable of interacting intimately, while still maintaining my own boundaries and respecting theirs. I'm capable of seeking intimacy, of embracing it, and of ending it without drama when it's no longer appropriate. Intimacy, i do well.

Others, not always so much. I find that so many people have these unrealistic fences around their own ability to be intimate with others, because they have all these preconceived expectations and assumptions about WHAT WILL HAPPEN IF I CONNECT WITH SOMEONE ELSE. I suppose, reading the boards around this joint, i can see why. It's still awfully sad.

For me, i need that. I need someone who is capable of intimacy. Capable of being "warm, comfortable, affectionate, and acting with detailed knowledge" - of themselves, and of me. I need it.

But it's a funny thing, that intimacy, because you can't force it or pretend it. It's one of those things that comes as it comes, and you just gotta be open, and willing, and embrace it when you see it. They have to be all those things too, or it'll never come.

I need a man who listens to me, and remembers the little things i say, because it's important. I need a man who asks me inconsequential questions about trivial shit, because it's not trivial, and because he wants to know me. And i need a man who tells me things about himself, all sorts of things, that i'd never know otherwise, because he wants me to know him too.

Because that's how intimacy is built - one word, one laugh, and one shared moment at a time.

So yeah. I need intimacy. But more than that, i need vulnerability. One can have intimacy without vulnerability, but i don't think you can do it the other way around. It's certainly never worked for me, anyway, so if you can figure it out, lemme know.

I want...no, i need...that person who is willing to set aside that impenetrable shield of invulnerability and be willing to lay themselves bare for me. Not the first time we make eye contact, of course not. But i need to know that willingness is there, from the first second we interact. I need to smell it - because it has a smell, though it's hard to describe. I think it smells a little like fear, with a hint of promise, a topnote of confidence and optimism, and a strong bottom note of passion. Or rain. Maybe it smells like rain.

I need a man who is willing to let me see him, and to know him, knowing i just might refuse to look, or walk away because i don't like what i see. I need a man who is willing to say "you make me happy", knowing i might stop. I need a man who is able to say "i need you", knowing i just might not be there for him. I need a man who is willing to bare his throat, just a little, and say "i like you", despite the fear that i just might say "so what" or worse - "i don't like you back".

At the end of the day, intimacy, for me, is seeing another. Seeing them as they are, and acknowledging it, and wanting to know more, without asking or expecting them to be something else. It's being a witness to their life, as my dear friend quoted, because it's that act of witnessing that weaves us together in untearable ways. Intimacy, for me, is learning them, for no other reason than because you like them.

And intimacy, for me, is the only way to the vulnerability that i need - from you, and from myself.