In-Tim-acy

I’ve been thinking a lot about what this word means to me personally. The Google definition of “intimate” is when something is close, personal, private, or familiar. Lately I’ve been thinking about the circumstances of intimacy such as when is something too intimate, when is the right time to be intimate, what can constitute intimacy, and how intimacy appears in our life and its varying degrees.

If you are one of my closest friends, and there’s only two of you so you know who you are, then you know how comfortable I am being intimate with you. Within this closest circle, I am able to talk about extremely personal details such as my history of sexual assault, my innermost thought processes when it comes to relationships, how insane and obsessed I am with a new hobby I found or a new TV show I discovered, or even ask you to take a look at a rash that I found on my ass cheeks fully knowing that you are in no way a licensed medical professional and your opinion will mean jack shit in diagnosing said rash but I still want you to know what’s going on with my body as if you were my doctor. I will consult you on whether or not the nude that I’m about to send can be considered tasteful, just the right amount of erotic, or just throw the whole body away. We can go for hours on end without stopping talking about a franchise we’re both nerdy for. We can talk about what went down in therapy as if we’re old ladies having tea on a Sunday afternoon. If you are in this deepest circle of intimacy, please know how much I love you and how much I care about you. I will literally give you one of my vital organs if I wasn’t a diabetic. I will take a bullet for you, but maybe just a graze since I still wanna see you be messy and do stupid shit. We can disagree on things, we can have polar opposite interests in stuff, but at the end of the day there’s nothing but love between us. And that’s a rare thing to find.

I also find a specific and unique level of intimacy when it comes to my purely physical partners. If you’re reading this and you’re my fuck buddy, then know how much I care about you and how much I appreciate you in helping me meet my needs. In my younger thotty days, I was a numbers guy. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m quite impressed with myself that my body count has reached four digits. Nowadays I’m more interested in quality over quantity. Intimacy with my sexual partners looks a little different compared to the ones with my friends. When we’re fucking I want to know the parts of you that make you feel good. I also want you to know those parts about me. I love it when I can tell a guy to choke the shit out of me, and he tells me to cum in his ass like a water pump. What I don’t get from my closest friends I get from you. The way you make me roll my eyes to the back of my head and curl my toes while I orgasm is a power that I allow for a select few. Or maybe more. But you get the point. I can tell you all the things that make me feel good or the things I find unpleasant, but I will never let you in close enough like my bestest friends. It’s interesting how I can let you in physically, but I will never let you in mentally. Pillow talk is definitely a great aspect of our sexcapades, but know that I will never be able to open up to you and talk about my life with you the way I talk to my friends. That’s an aspect of intimacy that I reserve for them. Please don’t take it the wrong way though! I would never fuck my inner circle in the same way I can never purge my psyche like I purge my jizz for you. That does not mean I care about you less. It just means I care about you differently, and I think that’s special.

Lastly, and I find this the weirdest the more I reflect on it, is my family. My blood relatives. I can never be intimate with you. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the culture you brought me up in. Maybe it’s how you made my environment so conservative and restrictive that showing any signs of emotions or vulnerability is equivalent to a sign of weakness. You will never get the privilege of seeing and hearing my innermost thoughts because you have made it impossible for me to open up to you in that way. The people that should be the closest to me happen to be the people furthest away from me. The people who have known me for my entire life know nothing about me, the real me. You have created an environment where “unconditional love” has fine print at the bottom. “We love you no matter what, except don’t do this or that or whatever or else we will disown you.” Please don’t be surprised when you ask me what’s wrong and I reply with just a shrug and say nothing. You are the prime example of “we hurt the ones we love” because you think you own me and we’re bound by blood. That is not how you create a safe and intimate space. It saddens me how much you try to connect with me, but when I do I’m met with harsh criticism and not given a chance to speak because you want to enforce how correct you are. You were looking for arguments, not discourse. I will never let you get that close to me because you’ve made it clear that you don’t want to get close to me. The most intimate details I can divulge are how my day is going or what’s in the mail. I don’t think there’s a way to create that space that you want without you going to therapy which you are too proud to do. I love you, but not in the way I love my friends and my fuck buddies. The beautiful thing about being a gay man is that I get to call and choose my family even if they’re not related to me or force a connection due to a blood bond. If you’re reading this, and you know who you are, I hope you have the day you deserve.

Intimacy appears very differently for everyone regardless of the level of closeness you have with the individual. I like that we can cultivate intimacy in our own lives however that fits in to our lifestyle. Find people that you can be intimate with however that vulnerability looks to you. I think that, at the end of the day, it’s important for you to have a space and a close circle where you can be unapologetically authentic and loved the way you want to be loved. I hope you find acceptance in all facets of life because in a climate where we’re all disconnected, we all need to find acceptance.