Intimacy means being who I really am, showing myself to others as I am. It means that I am able to confide in myself, to share my secrets, to reveal myself, even in the parts of myself that I don't like as much. But intimacy begins with oneself. To be intimate with myself is to accept myself as I really am, to get out of character, not to tell myself stories, not to make me believe certain things just because it comforts me.
The example I'd like to bring is when I'm dating my spouse. I made a decision at that time not to hide anything from him, to tell him everything. Over time, I realized that telling and being told are very different. It's not just saying what I want or don't want, it's also saying what I feel.
Today, I'm going to stop, I'm going to take the time to feel, to feel what happens to me when there is something that affects me, so that I can become aware of it and be able to say it, to be able to verbalize what is happening to me. It becomes easier at that point to be able to tell me.
You can develop an intimacy with someone without having a sexual relationship, that's what we call friendship. Just as you can have sex without having intimacy with someone, it's called a fling. However, in a long term relationship, what we want is that our intimacy and our sexuality be with the same person, therefore making our partner our best friend, our confidant.
Intimacy is daring to show the man naked.
