Intensity vs. Intimacy
As Elif Batuman puts it so well in her book Either/Or:
“A crush is about building up the self, and love is about giving from the self. For love, you have to have a self you’re secure with, to give to the other person.”
To me, this is the foundation of intimacy. In order to have a truly intimate, successful, authentic, and long-lasting relationship with someone you must be secure with yourself. Only then can you fully ‘give’ yourself to them. This doesn’t mean that you need to be in the best place you’ve ever been in during your life, that you need to wholeheartedly love yourself, or that you need to be fully confident in your abilities all the time. It just means that you need to have a sense of self that you are confident in, which you know in your heart and soul to be your truth. To know that you are enough, no matter what. It is only once you have realized your worth and built security in who you are, and thus created an unshakeable foundation, that you can fully give to another.
But there is no harm in having and maintaining a relationship during a rough patch in your life. I feel great admiration for several of the people I met while in recovery who maintained wonderful relationships with romantic partners through their struggles with disordered eating. I always told myself: “Well, now’s not the time to have a relationship because you’re depressed,” and then “Now’s not the time either because you’re in therapy,” and again “Don’t think about having a relationship right now, because you’re near rock bottom.” Over and over again I was saying to myself, “It’s just not the right time.” While the voice in my head that gave me this advice was right that pursuing a relationship in the midst of a grave life struggle, an episode of depression, or in the middle of my recovery journey was probably not the best idea—nor do I think it would work out—that voice was wrong about it just not being the “right” time.
I’ve realized over the years that it will never be the “right” time—not entirely. There will always be something that comes up in life, big or small. Life is sustained by the up-and-down pattern of motion it flows to. It is never static, but always dynamic. Change should not stand in the way of pursuing the things we want to pursue: relationships, careers, destinations, dreams, etc. Because things will always change, even if at times they shift less frequently. Welcome that change, and learn to navigate it without eliminating your goals and hopes from your life.
Of course, there’s a time and place for things, but there can be multiple times and places for things to occur. There is never a pitch-perfect moment for a relationship to transpire, for a career to begin, for a family to be started, for a breakup to take place, for a city to be visited, etc. Sure, there are times when these things may be more easily imaginable, doable, and manageable: maybe because life has opened a particular door, or perhaps things are just going smoothly for you. When those opportunities arise, take them, if you wish to, but don’t be closed off to opening your own door—meaning, don’t completely surrender to “fate” or the circumstances of your life, believing that your “perfect” moment is waiting for you somewhere, somehow, sometime else.
Life has a way of inviting things into our lives at what often seems like the “perfect” time, but this is often not realized until down the road, after we’ve had a chance to reflect on the transpiration of such an event. But we cannot expect life to do all the work for us. As much as we must trust in life to work things out, we must also trust in ourselves to set things into motion. By things I mean anything!
Think of it in the context of a boat out at sea: while the captain must be the one to set forth on their journey in the boat, steer the wheel, and follow a compass, they must also trust in the ocean to take them where they need to go, to bring them safely back to land—even if they do wind up lost at some point. The captain cannot expect to reach another island if they do not first get in the boat and set it into action. But they also cannot expect to reach the island if they try to wait for the “perfect” time for departure: when the sea is completely calm, the sun is out, the clouds are gone, the ocean animals are nowhere to be found, the stars are aligned, the waves are settled, the air is warm, yaddy yaddy ya. Nor can they simply sit in the boat and expect it to take them somewhere without paddling or steering. Such occurrences are rare, and it is useless to wait for them to happen before we set out to sea. Likewise, it’s also smart not to get in a boat when a storm’s coming (or already overhead). The key is trusting in your intuition to tell you when to make your first step in the direction you want to go.
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, what about when you’re actually in a relationship? Returning to the quote by Batuman about having a crush versus being in love, what is the primary difference? Similar to how Batuman puts it, I really like the way Dolly Alderton describes the concept of intensity versus intimacy. Alderton, in her book Everything I Know About Love, writes:
“Dating had become a source of instant gratification, an extension of narcissism, and had nothing to do with connection with another person. Time and time again, I had created intensity with a man and confused it with intimacy....It was overblown, needless intensity, not a close connection with another person.
Intensity and intimacy. How could I have got them so mixed up?”
In this way, intensity revolves around the self. It propagates the ego, it fires up our hormones, and it temporarily satisfies an emotional hunger. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with intensity at all. Intensity can be linked to passion, desire, and determination. Intensity has the ability to propel us into intimacy if we know how to direct it properly. But intimacy is more long-lasting, sustainable, and indefatigable than intensity. Like a match, intensity can and will burn out eventually—especially if we don’t use it to light a fire. That fire, if then nurtured with care and intentionality, will last for long periods of time. And yes, fires can die out, say if the rain comes or a strong wind blows it out; but fires can be protected and adequately sheltered. Or, if the falling out is inevitable, fires can be rebuilt time and time again.
Going along with the fire analogy, we cannot expect a single flaming match to keep us warm—but we can depend on a fire to do so. We cannot imagine that a single match will cook our food or heat and cleanse our water—but a fire can do all of these things. Most of the time, we need a match to start a fire, so it is still important that we utilize our matches to begin with. In some cases though, matches are needless, and the fire of intimacy can be sparked simply by rubbing sticks together. In any case, a match alone will not suffice—just as intensity alone will not sustain the life of a relationship.
I read Elif Batuman’s book(s) a while back, maybe three or four months ago, and I finished Dolly Alderton’s only recently, so this topic has been on my mind for quite some time. I used to read a lot of romance novels, as they are usually packed full with intensity. I liked feeling my heart rate speed up with anticipation while following the love story of different characters. Often as readers, we tend to sort of live vicariously through the books we read and the characters within them—which is totally fine, and a really fun part about reading. However, I think we’re often groomed by the false realities that many of these novels present us with. Partly because of this, and of course for other reasons too, I feel like my attitude toward love has somewhat revolved around this idea of intensity rather than intimacy. This is also because I have, at times, a tendency to be a romantic sometimes an idealist, so I like to glamorize love in my imagination. While there’s nothing wrong with having dreams and fantasies about love, it’s important to stay grounded as well.
Intimacy is a wonderful long-term goal to strive for in relationships, not just romantically, but definitely in romantic relationships. Intensity is like the cherry on top—it makes a relationship all the more sweet, colorful, and exciting—but it isn’t more important than the relationship itself. Once we learn to value the foundation of love more, which is intimacy, our relationships will flourish, and the door to intensity will open. And if we happen to enter into the world of intensity first, well, that’s totally fine, so long as we feel that intimacy is possible, and so long as intimacy is what we are striving for. If this is the case, then the next step would be to build intimacy. That way, the door to intensity is never permanently shut or locked forever. As long as true intimacy exists, I believe, intensity will always be welcome.
With Love,
Brinn W.
