Unconditional Intimacy
My explorations of dating have had me thinking a lot about intimacy. Where to find it. How to touch it. What it means to really experience it. For many years, I contemplated sex in this way. In fact, I made it my practice. How to “get” sex, how to open to it unconditionally, how to turn on inside of it no matter what. As a woman this was key for me. To be sovereign in my sex and not have it contingent on particular people, promises, ideas, or anything external to myself. But to get to know it at its most essential level - as a force inside, experienced in connection, but ultimately housed in my own body. I now know that if i want sex, I can have it, and I can have it good because my sex is my own. (If you want to know more about that, we can chat offline).
So now I’m wondering about intimacy in the same way. Last month, as lockdown wore on, I was feeling the hunger of 2 months of aloneness (a lot even for someone who loves solitude). I picked up my dating apps and started swiping. I know how to do this well - at least when it comes to sex. But what does it look like when it comes to intimacy? If my practice in the past was unconditional sex, what would a practice of unconditional intimacy look like? This is the question I’m working with.
So fast forward a little... I’ve met someone online and we’ve gotten together for a few dates. Between us it’s playful, connected, electric. Only, in between seeing each other, he pretty much disappears. From years of living and working fully immersed with others, I’m used to a high level of ongoing intimacy. He is not. I find myself grasping after that elusive feeling… until something dawns on me. What if intimacy is a field I cultivate inside of myself, a field potent and magnetic enough that I can experience it with others in the way I know I can experience sex - non contingent on a particular person, promise or idea. A field that is always available for nourishment if I locate myself there and offer it, rather than looking for someone outside of me to deliver it (and in the process treat them as some kind of service provider rather than their own full human being).
You know the next part... my trip to the farmer’s market, walking to my date, the second beautiful man pulling up to give me his number. Possibilities for intimacy are multiplying. I have an amazing first date with “farmers market guy”. But then don’t hear from him for a while. Yet “second beautiful man” starts texting and there is sweet connection. Last night we talked of meeting, but miss each other’s messages so I’m sitting at home watching a documentary (spaceship earth for anyone who’s wondering). “Guy who disappears” recommended it to me when we first met. So I text him to talk about it, but he isn’t available. And you know what happens 5 minutes later? Someone I messaged with on Bumble in DECEMBER (but never met), texts me out of nowhere. And we end up having a great chat about the movie and life.
My friend Nicole used to say “one man, many bodies”. There are some places where this doesn’t apply; and deep beauty, healing and learning are available in following the thread all the way through the depths of one person. But in this practice of unconditional intimacy, it seems to be the truth. Connection and nourishment are available no matter what, and deeper and deeper intimacy reveals itself when intimacy IS my offering and I welcome whoever wants to meet me there.