What is Intimacy?

What is Intimacy?
Intimacy is a process – not a thing. It takes place over time and is not stagnant. In fact, any kind of stagnation in a relationship kills intimacy. Intimacy can also take many forms.

One form of intimacy is cognitive or intellectual intimacy where two people exchange thoughts, share ideas and enjoy similarities and differences between their opinions. If they can do this in an open and comfortable way, then can become quite intimate in an intellectual area.

A second form of intimacy is experiential intimacy or intimacy activity. Examples of this would be where people get together to actively involve themselves with each other, probably saying very little to each other, not sharing any thoughts or many feelings, but being involved in mutual activities with one another. Imagine observing two house painters whose brushstrokes seemed to be playing out a duet on the side of the house. They may be shocked to think that they were engaged in an intimate activity with each other, however from an experiential point of view, they would be very intimately involved.

A third form of intimacy is emotional intimacy where two persons can comfortably share their feelings with each other or when they empathize with the feelings of the other person, really try to understand and try to be aware of the other person’s emotional side.

A fourth form of intimacy is sexual intimacy. This is the stereotypical definition of intimacy that most people are familiar with. However, a this form of intimacy includes a broad range of sensuous activity and is much more than just sexual intercourse. It’s any form of sensual expression with each other. Therefore, intimacy can be many things for different people at different times.