The Dynamism of Intimacy

Exploring the Dance of Desire, Recognition, Reciprocity, and Repair (Vol. 6; Issue 15)

Achieving and maintaining emotional intimacy with another person requires constant attention. It is difficult to achieve, and, because we humans constantly change over time, holding others close is an ongoing process. We chase it, catch it, it escapes us, we chase again and so on. Intimacy obliges us to:

1. Express our own desires.

2. Recognize others.

3. Engage inter-subjectively.

4. Manage reciprocity.

5. Be competent in disruption and repair.

These ideas emerge from obscure realms ranging from the 19th-century philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel (1807/1977) to contemporary psychoanalysis (Aron, 1996; Karbelnig, 2018). I explain the intricacies of intimacy, including why maintaining it is so difficult, by discussing these five themes in turn.

The first one, expressing our desires, is anything but simple. You must access them authentically and without falling into what Hegel calls the master-servant pattern. The constant negotiation required by intimacy results in most relationships having at least some primary-secondary or leader-follower trend. Even a simple interaction, like discussing where to go to dinner one night, requires both parties to first find what they really feel like, clearly express it to the other party and then be ready to reach an agreeable decision.

Next comes the concept of recognition. This phenomenon, in itself, is more complex than the one word suggests. It requires more than just listening to the other person; you must understand them deeply. A narcissistic person might hear the phrase, “I feel like Indian food,” and quickly dismiss it. Finding authentic desires for food choices is simple compared to topics like budgeting or furnishing an apartment. Or consider the complexity involved when one partner needs to move from Pasadena to Phoenix to accept a job, requiring the other partner to relinquish their job. Recognition, ideally, involves an ability for intense empathy, for truly understanding the other party’s needs and feelings, for grasping their worldview as much as possible.